Cloaked vs Malwarebytes

Cloaked is a privacy-masking service with a strong mission, an 'encrypted even from us' architecture claim, and explicit commitments to never sell data, read emails, read texts, or listen to calls — but significant product complexity means multiple features are governed by third-party policies rather than Cloaked's own: the VPN is powered by PureVPN (and PureVPN's policy governs it), financial account connections use Plaid/Stripe/PayPal under their own policies, and the Inbox Cleaner requires Gmail access despite the high-profile 'never read your emails' pledge; additionally, it is a US company governed by Massachusetts law, no security certifications are named, data retention is vague, and it ignores Do Not Track signals.

Malwarebytes has noticeably better specific privacy practices than comparable US security companies — IP addresses are explicitly not stored, the VPN has a detailed and specific no-logs commitment, text messages are scanned without being retained, cloud storage scan files are deleted immediately after scanning, and usage/threat statistics collection can be opted out of in product settings — but it is a US company (Santa Clara, CA) with no named security certifications in its policy, vague retention periods, and a website advertising tracking stack.