Charting my journey away from Big Tech: Embracing Privacy and Self Hosting Solutions

Posted on by Morgan

In my quest to get rid of GAFAM and decrease as much the tracking I'm subject to, I'm only at the start.

Social Media Alternatives

By the end of 2021, fed up with infinite news feeds, I've removed my Facebook, Twitter and SensCritique accounts with almost no alternatives. I needed to declutter and focus on my family, so I also reduced the influx of information by stopping RSS feeds, Newsletter subscriptions, by pausing notifications of most apps like WhatsApp, and of course I've stopped watching TV Shows & Movies, news... Those initiatives were also motivated by family augmentation as I became father in 2021 šŸ™‚

Anyway I had to pursue efforts !

Recently I've also removed Pinterest and I've set up Pixelfed (self hosted) to replace IG (Instagram). I've also joined a Mastodon instance as a replacement for Twitter. The good thing with Mastodon and federated networks is you can be on any instance and follow users from other instances. From my Pixelfed (IG-like) I'm subscribed to my Mastodon page (Twitter Like) and I'm also followed by my WordPress page thanks to the ActivityPub plugin I've setup on this blog. I've migrated my secrets from Bitwarden to Vaultwarden (self-hosted), my code from Github to Gitea (self-hosted), my WordPress and Shaarli from OVH to Cloudron running on Contabo VPS. I've also started using Nextcloud and Collabora as replacements for my "Office" suite (Google Docs, Google Sheets, ...) but I'm not yet sold to the UI.

Self-Hosting Tools

The goal is to try to use as much self-hosted tools as I can. It's not easy to find good alternatives especially if you care about usability, data portability, privacy, and connect with other users ...

I'm struggling to get rid of YT (Youtube) and YT Kids. There are plenty of alternatives to YT, but not so much with both a kid-friendly UX and possibilities to filter content.

Challenges in Replacing YouTube

The problem is not to find a privacy respecting alternative tool to YT : It's easy to find and host content on Peertube but not so much to find a good instance with interesting content.

The problem is most of the popular and interesting content is on YT. There are alternatives frontends like Invidious, SkyTube (Android), Clipious (an Android client for Invidious instances). But Invidious does not yet support filtering of videos, which make it an unsafe place for kids. At least SkyTube allows for filtering channels and that's what I'm gonna try with my kid, but the UX is lacking behind YT and that makes it quite difficult for my little one to navigate alone in the app and pick a video.

Future Goals and Challenges

Important next steps for me are to get rid fully of any Google software, that includes Gmail (this will be a though one), Youtube, Contacts, Calendar, Google Drive, Google Keep, Google Maps, etc. and to stop using software that depends on tech giants or trackers. Not easy. Just try surfing the web using Big Tech Detective extension. Even search engines or browsers that claim to respect your privacy are tracking you or rely on GAFAM infrastructure or trackers.

For instance, when trying to use DuckDuck Go search engine with the Big Tech Detective extension on :

Exodus on Android shows that most of the "privacy" friendly browsers on Android are full of trackers : DuckDuck Go, Ghostery, Firefox, Opera, Tor Browser... Only Brave on mobile didn't contain tracker, according to Exodus. The spyware watchdog catalog will provide additional data about some of the mentioned browsers while also claiming Brave is to be considered as spyware.

Fortunately there exist search engines alternatives, such as Mojeek (which uses its own index) and SearX.

While looking at my expenses and optimizing my budget, I've removed my Medium subscription, Pluralsight, and OpenAI subscription, and started to cancel hosting plans as I'll host most of what I need on my VPS. Next challenges would be to get rid of Netflix, WhatsApp, Amazon (Prime, Kindle...), Apple, Spotify, Dropbox (to Nextcloud?), ChatGPT (I've yet to find a comparable alternative) by looking for alternatives or privacy friendly frontends for what cannot be easily replaced. But they do not make it easy. By trying to get rid of Netflix, I've noticed that as the "main" profile of our family shared account, it's impossible to delete my data. I can only create a new Netflix account and transfer the family profiles to that one. At the end, I'd like also to replace my OnePlus One with a dumb phone or a fair phone. I had a look at privacy friendly OSes we can setup on Android but the compatibility with OnePlus 10 Pro is still work in progress. Anyway if you are interested, take some inspiration here. I also want to fix this blog by taking inspiration from Small Web and Slow Web philosophies. , works for future browsers or at least relies on libre JavaScript (see also LibreJS) or no JavaScript at all.

And also to convince my loved one to try free and open source software on her devices (Apple šŸ™‚ ). Lot of friends and family are using Whatsapp while I'm sold to Signal or alternatives. This one will be difficult to bypass. I aim at least to automatically backup all WhatsApp files to my Nextcloud.

Every small improvement towards more privacy, data portability, open-source, data ownership, freedom, will be worth it and I'll share my findings with you šŸ™‚

Web (browser) extensions I recommend

  • LibRedirect a web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and other websites to their alternative privacy friendly frontends. You can find my settings here.
  • Privacy Redirect a simple web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Instagram & Google Maps requests to privacy friendly alternatives.
  • DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials includes tracker blocking, cookie protection, DuckDuckGo private search, email protection, HTTPS upgrading, and much more. I use it to generate temporary email addresses when my email is requested.
  • Ultrablock blocks ads, trackers and third party cookies.
  • Privacy Badger blocks invisible trackers.
  • Terms of Service; Didn't read get instant information about the terms and privacy policies of websites you browse!
  • Undistracted - Remove distractions and simplify the web interfaces of popular platforms and social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn.

Web (browser) extensions I'm Trying

  • JShelter An anti-malware Web browser extension to mitigate potential threats from JavaScript, including fingerprinting, tracking, and data collection! But it causes some crappy websites to malfunction šŸ˜‰
  • Big Tech Detective helps you track tech giants. If fully activated, you won't be able to browse certain websites and even some supposed privacy friendly tools, such as Duck Duck Go Search engine which behind the scene rely on Microsoft infrastructure and hard partnerships with Microsoft.

Android apps I recommend

  • Exodus an app that audits Android apps for trackers.
  • F-Droid a installable catalog of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform.
  • Aegis Authenticator : a free, secure and open source app to manage your 2-step verification tokens for your online services.
  • Dsub (download and install manually) as Navidrome client so I can get rid of Spotify.

WordPress plugins I recommend

  • ActivityPub With this installed your WordPress blog itself functions as a federated profile, allowing to reach a wider audience.

Tools I recommend

  • Kill the Newsletter Convert email newsletters to RSS feeds.
  • Bitwarden which is a password manager. I'm hosting Vaultwarden which implements the same API. Bitwarden client is available on any popular platform.
  • Invidious to be used as frontend alternative to YouTube. Same content as YouTube. No ads, no trackers.

Some reading I recommend

Self hosting providers

  • I recommend Contabo (no sponsor here), that I've hand picked among many alternatives, while choosing a good VPS offering at good prices. Only downside is their administration panel UX, but other than that, it was cheap. And they buy green energy to run their servers. The alternatives I had compared Contabo with were OVH (way too expensive) and Hetzner (cheap but unfortunately their VPS hardware lacks AVX support thus is not compatible with Cloudron requirements). Contabo in the end beats VPS offerings of Hetzner and OVH at that price, with more storage and CPU for me !

Self hosted apps

  • If you own a dedicated server / VPS, try Cloudron, it's such an easy way to self host your apps and take control of your data ! I'm currently using it with Nextcloud, WordPress, and all apps mentioned below below :
  • Wallabag as read-it later app but their search engine is archaic and cannot find anything. I better find a way to query their DB directly or drop the tool for something else.
  • Calibre as web e-book reader and e-book collection organizer so I can progressively get rid of my Kindle.
  • Navidrome as a replacement for Spotify as a streaming/music player and scrobbler.
  • Miniflux minimalist and opinionated feed reader. It's a pleasure to use.
  • Vaultwarden unofficial Bitwarden compatible server.
  • Changedetection.io free open source website change detection, website watcher.
  • PrivateBin minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data.
  • Invoice Ninja Invoices, Expenses and Tasks built with Laravel, Flutter and React.
  • Gitea a self-hosted Git hosting service that offers code hosting, code review, team collaboration, package management and CI/CD features. It is compatible with GitHub Actions, Docker, various databases and tools, and supports multiple languages and architectures.
  • Pixelfed a replacement for Instagram as it used to be (without all the ads, and crap).
  • Shaarli personal, minimalist, super-fast, database free, bookmarking service. Useful for sharing links or keep them safe and private.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope these insights and recommendations help you in your journey towards a more private and self-reliant digital life. As always, Iā€™m eager to hear your experiences and suggestions. Let's make our digital space a bit more ours!

Personal insights on finance and digital privacy

Posted on by Morgan

A couple of weeks back, I was getting my ass kicked at chess. It was a blast, even as I blundered into defeat.

Here's the thing: in some games, like life, the right focus at the right time can flip the board. It's about spotting chances and seizing them. Remark : If interested in the "perfect timing" topic, do read about the power of when.

Being focused on specific goals can help make the difference in the long term. Also being aware of the opportunities and reality.

Last year? A financial nightmare. But I hustled, optimizing my budget. Running my own company, I could shuffle some expenses around ā€“ a neat trick.

I axed unnecessary subscriptions ā€“ online courses, publishing platforms, various IT tools. Sometimes, the best alternative isn't a new provider; it's you. Betting on my skills, I cut costs and upped my privacy game. That's a win in my book.

Now, this blog and my digital life sit on a fresh, cost-effective infrastructure. More privacy, less cash bleed.

My new obsession? Privacy and open source. Ditching GAFAM and seeing where that road takes me. It's about discipline and the right tools.

Next year's mission: maintain this focus and help others grab back control of their budgets and privacy.

Catch you in 2024.

Reflections on Change: The Constant Shuffle

Posted on by Morgan

Change is a constant.

I passed 37 years recently.

In 2022 I was going freelance after 12 years of employment. Why ? Because I had been so disappointed by many years of employment, bad managers or politics, I needed to feel like I gave the credit myself deserves. I now feel after one year I would like to help and mentor other people to go freelance.

My toddler (2.5 years old) is going to school and I drive him at school by bike. The more I invest time with him that I don't spend at other crap, the deeper we connect. But crap is everywhere and trying to steal time from us. Seeing him growing so much reminds me of the time passing and the need for me to lead by example.

I learned from hundred of hours spent crafting my LinkedIn profile, sending/receiving tens of thousands of LinkedIn messages, crafting my resume, interviewing for hundred of jobs. No matter how long we play this game of finding the ideal job and finding the exact rates, conditions, etc we deserve and want, those variables keep changing a lot and are difficult to correlate with ideal job. In the end it's not about the job but about who we are, what we need from life, what we really want to do on a day to day, what kind of problems we like to solve, what kind of people we want to work with, what kind of team we want to shape. The ideal job is a rare combination of hidden variables and is a constantly changing problem that requires gut feeling and experience, like finding the perfect taste in coffee / espresso / beer is a never ending game.

As part of this I've removed a lot of my previous job criteria at to recruiters to keep things simple.

Outside of work, I also made a lot of sacrifices, at least choices that I regretted. For the sake of trying to please or do the right thing, I got in trouble a few times. In the future I have to stand for what is worth to me, and trust my gut feeling. I'm always willing to make compromises as I'm a Belgian and we excel in this ! but I also have to set boundaries and speak the truth and take distance at need. Before this post, I struggled to start writing. Speaking of which, I even thought of using ChatGPT to help with the task. ChatGPT has clearly influenced radically the way I interact with the web and the universe of problems, including code but not only. It drastically revived my interest into technology. But it also obvious there is a long way before AI can supersed us. A good tool is nothing without a creative mind and some persistence. And a good mind needs to express, otherwise it's best to just play sudoku alone.

And that motivates me to write. And I make no promises, but to write for myself šŸ™‚ and share things.

When working from home is toxic

Posted on by Morgan

Before the pandemic, one would regularly question whether working remotely could replace working in the office, and the lockdown helped to discover the pros and cons of each in the long term. The pandemic happened and suddenly legions of influencers advocates for work-from-home, trying to convince you that to get any work done, you should stay at home. As companies praise workers to return to the office, many employees have joined the great resignation. I'm happy that numerous workers have resigned from unsatisfying jobs and are looking for better work cultures, but I don't believe working in the office is the problem.

Recently, artist Irina Blok authored a few charts about working from home and the pandemic. And the one below really caught my attention as a parent and as someone subject to heavy mental load.

Irina Blok tweeted about remote working benefits during the pandemic. Someone else fixed it.

My concern with such a chart is that not everyone has a home office that looks as good as a traditional workplace. In addition, interruptions happen at home too and chatting with coworkers is not a problem per se. Hopefully, someone else in the internet partially fixed the chart for me. Working from home can have as much negatives as working in the office, and those can include things like :

  • Inconvenient office setup
  • Noise
  • Lack of private office
  • Mental load
  • Interruptions and distractions
  • Home office costs
  • Lack of socializing
  • Insufficient face time
  • Overworking
  • Increased sedentary lifestyle
  • Lack of room for self

Inconvenient office setup

At the office, you have your dual screen, a large desk, a comfortable chair, meeting and relaxation rooms, places for isolating yourself from your coworkers. On top of that, the internet connection is awesome and there are free snacks, drinks, fruits, and a top-notch coffee machine. If I want to mimic the benefits of working in a professional office, I'll need to invest in a bigger place and better material, or move to a co-working space.

Noise

In the last few months, our rental contract ended. It happened before the building of our future apartment could be achieved, as unfortunately the pandemic affected the whole construction sector. Our temporary solution was to rent a place via Airbnb. We are happy with the spot, however we ignored that the neighbors were renovating their place for the past 12 months. We have gotten used to it, but as hypersensitive persons, my partner and myself struggled a lot with this. We learned patience the hard way by being subject to intense noise any time of the day, any day of the week. Welcoming our new-born in this stressful environment was the last thing we wished, and often baby naps turn out to be impossible. When you need to work, it's the worst type of nuisance as you cannot focus. I simply prefer to stay muted in most Zoom meetings.

Lack of private office

In this Airbnb, I don't have any private space. I'm often working in the laundry/storage room, or at other times in the living room. It means that when the little one is sleeping in the living room, which is the next room, I have to stay silent and I'll stay muted in meetings or just skip them.

Mental load

Working at home means I'm even more aware of the household chores, and I'm thinking constantly about them from the beginning until the end of the work day, so it's harder to focus on anything else. In addition, as a new parent, I'm even more focused on others needs, i.e the constant well-being of my toddler. But while I'm trying to be 100% available as a parent and partner, I'm also very committed to my career. As a highly sensitive person (HSP), I do experience sensory overload and emotional flooding, and the home office is just too distracting for me. When I have to interrupt some work related task, I feel stressed as I tend to think that my colleagues spend 100% of their time working, which is unlikely of course, and I fear to be unproductive. And when I'm working, I feel it's unfair for the other parent to do parenting alone without any break or rest.

Interruptions and distractions

The mental load has consequences. When I leave my home office room, I become prone to be distracted by jobs to be done. While constantly switching between work and home tasks, it's harder to focus 100% on work. If I take a break and start taking care of the toddler or handling household chores, I might easily forget about the next meeting. As I'm at home, it's also easier to reach out to me for my partner, the family and other visitors. On the long run, those factors prevent any type of deep work, which is endangering productivity and motivation.

Home office costs

Who is paying the bill when you consume twice more energy for all your work devices, monitors, the light and the heating ? Who is paying for the internet connection, the coffee, extra drinks and meals, printing, writing material ? Since I've started to work 100% remotely, those costs have increased while remaining at my expense.

Lack of socializing

Among my Facebook network, 70% of my contact (excluding family) are people I've met in the office or during my studies. I'm not an extrovert, but I do enjoy social interactions. I'll likely start a discussion around the coffee machine or in the office corridor, or with a colleague in my field of view, and this creates opportunities that I'll miss while working remotely. In addition, if your company culture is not encouraging remote social interactions, you might feel as isolated as I was during the lockdown. In my last employment, the pre-lockdown era was 1 year and 2 months long, and it felt way richer and interesting than the following 1 year and 4 months period of remote working. I couldn't have the chance to meet my colleagues in person, and when you're the investigative and social type of person, you build way more energy, inspiration, satisfaction and motivation when interacting with people in person.

This period of 1 year and 4 months was a long time without any team building. It was also poor of opportunities to connect with the new joiners, the new boss and the team buddies. With a few exceptions, most of the meetings and discussions rotate only around work which is adding to the general stress of working remotely and contributed, among other factors, to ruin my motivation.

Insufficient face time

Even if face time still occurs, it's happening less often or at least with less than ideal conditions. Some tips can make it better, but video calls are a trade-off and not the solution. Zoom/Meet/Team calls will never replace the in-person interactions, especially if we take bad habits such as enabling blur effects or virtual backgrounds which give the feeling of talking to a floating face.

Overworking

The lack of work-life balance and suggested breaks are the point here. There is no emergency to close your laptop and start commute back home when you are already in your place. The temptation is great to keep working a bit more. Everyone can simply reach out to you more easily to get some work done. Of course you can find arrangements to keep yourself away from the work pressure, but it's just harder than when the physical separation was in action. It has never been easier than nowadays to connect to work from anywhere, and now you have to constantly remind yourself to resist the temptation. Reminding yourself that you are at home and not at work ? Easier said than done when both places are the same.

Increased sedentary lifestyle

It's up to me to fight this, anyway the daily commute in addition to the regular travels in and out of the office, to grab a lunch for instance, helped people like me to move way more often.

Lack of room for self

Sharing the same living and working space than your loved one is a gift but can be exhausting. In the long run, regular separation can be beneficial to having something like a reunion. Spending all your time in the same space as your life companion can be challenging as it means you have never time alone and you depend constantly on the other noises and moves. It is clearly not for everyone, especially when you are independent. The pandemic forced us to deal with this situation and we are flexible enough to survive. We even manage to give each other some time alone. However, staying at home all the time is not compatible with our need for autonomy in the long term.

Is it that bad to prefer working from home ?

Not at all. Wearing the hats of a parent and an employee, I am fully aware of the pros of working remotely, especially when it comes to productivity, flexibility, and parenting, and this will be the topic of a future post.

That being said, I'm advocating for working in the office, as I consider it has long term benefits for my career, professional network, work-life balance, socialization, productivity, teamwork and motivation. And I believe that working from home cannot beat those perks in the long run.

If you want to discuss, please comment šŸ™‚

Updates

When it’s time to quit your job

Posted on by Morgan

As cool as it could have been for a while, the moment comes when your steady job frustrates you. It can be because of a work culture and politics or because the pandemic made you reconsider if your job cost/benefit balance was positive and you might have joined the great resignation. Or the reason sits somewhere else.

For what it's worth, here is a quick tip I've been using to help me decide whether it's really time for me to change.

All you have to do is to answer the three following questions :

  • Do I enjoy my work assignments ?
  • Do I enjoy the company of my direct colleagues and my manager ?
  • Do I feel satisfied with my current salary package and benefits ?

If the answer is no for at least 2 out of the 3, then you have to seriously start interviewing for job opportunities.