Hey, it’s been a while. Time for another blog no one will read because I don’t advertise my website anywhere!
You might have previously seen my blogs at https://ryanabx.github.io. You may have even seen my software wishlist there! I take pride in having a very loosely organized list of issues/PRs/things that interest me in the Linux and open source world. While GitHub pages has served me well over the years, it’s time for a change. I’m now hosting my own website, goodbye GitHub!
What’s going on in the world (the USA in particular)?
I’ve always been a fan of open source, and the idea of taking ownership over your software experience. Despite feeling like this, I’ve had a level of comfort with using the typical services everyone would use – Reddit, Gmail, Instagram, GitHub, Outlook, Chrome (For work only), and much more. However, things are changing and I’ve found my digital presence is becoming more exploited over time. It doesn’t help that we now have all the wrong people in our government on the subject of data privacy (and about a million other things, but that’s not the point here).
I’ve been slowly trying to detox from social media, especially Reddit and Instagram, which I have deleted, since a) they are a privacy nightmare and b) they are a MASSIVE time sink. I’ve also been trying to move to more decentralized and self-hosted options.
For example, I’ve mostly ditched GitHub for Codeberg, and for my private repositories, I now have a private Forgejo instance! Forgejo will eventually have federation with any other Forgejo server through Forgefed. Once this is implemented, I’ll most likely hook up my private git forge with Codeberg and co.
What else have I migrated?
I’m slowly (and only loosely) following this guide on how to take back my digital footprint. The steps are uncomfortable, and not everyone can to take the plunge, but those who can, ought to at least check it out!
It made me consider self-hosting as a means of protecting my data.
Why does it keep getting worse??
Firefox is a product I’ve long used as a shelter from Chromium-based browsers. I’ve enjoyed the relative privacy it offers, and the comfort that I can save all my data there and Firefox won’t do anything about it. This is no longer guaranteed by the Firefox privacy policy. Sigh
I guess my next project will be finding a place to cope until Servo becomes stable and someone makes a browser for it…
Don’t lose hope
I’ve really enjoyed the process of trying to take my data back. Even if I don’t see any tangible difference in my day-to-day, the projects themselves are just so fun. Self hosting my own website was super rewarding, and it’s something I can happily recommend to anyone who has some basic server knowledge. It didn’t cost me a dime, either. Thanks to DuckDNS, I was able to get a DNS hostname so I can use https on my website, Caddy handles my reverse-proxies (and automatically sets up TLS), and delivers the static site content, and Podman manages all my service containers (of which I have a few)!
I don’t know where I’m going with this
I wrote this all out of order. Moral of the story: Take small steps every day to regain control of your digital experience! Do it for me, or something like that.