Yeah I’m finding the clients hard to navigate. I can do it for myself, but to recommend to people, I’m unable to decide which to pick.

Edit: What did you mean by can’t recommend the switch?

Thank you! Also, what do you use for messaging?

As the other person who responded to you mentioned, things can get bad. At some level, trust is always going to be a factor with these things.

1. Matrix.org is still the most popular server - if I just tell people to download Element, they’re going to pick matrix.org. Automatically, this builds a sort of lock in with the “default instance”. Even if I host my own server, that’s not something I can recommedn to everyone, nor do I have the resources to make it a public server.

2. Already there’s trouble with hosting your own Matrix server due to how heavy the software is apparently. This coupled with point 1, things concentrating into the hands of the foundation is not a good thing.

3. Following from that, for example, what if they suddenly decide there’s too many people with “radical” ideologies that are against their masters, the imperial powers? They have metadata (even if not content, because encryption) through the public servers they host that they can use to surveil.

The issue is not just that it’s built by people with poor ideological rigour. It’s that it’s both a fragile structure that depends on trust and the people we’re trusting have poor ideological rigour. That seems like a bad combo to me.

Imagine if they just wrote and worked on the protocol. That’s it. No official apps, no official public servers. Then I wouldn’t care coz it doesn’t matter. People can check the protocol for suspicious stuff but that’s it. Nothing else is in these organizations’ control.

Yeah as soon as I read the sanctions bit I knew they must be using some shitty Cold War list from somewhere.

Which company involved is Israeli? That’s the first I’m hearing of that.

Edited to correct typo

I’m concerned about the software again playing into capitalist, imperialist spirals like we’ve seen with everything else so far. I am also concerned about supporting such an organization/company by doing “marketing” for them through my circles. The whole reason I started this was as part of the BDS movement and it doesn’t make sense to just jump from one highly problematic ecosystem to another.

And if you’re okay with “lesser evils”, sure. I’m not. I believe continually choosing lesser evils instead of building good things is why we’re in this mess in the first place.

Thank you! That’s pretty reassuring.

Thank you so much for the detailed response! I might be able to stretch out to 4GB RAM on the Pi

I’ve been finding it a bit difficult to understand the hardware part of things. For example, the hubzilla FAQ you shared says 512M and not MB. Does that not refer to RAM?

And I’ve also not been able to find any guides about the “levels” in hardware. If not the Pi, then what? How do I decide? How do I explore?

Thank you. That does sound annoying but .com is both boring and more expensive.

Ohh, I maybe should clarify. I don’t intend to use my own server. I have a provider - disroot.

Thank you! Also, if I want different domains for different Hubzilla accounts within the same server, would that be possible? Like the server itself is a.hub, but an account in the hub wants to use b. space as it’s domain, like [email protected], would I be able to allow that?

Yeah I am not going to host my own email. I have a provider who I’m going to ask to attach the custom domain. Only the WordPress/Hubzilla instance I might host on my own.

Great! As a follow up question, for example I want to let a friend use my hubzilla server to host their hub. Can I “allow” them to bring their own domain name and let them use it?

Edit to add one more question: Is there a restriction on what top level domain can be used for what purpose (fedi, email, website) or anything goes?

Sort of. I feel like I need to know my own priorities better because I’m not sure what I want wrt hosting. Because of general trust and privacy issues, of course self-hosting (at home) is the ultimate best option, but I think that might only be a long term thing and I can’t do it now. So I’m wondering what to prioritize right now - cost, reputation, or simplicity - because I’ve found quite a few options that differ in these aspects.

Writefreely is simple and can be free, but I can’t find very many public instances and have no way of verifying reputation.

Similarly, wordpress.com has been under fire for a lot of things and I’m not sure how I feel about hosting with them &- free or otherwise.

Everything else like random VPS providers feels like a gamble because I know nothing about them and it seems like a black box. And obviously, cost increases for what is essentially going to be a bunch of writings from one person.

WriteFreely looks pretty good!

Would you recommend WordPress as a hosting service? I’m not able to understand the structure of it all to figure out if it:'s ethical and what with the recent fights with WP Engine and stuff, I’m unsure how it all actually works.

They are not mutually exclusive. Privacy is one of the most political issues out there because every fascist/billionare wants control and control requires surveillance. I have not completely given up on Proton because of one man’s statements, but it’s not looking good.

Those statements from the CEO suggest one of two things - naiveté (to think either US party cares about the “little guy” or about privacy and freedom) or cowardice (just sucking up to Trump like every other CEO right now). Neither of which is good for privacy or freedom because to achieve either, you need both awareness and a spine to stand up against this shit.

And the fact that no one else from the company or their board or foundation has bothered to jump in and take action means either they’re on board with his statements or too powerless, which again, doesn’t spell good things.

Look up LinuxRulez. They make repacks for linux that have script installers. Older stuff might not be seeded though