1. Use Signal You might have heard the mantra, "Use Signal, use Tor," even though this one-two punch combo is an excellent start, it won't remove your opponent. Signal may be the best-of-breed encrypted messaging app that enables you to send texts and voice memos and also voice calls and audio calls. It looks and feels exactly like any additional messaging app but beneath the hood uses encryption that, to the very best of our knowledge, not the National Security Agency can brute-force.
Source: online anonymity
How about the metadata? Any network-level adversary can tell you are using Signal, to begin with, and if your adversary may be the U.S. or Five Eyes, they possess mass surveillance usage of all Signal traffic and know who's speaking with whom, when and for how very long.
The makers of Signal are well alert to these technical restrictions and are researching methods to push the boundaries of what's possible. Metadata-resistant communication can be an unsolved, cutting-edge technical research problem.
Important thing: Signal may be the soundest, easy-to-use messaging app open to date, and will be offering marginally even more anonymity than any various other app. Do not depend on it for strong anonymity, however. Actually, it's questionable whether anything provides strong anonymity nowadays, which brings us to Tor...
2. Use Tor
Tor may be the largest, most robust, & most effective metadata-resistant software project, and the Tor Project does great work in the area, but the technical restrictions of just how much anonymity Tor can perform have already been evident to researchers for quite a while. No obvious fix or replacement looms large coming.
The Onion Router, better referred to as Tor (which isn't an acronym incidentally; the initial-caps spelling is usually a shibboleth to recognize outsiders) is optimized for low-latency web browsing, just supports TCP (not UDP, sorry torrenteers), and won't work when accessing many larger websites, because they block access via Tor.
Tor will not offer guaranteed, complete anonymity, even for web browsing, nonetheless it is the most sensible thing we've got right now. Like so a lot of things in life (and the web), Tor is dual make use of. The same technology journalists make use of to analyze stories anonymously can be used by criminals to accomplish bad things. When you hear folks badmouthing the scary "Dark Web" and suggesting "someone must do something," remind them that because bank robbers drive cars on the road doesn't mean we propose banning cars or highways.
The Tor Browser ought to be your go-to choice for mobile usage. The Brave browser offers a Tor option. There’s the official Tor Browser app for Android devices and OnionBrowser offers a Tor Project-endorsed but unofficial app for iOS.
3. Don’t expect anonymity from VPNs
VPNs aren't anonymous. There generally is nothing anonymous about utilizing a VPN. No anonymity here. Did we mention VPNs don't offer anonymity? Just wished to make certain we're clear upon this point.
Since everyone expects VPNs on a summary of anonymity tools, we will debunk the theory instead. All a VPN does is move trust from your own ISP or, if you are traveling, your neighborhood coffeeshop or hotel or airport WiFi network to somebody else's server. There are numerous legitimate security explanations why using a VPN is a good idea, but anonymity isn't on that list. Anywhere. Not at the bottom.
Unlike Tor, which bounces your traffic through three Tor nodes spread over the internet, producing it very difficult, however, not impossible, for an adversary to see what you're doing, a VPN simply shifts your traffic from your own ISP (in the home) or restaurant WiFi (on the highway) to the VPN's servers. Which means the VPN provider can easily see all your traffic. Which means an adversary that gains control of the VPN's servers, by hacking them or by serving the VPN provider with a court order, may also see all of your traffic.
VPNs are great. Utilize them. The nice ones are a lot more trustworthy than your dodgy local coffeeshop WiFi network, however they offer zero anonymity.