You’re probably familiar with the idea that in the world of big tech, “we” are the product.
Our data is the currency being traded every time we navigate our social media feeds. Tech giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft offer valuable services, but it comes at a price. They host our email, photos, backups, files, calendars, reminders and contacts.
If you also include all the smaller startups and niche solutions, you’ll quickly see your security cameras, electronic locks, home appliances and even your toothbrushing schedules are all online – far removed from any physical box or device that you have any control over.
But there is a way to break free from big tech. It’s called “self-hosting”.
Your life, online
Many of these large tech providers do a good job of securing your data and enabling you to access services across devices and platforms. They allow novice users with almost no technical skills to interact with and share their data at little cost.
However, being reliant on these companies isn’t risk-free.
Google, Amazon and Meta have been implicated in unexpected or questionable uses of data.
Having high-value data concentrated in well-established systems also provides cyber criminals and scammers with obvious targets to spam, imitate (spoof) or hack.
Users are also completely at the mercy of these companies should they decide to raise their fees, change their terms of service, or even discontinue access.
What exactly is self-hosting?
Self-hosting is a general catch-all term for taking control of your own data.
This shifts your data from big tech giants and moves it to self-managed applications. Your data is on your own systems and you have complete control over who can access it.
Many self-hosted applications are open-source and, thanks to community support, they can be relatively easy for a tech-savvy user to download and install.
Self-hosting isn’t new.
Squirrel Mail (a web-based email client) predated Gmail by several years. Gallery, a photo hosting application, came before Flickr and Picasa. Even WordPress was originally offered in 2003 as a self-hosted download before the WordPress.com blogging service became available in 2005.
Over the past decade, self-hosting has seen a rapid increase in the range of options available.
Today, moderately technical users can self-host a mind-boggling range of web-based applications, including media storage and sharing, blogs, websites, productivity and office apps, video conferencing, home automation and security, games and ad-blocking.
To get an idea of how much is out there, Awesome-Selfhosted publishes links to free and open-source self-hosted projects.
Self-hosting has also become more accessible with cheap, single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi.
These tiny computers can be as small as a credit card and usually have lower-powered central processing units and no ability to expand memory, graphics or networking; they sacrifice computing “power” and flexibility for size, energy-efficiency and price.
Other common household network appliances such as network file storage, media servers and internet routers have become powerful enough that users can install custom applications to run many self-hosted services.
Another route to self-hosting is through device manufacturers such as umbrel and Zima, both of which provide physical hardware with dedicated self-hosting operating systems.
However, there is still a considerable learning curve for non-technical users.
Benefits and risks
Self-hosting provides freedom from big-tech, surveillance and/or costly subscriptions. It allows you to know exactly where your data is, and how it’s managed.
But it does come with some risks.
The most immediate risks come from technical mistakes and backup issues that can cause a self-hosted solution to lose data.
If your photo library is running on a single computer in your linen cupboard, you are reliant on that computer being powered up, backed up and available whenever you need it.
Similarly, any mistake you make in configuration or management could affect the availability of your data through access controls or even data erasure.
Another issue that users need to consider is whether they want their data available “on the move”. In most cases, home routers allow you to expose individual devices to the internet. This can allow you to access your self-hosted data while you are away from home. Unfortunately, if you can access your data, in most cases, so can cyber criminals.
Exposing self-hosted services in this way requires diligence, consideration and a certain level of expertise to minimise the risk of breaches – risks that may be amplified by poorly maintained applications.
Should I bother?
Self-hosting allows you to have greater control over how, when and by whom your data is used. For some, this is a vital requirement and worth the extra effort required to make it all work.
If you have an old computer available, why not give it a try? It may seem daunting, but self-hosting comes in many flavours, and you can choose how far you go with it.
- This article first appeared on The Conversation
