About Paul O'Brien, CBCI
Hi, I'm Paul. I have over 25 years of hands-on technical experience across email, DNS and cloud infrastructure, and I hold the CBCI credential from the Business Continuity Institute.
My day job is keeping organisations running when things go wrong. Insights is where I apply the same thinking to the tools we all rely on.
Certificate of the Business Continuity Institute, issued by The BCI
Why email, DNS and privacy tools?
They are the quiet foundations of modern work, and they rarely get attention until something fails: an unannounced outage, broken domain authentication, or a vendor overstating its encryption. I'd rather you understand how they really work before that happens.
What you'll find here
Email providers and architecture
Deep-dive reviews, head-to-head comparisons, custom domain setups, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and deliverability.
Proton Mail vs FastmailPrivacy tools
Unbiased audits of privacy-first software, encrypted storage, masked email and zero-trust apps, without the marketing hype.
Masked vs disposable emailCloud infrastructure and resilience
Practical guides to DNS reliability, hosting, self-hosted alternatives and fault-tolerant digital workflows.
Amazon WorkMail reviewHow I review
I test hands-on and say what I actually think. I care about privacy, but I'm not a purist: most privacy choices come with trade-offs, and I'll show you them.
Some links on this site are referral links. If you sign up through one, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes my verdict.
Get in touch
Have a question about a review, a topic suggestion or some feedback? Use the contact page, or subscribe for free to get new reviews as they publish.
All views on this site are my own and do not represent my employer.