As long as you don't own the hardware your data is at risk. I know you don't like the idea of self hosting because XYZ, but it's the only way forward. There are no good companies.
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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Privacy
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Where do you put your server without it getting destroyed by a house fire? (Genuine question, not rhetorical)
You have multiple backups. Preferably, another selfhosted server at a friend or family member's house in combination with cloud storage, where you encrypt your data with your own key before backing it up at a storage provider, such as Backblaze, iDrive, Hetzner etc. In that way, you will minimize data loss in the event of a fire or the like.
Given everything going on in the world, I can't say this often enough:
The only infrastructure we can trust is our own.
Stupid question:
Where do you put your self-host server?
At home? Idk where y'all live but most American homes are made of wood, and that aint good for fires. (And even if not wood, fires can still exist.)
Whilst I’ll agree with your statement some people prefer a service to use rather than self hosted.
And I suppose some people may worry about electric usage as well when running hardware 24/7. I guess that’s just 1 reason.
I recently discovered Filen and all their clients are open-source. It claims to encrypt all files before uploading and I did notice my CPU usage ramp up quite a lot during it. Though, I currently lack the time and expertise to audit their code.
Whilst I’ll agree with your statement some people prefer a service to use rather than self hosted.
Great! They can prefer that. Lots of people (most people probably) even need services, because they lack the skills and / or equipment.
That doesn't change the simple truth of "the only infrastructure we can trust is our own." My goal with that statement is to educate people as much as possible NOT to trust the third party services they're using, even if those services supposedly care about privacy and security.
I've also seen a huge outpouring in recent weeks of people who are suddenly very eager to learn about and use self hosted infrastructure (or get access to someone else's self hosted infrastructure). For some reason, I wonder what that could be. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I for one intend to encourage the shit out of it.
The barrier to entry to get Self Hosted Matrix working is unfortunately pretty high. Matrix is a great tool, but getting it working requires advanced skills and (in my limited experience) hours of troubleshooting.
That being said, I'm associated with an organization that wants to help activist groups self host matrix. If you know a group with need, check out https://rmfuni.org/.
I got Conduit working relatively easily. However, it had constant issues with encryption in groups. I never even considered Synapse because it's too heavy for my minimal, cheap VPS.
Self-hosted XMPP is much easier tho, and it "just works".
For cloud storage: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/cloud/
For photo management: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/photo-management/
Office suite: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/office-suites/
If you don't want to self-host, consider Proton Drive, ente.io, or crypt.ee.
I use Proton Drive; it's not perfect, but Proton has been around for 10 years. ente.io seems promising, but they haven't been around for long enough. crypt.ee seems fine, ~~but it has the same problem as ente.io,~~ and I don't like their interface(Edit: crypt.ee has been around for 8 year's).
If none of the above options suit you, maybe try sync.com; they claim to encrypt all their files with end-to-end encryption.
Filen.io's offer of cheap lifetime plans on Black Friday this raises a red flag for me, as lifetime plans are not a sustainable business model.
Both proton, ente.io and crypt.ee have been on podcasts I would listen to those before deciding what to go with.
Just want to say: Proton's Android app sucks ass. I had like 1000 photos and I had to manually download 25 at a time, if I choose more, like 50 or 75, the app would never finish downloading it and the process randomly stops, even if I disable "battery optimization". That is just horrible. Even something sketchy like Mega allows you to download like 200 photos at a time, probably even more (but I have not tried yet).
Cryptee started in 2017, so around 8 years, I think it can be said that the are not new commers. It's not as old as Proton of course but yeah I think you can not say they haven't been around for long enough. ente started in 2020 so it's been 5 years I think it's starting to be fair to assume they can be sustainable for the comming years but it's still relatively new of course.
Didn't realize crypt.ee was that "old". Ente.io is still a bit to new for me.
Yes ente is still new and haven't released v1 yet but they are doing awesome work and I'm currently trying it, I hope they will sustain well and keep there mission's core for the years to come !
Proton Drive is absolutely horrid at photo sharing and storage.
If you're on mac or windows i think the storage part is fine. But otherwise yes. In my opinion proton is the best alternative if you don't want to selfhost.
I avoid Apple devices, so I don't have a first-hand recommendation, but something like Nextcloud would seem to fit.