Seefra 1

Depending on how you define “self-hosting”, I may qualify at that.

I’ve hosted my email on a remote VPS myself. I have not hosted the machine in my apartment.

I used postfix + dovecot + mysql stack, I have to admit it was the hardest thing I’ve ever configured and I’ve hosted a lot of services in my life.

In the end I ended up switching to the free service that came with the domain became no matter what I did and how compliant I was to dkim and SMARC and tkip (I’m probably butchering the name here, it’s been a long time) outlook accounts kept sending my emails to spam, everything else worked fine, even gmail, but DAMN Microsoft and how much I hate that company managed to fuck over me one final time even after years after I switch to Linux. I tried everything even the form to remove my email from spam.

Tl;Dr hosted email on a vps but couldn’t get past outlook spam filters

No thanks. I will keep using ardour which is free as in freedom as GNU/Linux programs are supposed to be.

Does the computer have an SSD already? If not install an SSD, it will be a night and day difference.

8GB should be enough for basic dad tasks like checking the email and light web browsing, assuming the system is using GNU/Linux.

Is the ram soldered? Otherwise you can always upgrade it.

Whenever possible, yes. Unless I don’t have cash with me, then I may sacrifice.

For online purchases I need to give my address anyway and name so I can pick the package so there’s no way around it.

Whenever possible I always use a random fake name if really required to fill a name form.

No, I don’t want random companies to have my legal name, I reserve the right to be anonymous both online and offline

It shouldn’t, just host it somewhere else where legislation doesn’t apply.

I have a library bigger than yours, I’ve tried many apps on f-droid an year ago and so far the only that seems to be able to handle my library at all is Music Player Go.

It takes like 15 seconds to open, but after opening it works fine, however, it doesn’t support replay gain.

Novidia will do anything but bump the vram on consumer models. CG artists be dammed.

If you have the skills to setup a Jellyfin server you also have the skills to setup wireguard.

My parents just got fiber and they don’t even have a public address (ipv4 or v6) which just adds another layer of headache. thanks west virginia…

That’s a very specific use case.

Good thing my Jellyfin is behind Wireguard.

Consider doing the same if your usecase permits.

Unfortunately VMs aren’t a solution for my use case since I need no latency realtime audio or GPU acceleration

Specialist audiovisual, and 3D software.

If I can’t do something I don’t do it.

But I can, all I need is a pirate copy of the software, and extra SSD and computer goes brrrr.

Life is too short for me impose restrictions on myself and missout on life just because Richard Stallman says so.

Unfortunately VMs aren’t a solution for my use case since I need no latency realtime audio or GPU acceleration

The complication comes from when I need to use proprietary windows-only software for whatever professional or recreative reasons.

Free (as in freedom) software is great for 90% of situations, but there are things free software just can not do.

Wine exists but it’s mostly focused on video-games, and honestly, it’s such a pain to get a windows program to run on wine that I prefer to just have a second SSD with Faildos and boot from it when I eventually need to use such programs. Which I make sure to unplug the ethernet cable when I do.

Please do that to my friend, please do that to my friend.

Ofc I respect his freedom to use whatever apps he chooses to use, what do you mean?

Anyway. Please meta, ban my friend from meta and make sure to track his device ID/IP/cookies etc so can can’t make a new acc.

The phone makers want nothing to do with it and are actively fighting it in court as best they can.

Doubt. This way they have excuses to farm user data.

Interesting, didn’t know this, nice, may be a gamechanger, but I couldn’t find information on either calls are e2ee or not.

Delta Chat doesn’t support calls, same with Briar so I haven’t tried them since calls are as important as messages for me.

Like many said, signal is centralised and requires a phone number.

Meaning it’s not anonymous and the server owners can technically sell your metadata, not the content of the messages but who talks to who, what time, the length of the chat/call etc.

Either-way having to use a phone number to register an account, for me is not acceptable for several reasons besides privacy and metadata.

On top of that, the server side of signal isn’t free software (as in freedom), which means that the whole program requires non-free (as in freedom not beer) network services in order to work. Which isn’t acceptable for free software advocates.

Alternatives:

Simplex: If you don’t require voice calls there are more options available there are many text messages, but very few support calls, which for me is a critical feature.

In theory Simplex is the best, it’s e2ee, quantum resistant, each chat (message queue) is it’s own “account”, each “account” is just a private key, and you can switch servers with the tap of a bottom, it also supports private routing, which from what I understand is like some sort of onion routing between simplex servers.

Hosting your own server is also extremely easy, (tho note that running your own server can actually be detrimental to privacy depending on your threat model), supports calls, group chats and all the features I would ever need.

Unfortunately at least for me and my contacts, SimpleX it’s terribly buggy, specially on phone, literally tonight I missed the opportunity to be with a friend because I only saw the message one hour late.

Very often messages just stop being received until the app is restarted, usually I have my friend send me a message via other (centralised) app in order to warn me that he messaged me, I also do the same for him. After restarting the app it usually works fine for a while until it does it again. And needs restarting again.

On top of it, it’s taking more and more time to get the first message when in background even during normal operation, tho I blame Samsung for this one and not Simplex, and understand that Simplex doesn’t use push notifications for improved privacy, but it has become a real problem, what used to take 5 minutes now sometimes takes more than half an hour. Maybe my phone is overloaded, idk.

Calls could be improved too, takes several tries for it to actually work, and it doesn’t help when the other person calls me back and I call them at the same time.

On top of it, the volume of a call seems very quiet compared to a normal phone call and it’s very hard to hear the other person, I’m guessing a simple compressor DSP could fix this.

Unfortunately also has been news of Simplex planning to enshittify the app with cryptocurrency, something that I politically and morally oppose.

Session:

I’ve used it for a month years ago, before I knew about SimpleX, whatever technical merits it may or may not have, (and from what I understand it’s privacy is still below SimpleX) it relies on some cryptocurrency network in the background, so I won’t use it. Self-hosting it also seemed to me no easy task, but I could be wrong.

Jami:

Never got it to work.

Matrix:

I haven’t tried Matrix yet, I think I read long ago that calls aren’t e2ee tho that may have changed now. I also read that Matrix leaks a lot of metadata which can be a problem. Maybe not if you self-host, but self-hosting comes with it’s own privacy problems. Maybe I should research it again and try to self-host it and see how it goes.

So as bad as Signal is, I can’t give you a working alternative, I put all with Simplex despite all the bugs but I don’t think most people are willing to go though it, however if you (and your contacts) have a high end phones maybe it works better. But it’s not something I can recommend.

But you cost money monthly, require insurance, taxes, food, human rights.

Machine is a one time purchase.