A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.
Resources:
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
wait what how am I hearing about this Firefox docker for the first time. Got a kink to the dockerhub?
Hopefully this will work remotely on a smartphone because I’m looking for all ways to defeat FB messenger and access it through a desktop browser which they enforce. Thanks for sharing
Got a kink to the dockerhub?
I confess! Docker is my kink! /s
You know you can just request the desktop site on FB messenger and use it on your phone that way right?
https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-view-desktop-version-of-any-site-on-mobile/
In your mobile browser, instead of m[dot]facebook[dot]com, try mbasic[dot]facebook[dot]com.
Very no frills FB for mobile, that lets you access Messenger. It looks like arse, but it beats using their spyware.
messenger on mbasic used to work for me for years on my mobile browser but then they stopped that a few months ago for me (redirects to ‘get messenger’ splash). . Can anyone confirm mbasic messenger still works on mobile?
I'm still using it via mbasic. It looks like shit, but I can get to my messages and reply, etc.
It's a little laggy and not mobile optimized, so it wouldn't be the vest choice for a smartphone
So it's the use of a browser within a browser? Is it any different than just using Firefox containers (they are AWESOME!!!) and a VPN add-on?
Yeah is a browser within a browser. I would say that it's definitely more secure and you can just close the window and continue exactly where you left off. Also if you have multiple devices that's a pretty cool feature.
I've been using it for a few years. Really handy way if avoiding cooperate firewall rules.
How do you use ChatGPT anonymously? It requires a valid login linked to a payment method. It doesn’t get any less anonymous than that.
I don't pay - I can use 4 for a little bit then it returns to 3.5 and after like an hour I can use 4 again. And I signed up with a rrlayued proton email
Ah got it. I didn’t know there was a free tier!
Firefox dockers are amazing. I have one running on my home network. I use it to access my router settings when I am away from home.
But you can just do that with a normal VPN? What's the advantage doing it like this?
That's a pretty good use case with the router - I'm gonna try that
I just setup kasm workspaces and it’s been awesome for anonymously using a web browser.
Does kasm only work in docker containers like the Firefox container I'm using ? Or is it like a mini VM?
I'm curious what the host machine for the Docker container is? Is it a headless server or something with a desktop/window manager?
Been looking to set up the Obsidian Docker container but I presently only run headless, so it sounds like a headache.
Most of these containers don't require any thing attached to the host - it can work headless. They are docker (just normal Linux inside) containers which are running processes such as Firefox and usually run something like KasmVNC giving fast, responsive (if using high bandwidth settings) remote desktop into the containers which runs the Firefox browser on a lightweight virtual desktop with a virtual display. I'd recommend looking into the concept from linuxserver.io's Webtop container to understand the concept (and how cool they are!) In your case with obsidian they pretty much run a container and pass a bind mount for a Vault. This isn't synced by default with anything but you could use Syncthing on the host to sync your vault from other devices or use Obsidian Sync.
Thanks for the reply. I've tried both Firefox and Obsidian containers from Linuxserver.io before, but when connecting I found there was no output. It made me wonder what was missing (like X11 or Wayland installed on the host) for an output to be generated.
My server is not headless (I installed GNOME) but runs without a screen connected. and the Firefox container does run kasmvnc.
I just use my own custom built docker images and have a few aliases set up for different "instances", e.g. one for banking, one for tis eshop, one for that eshop, etc. Each with its own firefox data dir and own downloads subfolder. Plus an alias to launch a temporary clean instance that gets discarded after it exits.
That sound pretty cool - do these separate containers exit through the same network ? Or do you have like separate vpns?
All through the same network, I'm afraid. I haven't felt the need to separate it like that, although it should be doable using docker networks, or maybe on even lower level, via Linux network namespaces.