I understand that people enter the world of self hosting for various reasons. I am trying to dip my toes in this ocean to try and get away from privacy-offending centralised services such as Google, Cloudflare, AWS, etc.

As I spend more time here, I realise that it is practically impossible; especially for a newcomer, to setup any any usable self hosted web service without relying on these corporate behemoths.

I wanted to have my own little static website and alongside that run Immich, but I find that without Cloudflare, Google, and AWS, I run the risk of getting DDOSed or hacked. Also, since the physical server will be hosted at my home (to avoid AWS), there is a serious risk of infecting all devices at home as well (currently reading about VLANS to avoid this).

Am I correct in thinking that avoiding these corporations is impossible (and make peace with this situation), or are there ways to circumvent these giants and still have a good experience self hosting and using web services, even as a newcomer (all without draining my pockets too much)?

Edit: I was working on a lot of misconceptions and still have a lot of learn. Thank you all for your answers.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•6 months ago

    I’m positive that F5’s marketing department knows more than me about security and has not ulterior motive in making you think you’re more secure.

    Snark aside, they may do some sort of WAF in addition to being a proxy. Just “adding a proxy” does very little.

    • mad_asshatterEnglish
      0•6 months ago

      So, you’ve gone from:

      reverse proxies don’t add security

      to:

      “adding a proxy” does very little

      What’s next?

      Give up. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.