Image Techlore
v2026.10

SPA Checkup A free skill that gets your AI to check any privacy tool using Techlore's criteria.

Free Works with any AI Personalized to you

The same privacy tool can be perfect for one person and wrong for another. This free skill gives your AI two things: Techlore's criteria for judging a tool, and context about you from the SPA Quiz. So you get any tool assessed for your situation, with sources, pros, cons and alternatives.

New to privacy? Start with the SPA Quiz and SPA Tools.

Download AI skill View raw prompt

When to use Checkup

  • You found something SPA Tools doesn't list
  • You want to know if a tool we recommend fits you
  • You want a personalized comparison between 2–3 options
  • News broke about a tool you use and you want to know what it means for you

Get an AI assessment made for you in 4 steps

  1. Get your context

    Take the SPA Quiz. It records who you are and what you're protecting. Without it, your AI cannot give personalized advice. Keep your results tab open, because you'll need it in step 3.

  2. Give your AI the skill

    Press Copy prompt above and paste it into your AI with web search on. Use a private AI if you can: Big Tech AI isn't privacy-respecting.

  3. Share your context

    On your SPA Quiz results page, tap Copy for AI and paste it into the same chat. Now your AI knows who it's judging the tool for. It's personal, so share only what you're comfortable with.

  4. Ask it to check a tool

    In the same chat, type the tool you want checked, like "Check Signal". Your AI researches it and tells you if it's right for you. AI can make mistakes, so check the sources it links.

Why I Published This

I've spent over 10 years helping people with privacy. A big part of my job has been helping them figure out their threat model, then deciding which tools match it best.

The SPA Quiz answers the threat model question. SPA Tools lays out tool suggestions and who they may be for. What's been missing is a way to dig into a specific tool and weigh it against your own situation.

That's where SPA Checkup comes in. It started when a community member reached out to share how they'd built something like this, and said we could repurpose it for the public under CC0. For better or worse, AI has made personalized advice easier to offer. But on its own, it gives generic answers and has no real framework for judging a tool. So I reworked it to recreate what makes our normal resources so helpful. Your AI does the research and explains the pros and cons, the alternatives, and the philosophy behind how a tool fits into your life.

AI is still new and certainly makes mistakes, but I tested this on everything from flagship models to a local Qwen3.8-27B, and it held up. Even the local one, which took almost 20 minutes, gave genuinely helpful results.

It's pretty much guaranteed to beat a generic "hey ChatGPT, is this tool good or not" request, which drives me crazy :) Play around with the prompt and send feedback. It's v1, and it can already help you choose better tools.

v1 · Nov 3, 2026 · CC0