I’m just mildly curious. I know this isn’t the self hosting chan, but how many of you self host services as part of your efforts to retain your privacy, security, and anonymity?

I’ve been self hosting something for decades now. I got really started back in the PreNapster era. I ran an independent, selfhosted, fully licensed, internet radio outfit. That was back when music on the internet was a lot of cheap, tinny, geocities, midis. LOL I worked with a company called IM Radio Networks. They and Phillips, developed one of the world’s first bookshelf stereo, that was internet ready. Hook it up to the internet, and you could listen to AM/FM and IM radio. I’ve often mused that if it weren’t for Shawn Fanning, the music landscape on the internet might look a bit different as he forced the music industry to reevaluate how they did business.

Now, I self host a ton of stuff just for my own needs. It’s an enjoyable, purposeful, hobby, that keeps me busy. It’s also, so very educational, and I learn new things daily.

ETA: Man it does my heart good to meet and greet privacy minded users who also self host. It is an integral part of my privacy, anonymity, and security posture. If you aren’t already, or are thinking of self hosting, do it! You don’t need massive racks in the closet that dim the lights on reboot. A simple NUC or even RPi are quite capable of serving up services. You don’t need a Tier 1 feed from your ISP. Keep it simple and basic and work up from there to meet your needs.

Thanks again to all those who responded and shared their experiences.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
    2·
    12 days ago

    I’ve been self hosting since 1998. My first non-website service was a VCR hooked to a firewire capture card running QuickTime server so I could watch TV in the computer lab at school.

    Your internet radio thing was neat. Mine was called Green Frog Radio. No, it didn’t go anywhere. Definitely not licensed whatsoever.

    I bought an Onkyo NetTunes amp that had Internet streaming built in, but it sucked and didn’t have any of the cool stations I liked. I got together with other nerds and we wrote a simple NetTunes proxy running mono that inserted our list of stations into the NetTunes server response. I hosted that for a while. All users had to do was configure their IP settings to add my address. It was a fun little project. Actually, I guess that was my first open source collaboration. Haha.