← Feed

Posts

• View post

  You don't need the internet to look stuff up! You can create your own 100% offline guide to human knowledge by installing @kiwix@mastodon.social on your phone or computer and then using it to search offline copies of Wikipedia and other wiki-based reference works. There's more info about this on the official website at: 🌱 https://kiwix.org (I use Kiwix to store https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page which gives travel tips for the entire planet. It's like a real life "Hitch...

• View post

  Mastodon admins! There is a spam wave hitting the Fediverse consisting of many mentions and a dubious/dangerous web link. You can find help for dealing with this at: ➡️ @iftas@mastodon.iftas.org IFTAS is posting and sharing lots of practical suggestions, and it is well worth following them anyway as they provide valuable resources for Fediverse safety. If you browse their timeline at @iftas@mastodon.iftas.org you'll see all their posts and shares. #MastoAdmin #FediAdmin #Spam

• View post

  In case you missed it, there are two Fediverse discussion groups for people who self-host internet services at home: 🌱 !@homelab (in English) 🌱 !@homelab_de (in German) To see a group's messages follow it. The group's posts will start gradually appearing in your timeline after your follow is approved. To post to a group, mention it in a public post. (You may need to be a group's follower to post.) #SelfHosting #Homelab #Homelabs

• View post

  Navidrome is a free open source self-hostable audio streaming server for playing your music collection. It's compatible with any Subsonic-based music player app. You can find out more at: 🌱 https://www.navidrome.org You can follow at: 🌱 @navidrome If you're moderately techy you can install Navidrome through @yunohost at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/navidrome If you're very techy you can install it manually using the instructions at https://www.navidrome.org/docs #...

• View post

  GoToSocial is a free open source Fediverse platform which is designed for people who self-host. It's lightweight and emphasises user safety. 🌱 If you're non-techy you can create your own GTS server through managed hosting at https://fedihost.co/hosting/gotosocial 🪴 If you're moderately techy you can install GTS through @yunohost at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/gotosocial 🌳 If you're very techy you can install GTS manually using the instructions at https://docs...

• View post

  Are you a programmer? Do you want to use a code forge which is FOSS, corporation-free and AI-free? You might want to try @forgejo! You can self-host Forgejo: 🪴 Via YunoHost at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/forgejo 🌳 Manually with instructions at https://forgejo.org/docs/latest If you don't want to self-host, the Forgejo developers also run their own public instance @Codeberg at: ➡️ https://codeberg.org Forgejo and Codeberg are run by a non-profit. #Dev #SelfHosting #FOSS #CodeForge...

• View post

  Flohmarkt is a free open flea market platform, intended as a Fediverse alternative to Craigslist or Gumtree. Different servers cover different geographical areas, and people can interact with Flohmarkt accounts from Mastodon etc. To self-host Flohmarkt: 🪴 Via YunoHost at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/flohmarkt (read the instructions carefully) 🌳 Manually with instructions at https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/wiki List of current servers at https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/wiki...

• View post

  It's cheaper and easier than you think to create your own @peertube@framapiaf.org server 🙂 🌱 If you're non-techy you can use managed hosting through https://fedihost.co or https://cloud68.co 🪴 If you're slightly techy you can install PeerTube through @yunohost@toot.aquilenet.fr at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/peertube 🌳 If you're very techy you can use the manual installation instructions at https://docs.joinpeertube.org #PeerTube #SelfHosting #Fediverse

• View post

  There's a new very lightweight Fediverse platform that's just been released called littleFedi. You can follow its new official account at: 🌱 @littlefedi_official@littleone.littlefedi.social Its official website including download and source code is at: 🌱 https://littlefedi.org LittleFedi is for techy people who want to create their own Fediverse server using as few resources as possible. It's written by a group called "Little Computer People", its maintainer is @stefa...

• View post

  Facebook/Meta are now demanding a monthly fee from owners of Facebook Pages to post links to outside sites: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-pages-get-charged-for-link-posts/830743 The monthly fee Meta are demanding for posting links on Facebook Pages is quite astonishing: US$50 per month for 8 links US$150 per month for 20 links US$500 per month for unlimited links This is many times more than the cost of running your own website, cloud and social media server all put together...

• View post

  A lot of websites use the Open Graph protocol to set an image for their preview links, but less widely used is the alt text option for these preview images. You can add alt text to your site's preview image by including this in its headers alongside the other OG stuff: For example, if I link to https://fedi.tips in this post you will see a preview appear below and hovering over it shows its alt text.

• View post

  "Self-hosting OSes" are special operating systems like YunoHost, FreedomBox and LibreServer which are designed to make it easier to host your own services either on a VPS, or a computer in your own home or office. They include graphical interfaces that let you install or remove services without having to go through a command line. Does anyone know of any other distros (Linux or otherwise) designed specifically to make self-hosting much easier like this? #AskFedi #SelfHosting

• View post

  In the light of recent events, I've been trying to work out if country-specific top level domain names (ccTLDs) are controlled by the US government, but it is frustratingly opaque. All domains including ccTLDs are controlled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a US organisation which is controlled by a US corporation called Public Technical Identifiers (PTI). PTI is "an affiliate" of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN). 🧵 Thread page 1...

• View post

  If you're wanting to self-host a password manager you might want to check out Vaultwarden. It's a free open source alternative to 1Password, Bitwarden etc. It is compatible with Bitwarden clients but is a totally separate project. More info at: 🌱 https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden It's available to self-host through @yunohost@toot.aquilenet.fr at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/vaultwarden or by installing manually using the instructions at https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaul...

• View post

  The technical cost per user (excluding moderation) of a Fediverse server is determined by how large your server is. A single person's microblogging server typically costs about 5 euros per user per month through managed hosting, but a server with dozens of people on it typically costs about 0.5 euros per user (and it gets even cheaper per user beyond that). Getting together with a few other people can make it cheaper for all of you. #FediAdmin #Fediverse

• View post

  Self-hosting people! Do you have suggestions for directories of self-hostable free open source software? So far I've got the Awesome list at https://awesome-selfhosted.net but wondered if there are any others you would recommend? #SelfHosting #FOSS #AskFedi

• View post

  Do you have recommendations for good reliable domain name providers? (Bonus points if they are user-friendly for non-technical people) Post in the replies if you do 🙂 #DomainNames #SelfHosting #AskFedi

• View post

  I've overhauled the Grow Your Own Services website, so it provides more info on different options for running your own online services: 🌱 https://growyourown.services I hope the site is clearer than it was before 🙂 All kinds of feedback welcome! #SelfHosting

• View post

  If you're running a Mastodon server of any size, you might want to follow the official Mastodon Engineering account: ➡️ @MastodonEngineering@mastodon.social The account is run by the Mastodon developers, and provides news about important software updates. #Mastodon #MastoAdmin

• View post

  AdminForge is a German-language website all about self-hosting free open online services: 🌱 https://adminforge.de (in German) You can follow them at: 🌱 @adminforge@kanoa.de (in German) They also provide a number of libre online services for people who don't want to self-host them. #SelfHosting #CommunityHosting #Deutsch

• View post

  I know LLMs are interesting as toys, but they are fundamentally problematic: - Even if you self-host an LLM, its model is created unethically elsewhere so it's not really independent or ethical. - LLM creation is extremely resource-intensive, which is burning the planet and destroying communities. - Hardware prices are being driven so high that ordinary people cannot afford to buy computers. - LLMs are designed to deskill people and make them dependent on corporate models. #LLM #AI

• View post

  Karrot is a free open source self-hostable platform for organising grassroots community activism. You can find out more at: 🌱 https://codeberg.org/karrot You can follow the project at: 🌱 @karrot@fosstodon.org If you don't want to self-host, there's a public server at: 🌱 https://karrot.world #SelfHosting #Activism #Grassroots #CommunityHosting #FOSS

• View post

  Flohmarkt is a free open platform for small ads and selling things ("Flohmarkt" is the German for flea market). It's part of the Fediverse so the small ads can federate to other servers, and people can interact with Flohmarkt from Mastodon etc accounts. If you want to post or browse adverts there is a server list: 🌱 https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt/wiki/flohmarkt-instances There is techy info on their Codeberg page: 🌱 https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt You can fo...

• View post

  The easy way to take control of your email and avoid enshittification: 1. Create your own domain name 2. Find a good email provider 3. Use your domain name to create custom email addresses on that email provider 4. If the email provider enshittifies, you can move to a different provider without changing any of your email addresses (If you're unsure about how to create domain names, I've done a non-technical beginner's guide to them at https://growyourown.services/a-beginners-guide-...

• View post

  CryptPad is a free open source collaborative online office suite with the emphasis on privacy and "zero knowledge" encryption. You can find out more at: 🌱 https://cryptpad.org You can follow the project at: 🌱 @CryptPad@social.xwiki.com CryptPad can be self-hosted online, installation instructions are at: 🌱 https://docs.cryptpad.org/en/admin_guide/installation.html It can also be self-hosted locally, instructions for local hosting are at: 🌱 https://docs.cryptpad.org/en/dev_guide...

• View post

  Are you into 3D printing, self-hosting and the Fediverse? If so you might want to look into Manyfold, a FOSS Fediverse platform which lets you upload and share 3D print models: 🌱 https://manyfold.app You can follow the official accounts at: 🌱 @manyfold@3dp.chat (main) 🌱 @manyfold@makertube.net (videos) You can host your own Manyfold server using the instructions at https://manyfold.app/get-started/installation (be warned though, installation does require a bit of tech skill). #3DPrinting #...

• View post

  "Homelabs" are where people set up and run their own physical servers at home. It's the most difficult way to self-host services, but also gives you total control over the server. If you've got a homelab or are interested, you can follow one (or both) of the homelab discussion groups: 🌱 !@homelab@fedigroups.social (in English) 🌱 !@homelab_de@fedigroups.social (in German) After you follow, the group's posts will start showing up in your timeline. You can post to a group...

• View post

  If you're running a public Mastodon server, it is really important to set aside running costs for three months. Leave this money in a separate account if possible, and do not touch it for as long as your server is running. This three month set-aside means you can guarantee your members three months warning if you ever decide to close the server, which is plenty of time to move accounts. This gives your server credibility both with existing members and potential new members. #MastoAdmin

• View post

  p.s. For anyone not familiar with Nextcloud, it's this really useful and easy to use free open source platform that lets you run your own cloud services totally under your ownership and control. It lets you replace things like Google Drive etc and has lots of add-ons to give it more services. Many businesses and public bodies use it when they're trying to de-Google or de-Microsoft, but it's also fine for individuals too. I did a beginner's guide about it a while ago at: https:/...

• View post

  If you want to set up several different online services but can't afford different domain names for them all, you can just use subdomains of one domain instead. They are limitless and cost nothing extra. e.g. You could have a Mastodon server at social.example.com, a PeerTube server at video.example.com, a Nextcloud server at cloud.example.com etc. Each subdomain can use totally different software and be on totally different hosting providers. #SelfHosting