Self-host a file converter with HRConvert2
Run HRConvert2 on your own VPS so client files never touch a free converter site. Docker or Apache install, bubblewrap sandboxing, upload limits and cleanup.
#privacy
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Claude Personal Finance: what it can see
Thinking of linking a bank to Claude? See what Personal Finance can read, what it cannot, and which figures stay in chats and artifacts after you unlink.
Public SearXNG instances: how to choose one
How to read searx.space before you pick a public SearXNG instance: what each grade measures, and the one thing about the operator no grade can show you.
Ads in ChatGPT: Which Plans Show Them
ChatGPT shows ads on Free and Go, not on Plus or above. Where ads appear, what advertisers receive, which settings you control, and the cheapest way out.
Does Codex Train on Your Code?
OpenAI's training rules for Codex change with how you sign in. See which terms apply to you, and the second setting that the ChatGPT toggle does not change.
Self-hosted location tracking apps compared
Traccar, OwnTracks, Dawarich or Home Assistant: pick the self-hosted location tracker that fits, and keep the ingest endpoint off the open internet.
Is Tailscale a Canadian company?
Yes, Tailscale Inc. is a Canadian corporation registered in Toronto. But new accounts contract with a US entity, and its control plane runs on AWS.
Client data in Claude: which plan?
Client data in Claude needs the plan with the paperwork. Compare Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise on training defaults, the DPA and admin control.
Opt out of AI training in robots.txt
Ask AI crawlers not to train on your site with the __usage_ai-training robots.txt group while staying in search. Opting out can cost you Gemini answers.
What is private DNS, and how to run your own
Private DNS encrypts Android's DNS lookups over TLS or HTTP/3. What it hides from your network, and how to run your own resolver on a VPS with Unbound.
Does Claude Train on Your Code?
Anthropic trains on consumer code with model improvement on. Flagged or feedback sessions may also be used. Check session terms and local storage.
Self-host Hister: your personal search engine
Run Hister on a VPS to search the full text of pages you visited and files you keep: binary and Docker installs, TLS, a login, and the MCP endpoint.
SearXNG vs Startpage vs DuckDuckGo vs Qwant
What each private search engine does with your query: index source, where it runs, what its privacy page says, and what breaks when you run SearXNG yourself.
Self-hosted budgeting apps compared
Which self hosted budgeting apps pull bank transactions automatically, which need manual import, and how Actual, Firefly III, Fava and Wallos compare.
Is AdGuard a Russian company?
AdGuard began in Moscow in 2009 and is now registered in Cyprus. Here is what critics allege, and what its DNS service keeps about your queries.
A history of Tor: onion routing to today
Tor began as onion routing research inside a US Navy lab in 1995. Here are the dated milestones, and a straight answer on who funds the network.
Ollama Cloud vs your own server: what changes
Ollama Cloud and a self-hosted Ollama share one CLI and one API. See exactly which settings change, and what leaves your machine on each path.
Is SearXNG safe? What it actually hides
SearXNG swaps your IP for your server's IP at the search engines. Who really sees your queries on a public instance and on your own VPS, and where it stops.
Searx vs SearXNG: is Searx dead?
Searx has taken no code commit since 2023 and SearXNG carries the project now. Check the status yourself, then see what changed for a new instance.
Degoog vs SearXNG: which should you self-host?
Running SearXNG and eyeing Degoog 1.1.0? Compare maturity, engines, rate limits and the extension risk, and find out if the SearXNG API shim really works.
Use your VPS as a Tailscale exit node
Turn your VPS into a Tailscale exit node: install, advertise, enable IP forwarding, approve the route in the admin console, then fix DNS and IPv6.
Erase a user's data from agent memory
A deletion request touches more than one table. Find every copy of a user's data in a self-hosted agent memory stack, delete it, and prove it is gone.
Self-host OpenAnalytics on a VPS
The real footprint before you start: ClickHouse, Postgres, Valkey, 4 GB RAM, 25 GB free and four DNS records. Then the install, and what fills the disk.
Compartment: offline encrypted agent memory
Compartment keeps agent memory encrypted on your own machine, fully offline. What that threat model really covers, and what happens if you lose the key.
Data residency for a Canadian VPS
Where your bytes sit, whose law can reach them, and what Canadian privacy rules actually require of a VPS. Plus how to verify a location for yourself.
Is Tailscale a VPN? What it hides and doesn't
Tailscale is a WireGuard VPN between your own devices. Websites see your real IP until you add an exit node, and your ISP always does. What each setup hides.
Route your VPS traffic through Tor
Install the tor daemon on a VPS, then send one process or one container through its local SOCKS proxy. Know what that hides and what it does not.
Coding agent telemetry: what gets sent
Four kinds of traffic leave a coding agent, and only one is unavoidable. Audit any agent from the machine itself, then cut the traffic you did not agree to.
Run a Tor relay on your VPS
Set up a guard or middle Tor relay on a Linux VPS: torrc, bandwidth accounting that protects a metered plan, nyx monitoring, and the slow consensus ramp.
Self-host a SimpleX chat server on a VPS
Run your own SimpleX SMP relay on a VPS: pinned install, the fingerprint clients need, ports, an unprivileged service user, backups, TLS, and its threat model.
What Claude Code writes into your commits
Claude Code adds a Co-authored-by trailer to commits, and cloud sessions add a claude.ai link. Read what is there, then control it before you push.
Tor vs a VPN: which do you need?
Tor and a VPN answer different questions. See exactly who learns what at every hop, and why a VPS rented in your name is not an anonymity tool.
Host an .onion site on your VPS
Run a v3 onion service on Ubuntu with tor and nginx bound to loopback, then close the leaks that link the address back to your public IP.
Should private DNS mode be on or off?
Private DNS mode should be on, set to a hostname you chose. Here is what the toggle does, when it breaks wifi logins or internal names, and how to tell.
Self-host SearXNG: your own private search
Run SearXNG on your own VPS with Docker Compose: settings.yml, the limiter, nginx with TLS, and a JSON search API your own scripts can call.
Self-hosted web analytics: the VPS options
Plausible, Umami, Matomo, GoatCounter and GoAccess on a small VPS: RAM, database choice, disk growth, reverse proxy setup and the ad blocker gap.
Tor Browser vs Tails vs Whonix
Tor Browser, Tails and Whonix isolate different things. Work out which one your threat model actually needs, and what each one cannot protect.
Add an Onion-Location header to your site
Publish an Onion-Location header in nginx so Tor Browser offers your onion address, then close the leaks that undo it: redirects and third-party assets.