Going off-grid, tech-style

Here's my shopping list of things to do to in order to become a more self-reliant and freer technological citizen. You could call it "going off the grid", but the "grid" in this case refers to platforms that are owned by or form what I would define as a monopoly. I want to own my privacy, data and choice, and that primarily means getting off platforms that offer free at the expense of freedom.

1. More Linux

I love to point out that I'm not a Linux fanboy - I've been a Windows users since the 90s, and I still prefer the overall Windows user experience. But for programming, Linux is just better, and programming's what I do most. I'm trying fuse my separate Windows and Linux desktops into a single monster that lets me run both on-the-metal simultaneously as host-guest system using QEMU, but there's still a ways to go. My requirements are

• the Windows guest can boot on its own with the Linux host, so the two aren't entangled
• GPU passthrough for Windows gaming (will likely require switching to AMD GPU)
• USB passthrough for Wacom tablet and USB soundcard in Reaper
• stability

2. Less social media

This one is mostly complete. I've already scraped my Facebook and Twitter profiles of all posts, and I'm not active on any SoMe platform. I keep my profiles alive primarily for private messaging and to prevent my name getting misused. I still follow a few artists and meme feeds, but I would like to find alternative ways to do this.

3. Own my writing

Mission accomplished. I used to blog on platforms like Blogger.com, Blogspot.com and others, but I now do all my writing on a blog that I host myself, rendered to static HTML from files in my own git repository.

4. Own my community

One of the shortcomings of this static blog is that it doesn't allow for comments or interactions with others. I could drop a Disqus chat in, but that's another platform that gets to own my content. I'm working on a solution that relies entirely on email.

5. Own my files

I'd like to replace Dropbox with NextCloud - I've done tests and setting up is simple enough, the problem is space and reliability. I have a lot of content on Dropbox, and self-hosting that affordably in the cloud will take some planning.

I have some content on Amazon S3, and this too I'd like to move to a private bucket system like min.io.

6. Own my music

Done. Sorta. Listening to music has always been one of my cornerstones, and I'm happy to say I'm not tied to Spotify or other services. I wrote my own self-hosted cloud streaming service (mystream.cc) years ago, and while I didn't want the hassle of running it as a business, I use it every day for my own tunes. The downside is all my music is hosted on and streamed from Dropbox.

7. Own my VPN

Setting up a private Pritunl server turned out to be very easy, now I'm just trying to find a viable VPS to host it from.

8. Own my links

Back in the day there was del.icio.us, after they went belly-up I switched to Pocket, but I'm not really happy having my links locked inside yet another platform that is mining my content or can easily disappear (even though del.icio.us was posthumously revived). One viable alternative is self-hosting a Wallabag instance. This is something I need to research more.

9. Get off Googmazoft

This one is mostly done - I have scattered small services running on Google Cloud, AWS and Azure, but most of my heavy use is on Linode.

10. Get off Gmail

This one is surprisingly difficult - I don't want to jump to another email provider, but rather host my own mail server and thereby own my mails. Email though, for all its supposed simplicitly, is surprisingly complex to run reliability.

11. Get off Google Authenticator

There's nothing wrong with Google's 2FA app, it's just, Google, and I want to wean myself off of all things Google. My wife recently went through the hassle of changing phones and found Authy to be much easier to work with, so I'll be going that route too.

12. Get off Google Docs

This one seems way off in the future. Cryptpad looks like an interesting alternative, but I haven't tested it yet.

Services that get a pass

Github and Bitbucket

I don't actually care where my code is hosted, as long as it's secure and easy to access. I'm not locked into any special features of either Github or Bitbucket, nore am I in any way put off by Microsoft's acquisition of Github, as this doesn't change the conditions for me accessing my code.

Steam

I'm not in love with how much control Valve has over our games, but the rise of Epic and Stadia has really taught us to appreciate what we have. Until something a more consumer-friendly alternative comes along, Steam is the only viable online gaming platform for me.