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The benefit of this privacy overreach is that the incentive to self-host your own web and communications services becomes greater and greater. At the same time the technology has matured to a point where you can have access to enterprise software tools at home on a private server. Most of these tools are free and open source as well.
You can self host your own email server. You can self host services like Jitsi for video and voice calls. You can go a step further and use the decentralised Matrix protocol through a service like Element for end-to-end encrypted video, voice, and messaging. These don't require a phone number. "Cloud" storage (networked storage), documents, spreadsheets, video streaming, music streaming, project management, etc. can all be hosted at home if you have the right knowledge and time. The downside is you have to pay for the hardware and maintain everything; which is a big hurdle for most. A hurdle that looks less intimidating the more government and big tech violate our privacy.
Exactly what my husband set-up. Encrypted server, web search, (anonymous searching) etc. Never been happier. Use Signal for encrypted messaging. Proton mail for same. Trying to de-google.
This is fascinating. I had no idea. Can you give advice to someone who is not a techie by is willing to learn how to do this? Where to begin, etc? Thanks.
Sure. It's a complex topic, but I'll keep it simple.
The most fundamental part of self-hosting network services is networked data storage. Everything builds on that foundation. The best place to start is some form of network attached storage (NAS). A NAS is a low-power, consumer friendly, server that is designed to run 24/7. Essentially a small computer with a bunch of hard drive bays connected to your home network. You load it with hard drives that join together to make a single redundant array that can survive failure of one or more drives without losing your data. You can access files on a the NAS from any computer, mobile, or tablet, etc connected to your home network. You can even open it up to the internet to access from outside your home.
You can build a NAS yourself using standard computer parts and install a Linux derived NAS operating system like TrueNAS or Unraid. Alternatively you can buy pre-made solutions from companies like Synology or QNAP. I highly recommend you start with a pre-made system. Synology makes good quality systems with amazing software that is really beginner friendly. They come with native software packages out of the box that enable various web services.
For example you can use services like Synology Drive to sync files to all your computers similar to Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive, You can store all your movies/TV shows on the NAS and install Plex to have a Netflix like experience; streaming to all your devices. You can install packages like Synology office which provide documents and spreadsheets like Word/Excel or Google Docs. You can even connect security cameras and install surveillance packages that record and store video to the NAS. There are also packages for email servers, calendars, contacts, notes, photos, etc. similar to what you see with Google or Microsoft services.
Once you familiarize yourself with the basics and built in packages you can start performing more advanced tasks using "docker containers". This requires some networking skills, but opens you up to a limitless number of open source software packages. You can install things like Home Assistant to control your smart home locally without the cloud. You can install password managers, messaging apps, git repositories, personal wiki's, etc.
All data is stored on your server and owned by you. Everything communicates directly with your server and bypasses big tech. You don't even need to open any of this up to the internet and can just use it at home (although many services like instant messaging are pretty useless if you don't have it accessible from the internet).
A great resource for self-hosting tutorials is the blog Marius Hosting. The self-hosting subreddit is also good.
Thank you so much! This is great. What state do you live in? I'd like to hire you to set this up for me. :D Haha. Seriously though, this is awesome and I appreciate your help. I'm going to check out that blog, too. I love this idea. I didn't even know it was possible. Thanks again.
I have been going down this path for years and already do most of the things you mentioned. It is very time consuming, yes, but the experience of hosting your own communication platforms and cloud data services on a private server is something I wouldn't trade for anything.
As a side note, a few months ago I set up gaw.social using the Matrix platform like you mentioned. Its still up and running though I have been too busy lately to promote it so activity has pretty much died. But if there was a resurgence I'd probably dedicate some time to picking it back up and making some upgrades.
It really is a daunting task to decouple from big tech services. It's taken me years as well, and I am still not done. Wouldn't go back if I had the choice though.
It's truly frightening in hindsight how dependent we all are on outsourced web services. I mean it's gotten to the point where people's entire smart home is controlled by some centralised server in China; the internet goes down and you can't control your lights lol. The holy grail for me is a local voice assistant that doesn't touch the internet. Unfortunately the current offerings can't match the cloud options from Amazon, Google and Apple.
Do you have any good resources for technically inclined to learn to set this up? I've always been a technical person, mostly with hardware... it's the software bit/server management where I begin getting lost.
See my reply to gobby above.