Elena Rossini<p><a href="https://elenarossini.com/2025/07/my-adventures-in-self-hosting-day-210-viva-foss/" class="" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://elenarossini.com/2025/07/my-adventures-in-self-hosting-day-210-viva-foss/</a></p><p>There has never been a better time to join the world of Free Open Source Software or begin self-hosting essential digital services.</p><p>Some recent news that made me feel grateful for my forays into self-hosting:</p><ol><li>The software <a href="https://getpocket.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Pocket</a>, which made it easy to save, organize and read later articles in a really elegant interface shuts down this year. Another fantastic app/service to add to <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Mozilla</a>‘s <a href="https://www.spacebar.news/the-mozilla-graveyard/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">graveyard</a>. Looking at <a href="https://yunohost.org/#apps" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">YunoHost</a>‘s app catalog, I noticed several superb alternatives to Pocket that are free, open source, and can be self-hosted, so I am thinking: never again will I give that power to an outside company. Cherry on top: the Pocket archive I requested the other day landed in my email… and the file contains an error, so I cannot download it (expired token even if it didn’t pass the 72 hour threshold they set). I look forward to self-hosting my next “save and read later” bookmark service.</li><li>The file sharing company WeTransfer was in the news this morning because they recently updated their terms of service, with alarming language, telling users: “<em>You hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable license to use your Content for the purposes of operating, developing, commercializing, and improving the Service or new technologies or services. Such license includes the right to reproduce, distribute, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, broadcast, communicate to the public, publicly display, and perform Content. You will not be entitled to compensation for any use of Content by us under these terms.</em>” News about this spread like wildfire with people saying this language implies content shared via WeTransfer would be used to train AI models. Now, why is this a big deal you may wonder? In my filmmaking / film editing days I would use WeTransfer DAILY to share cuts of my projects. WeTransfer is THE file sharing app for most creatives and film professionals. I used it extensively in May and June to share versions of the <a href="https://news.elenarossini.com/fediverse-video/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Fediverse promo video</a> with my interns. Well, even if <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8mp79gyz1o" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">WeTransfer backtracks</a> following the backlash, I would never again consider using it. It’s a happy coincidence that last month I set up my own <a href="https://nextcloud.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">NextCloud</a> instance and I plan on using it to share files from now on. Excellent timing.</li><li>Tangentially-related, but <a href="https://www.engadget.com/social-media/threads-users-still-barely-click-links-170139103.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">an article in Engadget today revealed that users of the microblogging platform Threads rarely click on external links</a>. The numbers are pretty shocking: 28 million referral links in 30 days for a platform with allegedly 350 million monthly active users. This is precisely why I love the Fediverse: external links are never downranked because there are no algorithms. Writers and content creators have far higher engagement with their audience because of chronological feeds and more genuine relationships.</li></ol><p>On my to do list for the fall: looking into taking full advantage of <a href="https://nextcloud.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">NextCloud</a>‘s ecosystem because this software is incredibly sophisticated… the FOSS equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.</p><p>For those curious about it, here is their official website with documentation: <a href="https://nextcloud.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://nextcloud.com</a></p><p>Onwards and upwards!</p><p>Elena</p><p></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/big-tech/" target="_blank">#BigTech</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/fediverse/" target="_blank">#fediverse</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/foss/" target="_blank">#foss</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/free-open-source-software/" target="_blank">#freeOpenSourceSoftware</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/meta/" target="_blank">#Meta</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/micro/" target="_blank">#micro</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/my-so-called-sudo-life/" target="_blank">#mySoCalledSudoLife</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/nextcloud/" target="_blank">#NextCloud</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/pocket/" target="_blank">#Pocket</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/self-hosting/" target="_blank">#selfHosting</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/threads/" target="_blank">#Threads</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/walled-gardens/" target="_blank">#walledGardens</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/wetransfer/" target="_blank">#WeTransfer</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://elenarossini.com/tag/yunohost/" target="_blank">#yunohost</a></p>