this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
395 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
85095 readers
5987 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Highly recommend people leave Google services. Use Ente to store photos. Proton for email. DuckDuckGo or Ecosia for search. Organic Maps for directions. FreeTube or yewtu.be for videos. Venice AI as your advanced chatbot. Google needs to be broken up and regulated.
Never heard of Venice AI, asked it what it does different, one of the things it said was:
Fuck that shit
That was just one example. There are many more. Like Minstral’s Le Chat or Proton’s Lumo. It’s not about how it responds per se, more about it being more private than Gemini.
Yes, but sounds like it has a fascist bias, so it's a no go for me
Other options:
Depends on what you mean by non-tech savvy. Also depends on what you mean by cloud.
So, the simplest way to get something close to the dropbox experience is to use syncthing. Install it like you would any other program, and set it up (lots of videos and tutorials out there if you get stuck) this will then copy the folders you specify to all your connected devices. The problem is if you don't regularly have all your devices powered on and connected to the network at the same time then your best option is to have one machine left in a closet powered on and connected at all times so everything syncs smoothly and seamlessly.
Doing that you get a cloud of sorts without having to deal with servers in a traditional sense. It also requires no knowledge other than fairly basic computer skills.
This is cool and all, but it's limited to file sharing, to get more advanced features you need to start learning servers.
However, there have been several projects in the last few years to make having a personal cloud easier. In no particular order: Zima OS, Open Media Vault, Hex OS, Synology OS, Casa OS, True Nas Scale, Unraid. These are all operating systems you need to install on a spare computer and leave it on all the time, but they create a website at their IP you can visit that has something like an app store where you can just add services. There are lots of videos and articles about these to help you get started.
P. S. If you do start setting up a real server everything on it can be accessed at home without much issue, but to get it available when you aren't at home will require you to learn a bit about networking, and probably require you to get a domain name.
P.P.S. This whole system is easy enough for beginners to get started but becomes a deep pool of gotchas pretty quickly, be ready to learn there isn't a good just plug and play solution currently, one problem at a time you'll get there eventually. I have been mulling ways to make this whole thing easier for some time, eventually I suspect either myself or someone else will probably create a more plug and play project for home servers, but it's still the perview of tinkerers for now, and likely will be for at least the next 5 years.
And, importantly, to learn about network security.
As soon as you open a hole in your home's firewall and/or NAT there is the potential for a bad actor to enter through that hole, if you haven't properly fortified it.
Couple of recommended changes if you are self hosting:
I'm slowly working on getting away from Google, but unfortunately, Organic Maps doesn't offer public transit directions/schedules in my region, and since I don't have a car, that's like 80% of what I use Google Maps for.
Check out the apps from your local public transit authority. In my region what Google offers in regard to public transit is utter trash and the "official" apps are having the correct shedule
Check if CoMaps can work for you in your city. If you want a closed source app: Transit is amazing for bus and subway live arrival times
It is based on data from the Open Street Map project.
If nobody in your area has added that information, it won't be there.
The good news is, anyone (including you) can add that information and provide a public service to the people of your area.
Coming from someone also without a car - KDE Itinerary is the best thing I've used for that purpose yet, and it's free and open source too. Perhaps it'll fulfill your use case too?
never heard of Organic Maps. It’s better than CoMaps?
CoMaps is the less suspicious fork. Organic was made by two shady dudes from Russia and Belarus.
i never had gmail or used google search. but i dont save my info on anyone else's server anymore. i use nextcloud hosted on my server, i use immich for my photos. calibre server for my books. everything is mine
OsmAnd+ for mobile maps
Youre not wrong at all but I've found people won't deal with the slightest inconvenience. Quite sad.