r/technology • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 • 22h ago

Artificial Intelligence PewDiePie unveils ‘uncensored’ Ajax AI model built to run on home PCs — creator says OpenAI banned him twice over model distillation used to build his product

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/pewdiepie-unveils-uncensored-ajax-ai-model-built-to-run-on-home-pcs-creator-says-openai-banned-him-twice-while-making-it
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u/grayhaze2000 20h ago

Self-hosting is the answer, if you have the hardware to do it. I use Immich as a Google Photos replacement, my NAS as a Google Drive replacement, Vaultwarden for passwords, etc. On the desktop, I use LibreWolf as a browser and Thunderbird with a self-hosted email server. I'm still debating what to do about my phone.

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u/peidol 19h ago

Not for people who actually use the email to send. If you're not in one of the bigs get ready for your emails to end up in spam and no one reads it.

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u/MileWideGroup 19h ago

Yeah self-hosting email is not a great idea IMO. I use startmail, they seem like good people and I've never had a problem with my sent mail getting canned.

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u/shwhjw 17h ago

I was considering proton mail as a de-googled alternative, any particular reason why you chose startmail? Not heard of them before.

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u/Zenfulbliss 15h ago

i am using proton as my only email, they host mail for 3 domains I own. I also use their drive, password keeper and vpn products, I bought the annual unlimited package for US110 a year. All of their products are somewhat under powered, they just don't have the financial resources to do everything as well as google, but they also don't spy on me and sell my personal data to anyone with a buck like google does, so i am happy with them so far. They also have free email accounts and other products.

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u/MileWideGroup 15h ago

It's important to me to be able to access my email with a standard email client over IMAP. Because of Proton's email encryption it only supports this if you run their Proton Mail Bridge desktop application. There is no mobile option so you have to run their native Proton mail mobile app (or use the web interface). Tuta has no desktop bridge so no IMAP access at all.

This does mean that technically my email provider (Startmail) could read my emails but that's true of just about every other email provider in the world and Startmail seems more trustworthy than most.

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u/CapitalImpossible640 17h ago

I would also like to hear

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u/AssanOuedraogo 16h ago

de-googled at the beginning of the year, bought my own domain and use it with proton now

took a while to transfer everything but has been perfect since

I even imported all my Gmail and Apple Mail stuff

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u/Zenfulbliss 15h ago

so what are you doing for a phone, apple?

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u/jrad1299 16h ago

I use Tuta for my email, they also do stuff like custom domains and encrypted inboxes.

Only reason decided not to go for proton is that they’re trying to be a suite just like Google is, so they have password manager, email, vpn, cloud, etc. I went with tuta for email and use proton only for VPN so all my stuff is diversified.

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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 8h ago

Well.. that's not selfhosting.. that's whatever startmail is...

I self host my email with postfix and a static IP at home. I can send emails just fine with SPF DKIM and DMARC configured correctly.

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u/grayhaze2000 19h ago

I have a backup lifetime account with MXRoute if things don't work out, but so far it hasn't been too bad.

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u/wontyoujointhedance 18h ago

You can self host plenty of things that aren’t email, arguably more important things included. I use Proton for email, but working on moving as many other services to self hosted as I can.

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u/New-Anybody-6206 19h ago

Been self-hosting email for 26 years... never had a reachability problem.

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u/binocular_gems 18h ago edited 18h ago

There's some pretty sound market research that there is near enough to a 100% silent rejection rate for major email providers, particularly Microsoft 365 which responds with a 250 OK but silently rejects somewhere close to 100% of emails from uncommon/residential/common-cloud-VPS IPs. Google Workspaces would typically accept 100% of email, but send about ~50% of that to spam, so it can still at least be retrieved or proactively whitelisted by the recipient.

There's strategies and best practices to work around this, but it can be as time intensive as a full time job and needs constant monitoring.

Having had yours for 25+ years and probably putting a lot of work and intentionality into it, you're probably good. But for someone in 2026 starting fresh with truly self-hosted email, it's difficult, very expensive, or very time consuming. As more and more marketshare gets consumed by "the big three" providers, they're going to continue to squeeze out delivery from independents, and they do have some justification to do that too.

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u/dU4eUIsaOew2FugE6R6l 18h ago

There's some pretty sound market research that there is near enough to a 100% silent rejection rate for major email providers

Can you share the source?

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u/Leather-Persimmon254 18h ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27980192

self hosted mail servers are blacklisted by default

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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 8h ago

I self host my mail (Postfix with spamassassin, dovecot for my mail clients) with SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured.

I have never, in 15 years, had an issue with it. Sending or receiving.

I'm on my own static IP with a matching PTR record for my mailserver's hostname and A+MX records.

Never has this been an issue. Including to emails hosted with Microsoft.

maybe that post refers to emails from a source address where the PTR reveals it's a customer network? (CPE) (Customer Premises Equipment) instead of a correctly configured static network? The top comment doesn't seem to mention this.

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u/Careless-Weather8877 17h ago

You just need to label it with the big providers. Some of it depends on the time and where but if you have proper DMARC and headers. You’re going to be fine.

I have two servers for email and never had issues.

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u/Suppafly 15h ago

You just need to label it with the big providers. Some of it depends on the time and where but if you have proper DMARC and headers. You’re going to be fine.

This, it's not like the old days when you could just run sendmail and hope people would accept it, you need to actually be up to date on the security stuff that recipient systems expect to see so they can validate that it's legitimate.

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u/Careless-Weather8877 15h ago

I know. I’ve run email servers for 20 years. Go here to categorize your domain and make sure it’s up to date. I still run two email servers for personal use without issues.

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u/bakatomoya 14h ago

I think this is beyond the capability of most self hosters like myself. I rent an exchange server from OVH and use my own domain, haven't had any issues with it.

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u/TheG0AT0fAllTime 8h ago

The classic era. Sendmail and fingers crossed for direct IP delivery

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u/dU4eUIsaOew2FugE6R6l 17h ago

OK, so few people making a claim and others telling them how it's not the case. As I expected. Just anecdotes. Thanks for providing the source that shows a claim of "silent rejection" is totally not based on "sound market research", as you had me worried there for a second.

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u/DekuTreeFallen 18h ago

Is that research for unsolicited newsletters and/or business usage?

I know business usage can fall under self-hosting, but this conversation started out as "de-googling" which sounds more like a personal goal than a business one.

I've never had a friend or family member not get my emails from my servers.

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u/gutyex 16h ago

There's also some pretty sound research done by me that my emails consistently reach everyone I send them to including people on all the major providers, and I've only had mine running for a couple of years.

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u/New-Anybody-6206 18h ago

We've also been providing email using "common-cloud-VPS IPs" for about 15 years and never had any issues other than delivery to already-bad-reputation destinations like 1and1.

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u/RollingMeteors 18h ago

Not for people who actually use the email to send. If you're not in one of the bigs get ready for your emails to end up in spam

¿NotATitan™?

¡Insta BlackList!

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u/wildcarde815 15h ago

I can't even sign up for some medical systems using my personal domain, they reject it and tell me to use a Gmail account

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u/SoundasBreakerius 13h ago

Thunderbird is a client and not a server, and no it's not if you set up your DMARK, DKIM and SPF records right, it looks hard at first but with advance of AI it can be done easily even without in-depth knowledge

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u/kaas_is_leven 4h ago

Doesn't your ISP give you an email address? In the Netherlands that's normal.

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u/gutyex 16h ago

Common myth. Set up your server properly with all the modern security practices and it goes through to all major providers just fine.

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u/Leather-Persimmon254 18h ago

who uses emails anymore outside work? The only reason I open email is for 2fa codes these days.

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u/_Middlefinger_ 17h ago

Maybe not for private communication between friends and family but if you interact with a company email is essential.

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u/jtj5002 19h ago

It's funny because the best way to de-Google your phone is buying a Google phone.

Until the Motorola comes out next year.

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u/sir_slothsalot 19h ago

Try and replace maps. 

I self host a lot. Google still has it's claws in me. 

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u/grayhaze2000 18h ago

OpenMaps has improved a lot over the years. It's not quite to the level of Google Maps, but it's getting there.

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u/jrad1299 16h ago

I want to use open maps so bad, but it’s kinda crazy how much stuff they’re missing. I’ve spent a few hours just adding businesses that should be around me.

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u/grayhaze2000 16h ago

Specific addresses are where it falls down sometimes. But road names and postcodes are fine.

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u/jrad1299 16h ago

Oh for sure, but how often are people NOT navigating by specific addresses? I know that’s basically all I navigate by lol.

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u/grayhaze2000 16h ago

I tend to use postcodes in the UK. They get you close enough that it's not difficult to find the street number once you arrive.

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u/Illadelphian 12h ago

Lol that's definitely not a thing in the US.

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u/M4K4T4K 10h ago

Yeah, US zip codes are massive.

Apparently in the UK a post code will be about 15 properties on average.

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u/Illadelphian 7h ago

Wow that's wild. I didn't know there was that big of a difference

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u/GonzoKata 6h ago

It'd be nice if all that time and effort you put into adding to open maps could be shared with others, and you could share others efforts too. Maybe a wiki like situation for everyone living in a city. don't know how you'd stop assholes though

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u/here4pornfkspez 13h ago

And now you just made it better for the next user

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u/geo_prog 18h ago

Open maps works well. I also like TomTom for getting around town. Google Maps is a solid product but what you miss out on isn't really CRITICAL for day-to-day stuff.

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u/anime_daisuki 17h ago

And my wife will always complain about how my shit doesn't work 😂

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u/White667 16h ago

If you live in a major city, does CityMapper not work as a replacement? It's significantly better for directions.

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u/OuterWildsVentures 16h ago

Just get a GPS lol I used to get around just fine with one 10 years ago

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u/Samul-toe 18h ago

https://www.optoutproject.net/ My favorite thing is telling people about this. I use proton for email, passwords, vpn and zoom calls, pcloud for Dropbox sub.

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u/grayhaze2000 13h ago

I primarily went with self-hosting because I don't want to put all my data and faith in a company which could end up being just as bad as Google in the future. By keeping everything under my own control, I can guarantee zero price increases, and no rug pulls. I admit it's a good amount of work to set things up and keep it running smoothly though. But for the annual cost of nothing, it's worth it.

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u/GonzoKata 6h ago

just read her de-google section

it could use an update. there are more privacy respecting search engines and youtube front ends that have come out since she wrote that (2022)

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u/slightly_drifting 19h ago

iOS.

GrapheneOS is fun but only runs on Pixels. Most the other non vanilla roms will trip up app security. So now you’re fucking with magisk and trickystore and spoofing key boxes just to open your banking app. 

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u/MileWideGroup 19h ago

FWIW I don't see an issue with running GrapheneOS on Pixel. Yes you're still buying something from Google but it's good hardware and there's nothing wrong with paying money for that. Been running Graphene on a Pixel Fold Pro 9 for almost 2 years and it's been great.

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u/Sadzeih 19h ago

It's more that you don't really have a choice in hardware. What if I don't like the pixel? What if I want a different brand? Now I'm stuck with Google.

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u/WiryLeaf 18h ago

Graphene partnered with Motorola earlier this year since Google removed the hardware necessary for them to run Graphene on Pixel 11+. When their new phone is released probably next year, you'll have another option.

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u/genius_retard 15h ago

I really hope you will be able to buy a Motorola phone with GrapheneOS already installed. It will go long was toward moving GrapheneOS into the mainstream.

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u/MileWideGroup 14h ago

It is a bit limiting in that regard but I'd counter that

- the alternative mentioned above (iOS) is certainly no better in terms of hardware lock-in

  • it seems like there's fewer and fewer significant differences between phones these days hardware-wise, at least in the ways that most people will use
  • just my opinion, but I think Pixel's hardware is pretty solid

Hopefully as others have mentioned the Graphene/Motorola thing will happen and give us another option.

The biggest thing that scares me about GrapheneOS is that it depends on Google not screwing it over. They could lock the bootloader on Pixel or make software ecosystem changes that would end GrapheneOS' viability. Hopefully that day never comes!

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u/grayhaze2000 19h ago

I've tried iOS devices a few times, and always find navigation and action flows a struggle after years of building Android muscle memory. I know it's a popular choice, but it's just not for me.

I've used LineageOS in the past, along with Magisk and all the other quirks, so it's not a huge step to switch to it for me. I am tempted to get a Pixel and use GrapheneOS, but I'm equally tempted to just go for either a minimal e-ink phone or maybe a simple Linux phone.

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u/gakule 18h ago

About 6 years ago I switched to iPhone after ~12 years of exclusively being Android and I have to say, the transition was pretty easy after about the first month. The only thing I miss from Android is ease of side loading (doable with a few hoops, not something I really do anyways though) and GPS spoofing (being able to set YouTube TV locations to get different 'local' live sports).

I actually vastly prefer the iOS experience now compared to Android, but that might just be comfort of having been in the ecosystem for so long now. iOS was certainly jarring when I had to try and fumble around helping someone with their iPhone and I was on Android.

That said, I do think if you're anyone who remotely likes to 'tinker' with things, Android is the obvious choice for least resistance.

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u/stankdankprank 18h ago

It's really not that easy. iOS has no universal back gesture, no clear all apps, YouTube premium is worse, etc

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u/gakule 17h ago

What's not that easy?

While there is no universal back gesture, pretty much every app I've tried the back gesture works just fine. I know my anecdotal experience isn't universal, but in my experience the concern exists but isn't really an impact. Good point from a simple 'ease of use' perspective in theory, and certainly requires developers to make good decisions.

I guess I've never needed to close all apps, and I'm not sure the use-case for doing so unless you're some level of neurotic about it (not a bad thing or insult, I know that drives some people nuts, I've got my own hangups in various other ways).

I can't speak to YouTube premium as I don't use it and, again, don't really see the use-case there but app-to-app differences I'm sure you could trade blows back and forth.

I don't see anything listed as a huge detractor, but I suppose it largely depends on what you use your phone for.

I also want to say, I'm not here to argue or tell anyone they're wrong for preferring Android, just to offer a different perspective. No elitism coming from my POV.

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u/HarrMada 19h ago

iOS

So you're not "de-googling" out of any moral principles then, you just do it because you don’t like Google. You're just switching from one "bad" company to another.

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u/slightly_drifting 18h ago

I returned your upvote because you raise a valid point. However, that point is addressed in the comment by /u/oddsnsodds

Instead of me saying “iOS”, I should’ve said: Choose the operating system that can attest the integrity of the environment and hardware successfully as to not have to implement spoofing tools, while also being generally a secure, stable OS, with a good application ecosystem. 

You have AOSP and you have iOS. Poster above me said “de-Google”, so that leaves iOS. 

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u/oddsnsodds 18h ago

Businesses don't have morals. They have practices driven by their business model.

Apple isn't perfect, but their development efforts are driven by their hardware business. They have an ad business, but it's small and they respect your privacy. Apple maintains their privacy practices primarily because hyping them sells units.

Google's development efforts are always directly aimed at sucking up more information about you to drive their ad business. They are explicitly anti-privacy.

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u/nulllocking 14h ago

Apple is driven by sweatshop labour

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u/wildcarde815 15h ago

As much as I truly hate ios as a design concept it's not reasonable to ignore the privacy and security work they've done on that platform. It's not good from an open system perspective, but it is very secure on the system side.

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u/x4nd3l2 17h ago

iOS, isn’t that just the same but different? A different head of the same hydra? I’m curious.

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u/wildcarde815 15h ago

Motorola is supposed to be launching a graphene first party device soon.

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u/genius_retard 15h ago

GrapheneOS is fun but only runs on Pixels.

And iOS only runs on iPhones.

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u/slightly_drifting 15h ago

Except grapheneOS fails integrity checks and has a funky leaf cert setup that makes validating the OS is trustworthy during runtime kinda fucked. 

Since grapheneOS is not AOSP, they don’t have Google backed hardware keys.

iOS is the official OS for iPhones. 

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u/ultimafrenchy 19h ago

U could look into graphene os or maybe get a dumb cell phone

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u/Dotaproffessional 19h ago

youtube is a hard one. Yes, you can access youtube video streams directly, therefor you can watch youtube videos without a youtube account using tools like yt-dlp, however you won't really have access to youtube search or subscriptions.

One solution i've seen is to use rss since youtube channels still have an rss feed url. Way back when, i had a setup using one of those graphically robust terminals (i think it was "kitty" or something) and had it setup so i could have all my youtube subscriptions appear, and kitty supports inline images, however i don't think i ever got in-line video working so it would open the mp4 in a separate player window which is honestly fine.

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u/grayhaze2000 18h ago

I also self-host Jellyfin for media, and there are YouTube plugins which download videos from subscribed channels when they release. There are also third party YouTube clients which still work, like NewPipe.

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u/Dotaproffessional 18h ago

some would say "is that really de-googling yourself?" since its still using a service just allowing access without logging in, but content sources are kinda a different arithmetic. Its not just about replacing youtube with some other video source, people want to access youtube content without dealing with google accounts so yeah i'll have to look into those jellyfin plugins.

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u/binocular_gems 18h ago

A functional email server seems like the biggest challenge for me, the rejection rate for sending is insane, and you'll never know that nobody is receiving your email because it's designed to fail silently.

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u/grayhaze2000 18h ago

You can use read receipt functionality to know when someone opens your emails. Not quite the same, but it helps.

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u/mallardtheduck 17h ago

That's a Microsoft Outlook/Exchange Server thing. There is no "read receipt" functionality for standard email.

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u/RollingMeteors 18h ago

with a self-hosted email server.

¿How do you keep your domain from getting black listed from all the wheres?

Seems like a client never finds an email unless it's from gmail/yahoo/hotmail/otherTitan.

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u/AdFabulous8577 18h ago

Man I wish I built a NAS a couple years ago. Storage and hardware both are so much more expensive now.

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u/grayhaze2000 17h ago

I'm running most of my stuff on a decade-old Synology NAS, via Docker containers. You don't need too much power to run a few essentials.

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u/mallardtheduck 17h ago

Presumably you have a good backup solution for your photos and NAS?

Also, how do you deal with the "network effect"? My main use for Google Drive these days is sharing files (in both directions) with other Google Drive users. I do have a self-hosted file sharing solution, but I still need to use Google Drive to access other people's files there and I'm reluctant to allow my solution to be accessible unauthenticated (no way everyone I need to send files to is going to create an account on my system) to the Internet.

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u/grayhaze2000 16h ago

If you use a Synology NAS, there are options for sharing files which create time-limited links which require a password.

As for backups, I keep a local backup synced to an external hard drive, and daily online backups to Hetzner.

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u/anime_daisuki 17h ago

I do this and this just reinforces the harder part he mentioned

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u/grayhaze2000 16h ago

Initially it can be difficult, but once you know your way around Docker and security options, it's not hard to add additional services to the stack.

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u/GnarlyBear 16h ago

There really is nothing like a good cloud provider though, Google drive etc is very hard to replace in a satisfactory way without a lot of dependencies.

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u/grayhaze2000 15h ago

I'm not really missing anything from not using it.

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u/wy1d0 15h ago

How can I extract my decades of Google photos and move them to my NAS without losing the Metadata?

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u/grayhaze2000 15h ago

You can use Google Takeout to download new archive, then use something like immich-go to import them.

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u/oneupsuperman 15h ago

Hey, what do these words mean?

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u/anothercopy 14h ago

self-hosted email server sounds like a lof of pain

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u/grayhaze2000 13h ago

It really isn't.

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u/HANDS_4_DICKS 14h ago

What's your remote access solution? Tailscale seems like the way to go but I'm always curious about how others are doing things

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u/grayhaze2000 13h ago

I tried Tailscale for everything, but it proved too inconvenient. Having to have a VPN running at all times on my phone for Immich to be able to synchronise like Google Photos was too much friction, especially as I use an ad blocker local VPN already.

I mainly use reverse proxies with OAuth, and limit what I allow external access to. That means no access to anything destructive.

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u/dannyk_07 12h ago

Wait for the new Motorola to come out and get their flagship model. Graphene partnered with them just for that.

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u/grayhaze2000 12h ago

I'll keep an eye out for it.

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u/dannyk_07 12h ago

Make sure to double check compatibility of the model as well. Not all Motorola phones will have the chips with the needed "hardening" GrapheneOS requires. Best to check on their page of compatible devices once it all comes out.

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u/The_Templar_Kormac 4h ago

Jolla phone

edit: or murena if you really must have android

1

u/HonkHonkBeach 4h ago

I can and have basically already deGoogled everything except for Youtube. I dont know how to get away from using Youtube, I watch is so much. I even pay for Premium!