Invidious likely isn't profiling you. If it worries you that much, you can stand up your own instance. It seems like a fun project.
That said, you absolutely don't need to justify your desire for privacy here. I totally understand you. I've kind of landed on a "best effort" approach where I just try not to break shit but use as much privacy focuses stuff I can and check if my browser has a randomized fingerprint on EFF's coveryourtracks.eff.org/, which you should visit. I use Helium and a small number of addons and that's it.
Here's the bottom line. You're not going to be able to disappear on the internet without a massive and cumbersome effort which is not worth it relative to what I am gathering about your threat model. The very first thing you should do when considering privacy is 1. What you want to keep private and 2. Who you are trying to keep it private from. At the end of the day, you sound like me. I want to keep my browsing history and as much of my personal information as private as possible from data brokers, advertisers and my ISP. For that you need a layered approach. 1, VPN with no logs like mullvad. 2, Encrypted or at the very least recursive DNS resolver. 3, A somewhat randomized browser fingerprint. The last one is tricky because it's actually just impossible. You can use stock librewolf to share your fingerprint with other users but imo that doesn't work for my use case, as there are some pretty radical changes to the way I would have to use the internet, so I use Helium, which uses fingerprint farbling, and call it a day.
In the end, that works for me. It's important to remember privacy is a spectrum. There is no such thing as total anonymity, everything you do to make yourself more private is productive and helpful. It's about assessing your threat model and taking the correct steps, not trying to become a ghost, because that will drive you nuts and your internet browsing experience will be so degraded you might as well not even use it in the first place.
I started both around the same time. I switched careers from being a chef at a pretty high level. Started getting into systems and got engrossed in it. So the selfhosting was just an aspect of my education.
In the words of that one guy from Casino: Why take a chance? A VPS is peace of mind for a cup of coffee a month. I like to be sure the things I need to keep safe have as many opportunities to remain that way as possible.
You should not host anything that's going to be public facing on your home network in 2026, period. Get a cheap German VPS and go nuts with it. There's simply too much at stake opening up your home router/firewall for such little gain. Plus, being a residential IP behind NAT might just make it straight up impossible.
I host my own email and a matrix server. I would never think of exposing my home network to the internet. I use tailscale to get into the homelab, anything exposed to the net lives somewhere far, far away.
I use netcup for my email and matrix. It's extremely reasonable.
All it will take is for the reverse uno card to be implemented at a large enough scale against proprietary software before companies throw a pissy fit and this will all go away. Alternatively GPL could stipulate that AI implementation would trigger copyleft protections.
This whole thing is stupid and in such bad faith. Maliciously clean room engineering open source software just to get around pesky licensing issues will cause so many more problems for these morons that already leech off the hard work of open source devs anyways. They literally have a steady stream of free software and all they have to do is NOT steal it. That's it. Just don't be a fucking evil goon, that's the only stipulation. They're shooting themselves in the foot so hard.
But no, having free access to the hard work of others isn't enough, they have to hoard it for themselves, like everything else in this deeply rotten civilization.
Check out pi pico and hardware/microprocessor programming. I found it easier to wrap my head around certain concepts when I had a practical application for them right in front of me.
Thanks for taking the time to share that with me. I am no Zionist. However, I do pose the question, because of Red Hat's stewardship of Fedora, do you believe that makes Fedora morally compromised? Because Red Hat develops systemd, does that mean all Linux distros that use it are thusly compromised as well? ARPANET, the technology that the modern internet stems from, was developed directly by the US Deprtment of Defense. Can a leftist then morally use the internet? I don't mean this as a sarcastic strawman but as a genuine question in good faith. I myself don't have an answer, probably a bit yes and a bit no. I will point out the distinction that while Fedora doesn't have control of what Red Hat does or does not to, it does have direct control over whether or not to implement these age verification laws in question.
What about a distro like Universal Blue, which is directly downstream of Fedora but not affiliated with it organizationally? Where do we draw the line between consent and simple happenstance? Everything is connected to a Nazi, a Zionist or colonialism if you dig deep enough, we live in capitalist hell-world, it's the foundation of our very society. Consent is implied an in many cases, unavoidable.
That being said you have given me quite a bit to think about and if anything have solidified my decision to move away from Fedora. I hope you don't interpret my response as adversarial in any way like others who have responded to my post. Cheers
The issue that seems insurmountable to me is that convenience will always be the path of least resistance to the great majority of users because they DO treat web usage as consumption, because they themselves are economic units that have been trained in their economic conditions to be consumers.
To 90% of users instagram might as well be magic. The tech doesn’t matter. Authentication, identity, security, these things are MEANINGLESS to the average user. They see security as something that’s burdensome and forced upon them my their IT department, and that actually materially affects their real lives in a big way. Open internet? They couldn’t be bothered.
Until open web or fediverse or whatever can be as absolutely frictionless as signing up for instagram, they won’t use it. They already have complicated lives, they aren’t going to give a fuck about “stewardship” of the web.
Care to backup your claim? I’m not familiar with that bit.
As far as I’m aware, fedora is a public project and not a org that is “owned” by anyone. You’ve got to do a great bit of mental gymnastics to arrive at your conclusion just to try and make me feel stupid. Why?
Also don’t act like there aren’t serious implications of imposing age checks in supposedly free libre software. Libre software should be a fundamental human right. You can believe in that and also that military interventionism is also bad.
You can conflate my point of view all you want, but let’s dial back the cutesy sarcasm. Thanks.
Some of the dumbest people I know are 25
This is 100% percent written by an LLM.
Going back to school at 30 was the best decision i ever made ngl
Invidious likely isn't profiling you. If it worries you that much, you can stand up your own instance. It seems like a fun project.
That said, you absolutely don't need to justify your desire for privacy here. I totally understand you. I've kind of landed on a "best effort" approach where I just try not to break shit but use as much privacy focuses stuff I can and check if my browser has a randomized fingerprint on EFF's coveryourtracks.eff.org/, which you should visit. I use Helium and a small number of addons and that's it.
Here's the bottom line. You're not going to be able to disappear on the internet without a massive and cumbersome effort which is not worth it relative to what I am gathering about your threat model. The very first thing you should do when considering privacy is 1. What you want to keep private and 2. Who you are trying to keep it private from. At the end of the day, you sound like me. I want to keep my browsing history and as much of my personal information as private as possible from data brokers, advertisers and my ISP. For that you need a layered approach. 1, VPN with no logs like mullvad. 2, Encrypted or at the very least recursive DNS resolver. 3, A somewhat randomized browser fingerprint. The last one is tricky because it's actually just impossible. You can use stock librewolf to share your fingerprint with other users but imo that doesn't work for my use case, as there are some pretty radical changes to the way I would have to use the internet, so I use Helium, which uses fingerprint farbling, and call it a day.
In the end, that works for me. It's important to remember privacy is a spectrum. There is no such thing as total anonymity, everything you do to make yourself more private is productive and helpful. It's about assessing your threat model and taking the correct steps, not trying to become a ghost, because that will drive you nuts and your internet browsing experience will be so degraded you might as well not even use it in the first place.
Legitimately soooooo funny lmao hes such a fucking catty removed all he wants is his ballroom 💅
I started both around the same time. I switched careers from being a chef at a pretty high level. Started getting into systems and got engrossed in it. So the selfhosting was just an aspect of my education.
I'm glad that works for you.
Real cool stuff happening in the Burger Reich
In the words of that one guy from Casino: Why take a chance? A VPS is peace of mind for a cup of coffee a month. I like to be sure the things I need to keep safe have as many opportunities to remain that way as possible.
You should not host anything that's going to be public facing on your home network in 2026, period. Get a cheap German VPS and go nuts with it. There's simply too much at stake opening up your home router/firewall for such little gain. Plus, being a residential IP behind NAT might just make it straight up impossible.
I host my own email and a matrix server. I would never think of exposing my home network to the internet. I use tailscale to get into the homelab, anything exposed to the net lives somewhere far, far away.
I use netcup for my email and matrix. It's extremely reasonable.
This just in: Google sucks
more at 8
All it will take is for the reverse uno card to be implemented at a large enough scale against proprietary software before companies throw a pissy fit and this will all go away. Alternatively GPL could stipulate that AI implementation would trigger copyleft protections.
This whole thing is stupid and in such bad faith. Maliciously clean room engineering open source software just to get around pesky licensing issues will cause so many more problems for these morons that already leech off the hard work of open source devs anyways. They literally have a steady stream of free software and all they have to do is NOT steal it. That's it. Just don't be a fucking evil goon, that's the only stipulation. They're shooting themselves in the foot so hard.
But no, having free access to the hard work of others isn't enough, they have to hoard it for themselves, like everything else in this deeply rotten civilization.
Check out pi pico and hardware/microprocessor programming. I found it easier to wrap my head around certain concepts when I had a practical application for them right in front of me.
I’d be so mad if the last thing I saw before plummeting to my fiery death was that stupid smug little sad face and a BSOD
This country is such fucking ass, I’m sure they’ll privatize it and find some way to ENSHITTIFY NATURE
Abolish Facebook
They will nuke your account after 14-30 days if you don't comply.
Thanks for taking the time to share that with me. I am no Zionist. However, I do pose the question, because of Red Hat's stewardship of Fedora, do you believe that makes Fedora morally compromised? Because Red Hat develops systemd, does that mean all Linux distros that use it are thusly compromised as well? ARPANET, the technology that the modern internet stems from, was developed directly by the US Deprtment of Defense. Can a leftist then morally use the internet? I don't mean this as a sarcastic strawman but as a genuine question in good faith. I myself don't have an answer, probably a bit yes and a bit no. I will point out the distinction that while Fedora doesn't have control of what Red Hat does or does not to, it does have direct control over whether or not to implement these age verification laws in question.
What about a distro like Universal Blue, which is directly downstream of Fedora but not affiliated with it organizationally? Where do we draw the line between consent and simple happenstance? Everything is connected to a Nazi, a Zionist or colonialism if you dig deep enough, we live in capitalist hell-world, it's the foundation of our very society. Consent is implied an in many cases, unavoidable.
That being said you have given me quite a bit to think about and if anything have solidified my decision to move away from Fedora. I hope you don't interpret my response as adversarial in any way like others who have responded to my post. Cheers
The issue that seems insurmountable to me is that convenience will always be the path of least resistance to the great majority of users because they DO treat web usage as consumption, because they themselves are economic units that have been trained in their economic conditions to be consumers.
To 90% of users instagram might as well be magic. The tech doesn’t matter. Authentication, identity, security, these things are MEANINGLESS to the average user. They see security as something that’s burdensome and forced upon them my their IT department, and that actually materially affects their real lives in a big way. Open internet? They couldn’t be bothered.
Until open web or fediverse or whatever can be as absolutely frictionless as signing up for instagram, they won’t use it. They already have complicated lives, they aren’t going to give a fuck about “stewardship” of the web.
Care to backup your claim? I’m not familiar with that bit.
As far as I’m aware, fedora is a public project and not a org that is “owned” by anyone. You’ve got to do a great bit of mental gymnastics to arrive at your conclusion just to try and make me feel stupid. Why?
Also don’t act like there aren’t serious implications of imposing age checks in supposedly free libre software. Libre software should be a fundamental human right. You can believe in that and also that military interventionism is also bad.
You can conflate my point of view all you want, but let’s dial back the cutesy sarcasm. Thanks.