I’d like to note that I recently switched back to Handy News Reader (android) and I’m amazed at how many features it has. I was using a basic but adequate one before.
On desktop, I haven’t found anything exciting yet. Mostly use whatever’s built in / available as a plugin for e-mail clients. When I’m not looking for something to reshare in the fediverse, I’m just killing time skimming some feeds on a handset. AndStatus just happens to be the best client so far for GNU Social. But, that’s another topic.
Other services that would be really great would be HTTPS or SOCKS5 proxies in addition to the VPN. i.e. maybe I want to use a dedicated proxy IP for financial related things or streaming certain content but everything else can go through the VPN.
A proxy would still encrypt traffic and hide where I’m going from everyone else on the (cafe) network. My IP would always be the same so I wouldn’t have to go through a process every time I want to check in on my bank or utility. As these sites/businesses already have my data, I’m not concerned about veiling my IP address or anything else.
Plus, proxies are more easily set up on single board computers (SBC) like the https://beagleboard.org/ and run something like https://libreelec.tv/
Nearly forgot. I wanted to suggest netcast syndication! mygpo, as used by https://gpodder.net but hosted at Purism. This would sync subscriptions between devices.
I want all the stuff listed under the “And more” heading on the official page:
Most notably, Librem Backups. I think they definitely have their hands full with other projects right now, but I really look forward to seeing all those services come online eventually.
I think basically what I’m looking for is Librem Contacts to just be WebDAV. I do believe that would support syncing of contacts, calendar, notes, and some other things.
Obviously everyone’s mileage will vary but I suspect the “large undertakings” are really where the value is for most people. For small services where the code is already written and per user costs are low I imagine many of Purism’s potential customer base are already happily self-hosting or if they’re not the original developer is often providing a hosted option that makes sense to contribute too.
That will be nextcloud, you don’t need L1 for that. You can install it on pretty much anything, from synology to rpi to lxc and docker. But for L1 to host this stuff it’s a big security compromise. Currently they are mostly providing you transient hosting - mail is kept for limited time, vpn, xmpp (mam? >8[ ) is mostly data in motion, data at rest is minimized (mastodon is mostly public anyway). WebDAV (OC/NC) is all about private data at rest. They’ll expose themselves all kind of 3d party vulnerabilities, and should there be exploitable 0day leak - it will be very hard for them to prove it’s not their fault.
Hmm.
I’m one of those people who currently isn’t actually self-hosting anything. I’d really like to but I just don’t have the time. I’d rather see more value in paying for L1 for a handful of smaller things. Maybe a small amount of money could be kicked back to some of the software projects.
This would consolidate some things. I’d be paying one/fewer bill/s. It’d take some expense off any project who’s offering free hosting. I’d assume Purism would have 99.99% uptime and fast Librem Servers The only issue is that they’re a US company hosting our data in the USA.
@ruff
I’m not really interested in NextCloud. Meh. It’s a good project but it seems like they’re trying to do everything. lol.
It’s a webdav server and hell lot of webdav based webapps. But no one forces you to deal with those apps, you can simply have a webdav server. And not necessarily NC/OC - that’s just an example of webdav which is adopted by almost any consumer platform. My point is that webdav does meet your requirements and is easy to self-host, but when hosted by L1 - is very hard to match to " We don’t look at your junk…" statement.
I am really wondering if this is the way to go – self-hosting I mean. Last time (years ago), the server was cheap, but my time expensive. Hosting email server, “backup”, etc, it took a lot of time. But, these days, when my time is even more expensive, I find a lot of interesting solutions covering many things we are currently subscribing for.
It’s all relative, I value my data and my privacy more than my time (although it’s also quite expensive, especially by local standards) So i consider it a good investment to spend some of it on a good cause.
What I wrote can probably be misunderstood. I meant to say that these days it is much easier to self-host a variety of things. All these installation/orchestration programs such as Ansible, then all-encompassing web office suites, etc. Right now, I am paying for several different overlapping services, when I could probably self host at least some of them for half the money.
But, that’s another topic.
The only issue is that they’re a US company hosting our data in the USA.