Thank you for the post, I do like reading what experts have to say about our digital privacy. I don’t like that many of these articles/discussions focus on specific choices that a user can make to gain more privacy. Please can we stop pretending that there is any alternative to WhatsApp. The network effect is why we use their platform not for any other reason. Its like advising someone to speak Fuzhou instead of Mandarin when in China, its not that its wrong to do so just that it is poor advice, or at the very least assumes that your priority is to speak Fuzhou over actually communicating with other people. The author says as much themselves: “Collective problems need collective solutions.” This is great! But shortly after we read: “Instead of using WhatsApp, use Signal.” groan + face-palm. I want to be positive and reiterate that I am happy that this is being debated at all.

Network Effect is the biggest hurdle for sure. I think it it true for so many other services too. I think we can agree there is no real technical problem to solve, we only look at the technical problems because trying to “fix” the social and political issues is a lot harder. Digital Markets Act is supposed to address this but time will tell if it has any lasting impact (in the EU).

YunoHost is trying to make it easier than a synology NAS to install services and get them setup properly but I agree that to configure your network properly is difficult and everyone’s setup is different so specific knowledge is required.

Was just trying to watch the original Star Wars from when I was young and found out that it is simply not available for sale. My money is no good! Then I found this Project 4K77.

+1 servarr It took me a while to navigate the (high) sea of information but eventually I got a setup I like. I started, like you say, just running qBit but found the search results limited and tedious to review manually. Get started with Prowlarr if nothing else. No need to jump in the deep end with everything all at once but once you see how it works you can add other components later.

Exactly!

I should have prefaced my situation better: I live in a country where the ISP censors certain websites and online services. The closest Linode is not on my continent (so the latency is noticeable). So my need to be connected to the Wireguard VPN really depends on what I’m doing. Having a split DNS system is seamless and I only activate the VPN manually as needed (both at home and when I’m out) Otherwise I would have just asked my ISP for a static IP, opened some ports and installed tailscale for everything else.

Thanks will take a look! Sad to hear you eventually gave up but I’m encouraged by the concept. It would make my current setup much simpler and is in keeping with my ethos that I want as much as possible done locally. The VPS should be no more than a piece of networking infrastructure.

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I recently made the switch to Vaultwarden when I read a series of articles making predictions about passkeys and how they are lining up to replace passwords. Bitwarden apparently is ready to implement whatever standard becomes most popular and I had FOMO of being left behind if I stuck with keepass only. Previously I was using various keepass compatible apps and then syncing the KDBX database with my Nextcloud. (Vaultwarden is the selfhosted fork of Bitwarden)