Desktop operating system privacy ratings
Operating systems built for privacy and security.
23 desktop operating systems are rated against 4 public criteria, and 23 have enough evidence for a letter grade. Of the 14 with a known jurisdiction, 10 are based in a Five Eyes country, and 11 in the wider Fourteen Eyes.
Open-source desktop operating systems only · Criteria for this category · Suggest an addition · Markdown
| Name | Grade | Score | Data | Jurisdiction | Open source | No trackers or telemetry | No ads or data sales | Independent audit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Unix-like operating system descended from BSD, developed as a complete system of kernel and userland, with ZFS, jails and the bhyve hypervisor. |
Grade A | 100 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
A portable live operating system that starts from a USB stick, routes all connections through Tor and leaves no trace on the computer unless Persistent Storage is used. |
Grade A | 100 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Alpine is a security-oriented, lightweight distro based on musl libc and busybox. It compiles all user-space binaries as position-independent executables with stack-smashing protection. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A minimal, rolling-release Linux distribution for x86-64 that users configure themselves, using the pacman package manager and the community Arch User Repository. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A community-developed Linux distribution made entirely of free software, known for stable releases and a large package archive, and the base of many other distributions. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
An Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with its own Pantheon desktop and apps, and AppCenter, a store for pay-what-you-want apps and Flatpaks. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A Linux distribution built on the Nix package manager, where the whole system is configured declaratively and upgrades can be rolled back. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | Netherlands Nine Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Opinionated Arch Linux setup built around the Hyprland tiling window manager, with preinstalled apps, themes and AI agent integration. Created by David Heinemeier Hansson and funded by the Omacom Foundation. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A security-focused Unix-like operating system descended from BSD, known for code auditing, secure defaults and exploit mitigations such as pledge and unveil. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | Canada Five Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A Debian-based Linux distribution geared towards security, privacy and development, with editions for penetration testing and everyday use. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A security-oriented desktop operating system that uses Xen virtualization to run applications in separate, isolated virtual machines called qubes. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Hardened images of Fedora Atomic desktops and servers, with a hardened memory allocator and hardened kernel and system settings. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
A Linux distribution developed by the Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat, offering recent software in Workstation, Server and Atomic desktop editions. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
A security-hardened Linux distribution based on Debian, with hardened kernel and system settings, from the developers of Whonix. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | Marshall Islands Outside Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
A community Linux distribution sponsored by SUSE, available as the rolling Tumbleweed and the fixed-release Leap, with the YaST and Zypper system tools. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | – | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
A Debian-based operating system that runs in virtual machines and routes all traffic through Tor, separating the Tor gateway from the workstation to prevent IP address leaks. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | Marshall Islands Outside Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
An Ubuntu-based Linux distribution from Zorin Technology Group, with desktop layouts that resemble Windows or macOS. |
Grade C | 65 | 100% | Ireland Outside Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No |
An Ubuntu-based Linux distribution from the hardware maker System76, with its own COSMIC desktop environment. |
Grade D | 50 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
A Debian-based Linux distribution developed by Canonical, with regular and long-term support releases for desktops, servers and cloud. |
Grade D | 40 | 100% | United Kingdom Five Eyes | Yes | No | Partial | No |
Apple's proprietary desktop operating system for Mac computers, built on the open source Darwin core. |
Grade F | 35 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | Partial | Partial | Partial |
A desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu or Debian, with the Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce desktops and its own tools for updates and system settings. |
Grade F | 30 | 100% | – | Yes | No | No | No |
Microsoft's proprietary desktop operating system for PCs, the successor to Windows 10. |
Grade F | 10 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | No | Partial |
Google's Linux-based operating system for Chromebooks, built around the Chrome browser and tied to a Google account. |
Grade F | 0 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | No | No |
Questions
What is the most private option among desktop operating systems?
No pick has been made yet. The table above is sorted by score, based on public evidence.
How are desktop operating systems rated?
Each entry answers 4 questions: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales and independent audit. Answers need links to evidence. See the full criteria.
Does jurisdiction matter?
Jurisdiction decides which laws can compel a provider to hand over data. Each entry shows its country and whether it is in the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes. The data a provider can hand over depends mostly on what it stores and who holds the keys. Read about jurisdictions and the CLOUD Act.