If I gave you an account on this server, the first thing you should do is change your password. This is your one password for many services on this server including Nextcloud, email, and XMPP chat. You change it from the main portal page by clicking the 'Edit my Profile' link in the bottom left area of the portal.

You are responsible for maintaining your strong unique password to your private content and keeping it in your password manager. You can setup MFA (Multi factor Authentication) on some services such as Nextcloud.

If you lose or forget your password, I can reset it for you.

If you do not have a full account, you can use the services under the category available for everybody.

Private, secure, decentralized, valuable, and fun services

Some of the services provided here are available to anybody by word of month. Most of the services are available for friends and family for whom I have created an account. I also wrote some guides to help on topics.

Although these services have similar functionality to those provided by megatech corporations, they are fundamentally different. People are not products here. These services are 100% organic and free as in freedom. I provide everything at no cost to those I invite to use them. They are free of surveillance, advertising, blockchain, third party AI, and government or corporate access or influence. These services are generally more functional and better to them as well.

No Lock in

Big tech generally makes their services very convenient to adopt and use, but they make them very inconvenient to leave. This is their strategy to lock in or trap people. Try to leave them and learn for yourself.

None of the services here on Ravergram.club lock people in. I will show you how to setup your own services or move to somewhere you like better anytime.

Value

These services are invaluable to me. I should probably charge people money to use them. Because they are free to you, you might assume these services are of little value. If my friends and family do not use these services, I hope they are paying for better private and decentralized services.

Why am I providing these services?

I use all these services myself. I have a little more technical aptitude than most of my friends and family. What I get in return is the comfort of knowing that those I love are not being abused through surveillance, censorship, and other tricks.

I started hosting services to gain privacy for my friends and family from mass surveillance, but now my bigger motivation is freedom of speech which is critical for a semblance of functioning democracy.

I will document here what is available as it changes. Check back here when you are curious about a new service/tile that appears in Ravergram.club portal to understand how to use it. If it is not documented, it is likely still a work in progress. Tell me if you see an app or service you would like. If you want an account or other services, contact me.

This is what the decentralized internet managed by communities instead of governments and corporations looks like.

This is your quick guide to all functions available on this server. These are generally free of censorship and surveillance from governments and corporations. They generally have more functionality than the big tech similar apps.

Get all the news

Use FreshRSS.

Social Media

Use Mastodon or Lemmy (Similar to X and Reddit).

Save articles to read later or share

Use Readeck or Nextcloud Bookmarks. Archive full pages or sites with Archivebox.

Collect/watch/read/listen to media

Use Jellyfin and/or Nextcloud. Watch Youtube without ads and tracking.

Backup, sync, and share any files

Use Nextcloud, Cryptpad, or Send.

Office suite of productivity tools

Use Nextcloud, Cryptpad, Grist, or Ethercalc.

Calendar, appointments, address book, notes, forms, and polls

Use Nextcloud.

Track finances, expenses, health, location, maps, and tasks

Use Nextcloud.

Privately communicate

Use Simplex, XMPP, Talk, or Private Bin. More information.

Password Manager

Use Vaultwarden/Bitwarden or Nextcloud passwords. More information about credential management

Search and translate

Use Librex and translate.

Email

Use Nextcloud mail client with your existing email accounts. Contact me if you want a new private email account.

Mantain your own websites

Create pages or collectives in Nextcloud. Create a page of your links with Linkstack. Ask me to setup your own complete website.

Fun and Games

Create Memes.

Play Hextris.

All the software provided is FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) including the Yunohost hosting platform. If you like the services, you can donate to projects who develop and maintain the software. I don't want anything. It is a labor of love for me.

Although some of the services are available for anyone to use, some are only available to those with an account. I have invited only a small number of people to use all the services. I will help you setup your own server if you want to do that for your community.

If people abuse the services, I may close their accounts. If someone never logs on, I will eventually close or delete the account. 

General Requests

You can store and share just about anything in Nextcloud. The big internet companies(Google, MS, Meta, Apple..) act as gatekeepers and will often scan links that end up on their servers. They can be hostile to independent self hosters like us. They often scare people by telling them the link is unsafe or even ban our domain completely from their services. Please be a little careful when sharing to prevent this from screwing all of us on the server by following these recommendations:

• Avoid posting share links directly on censorious big tech platforms such as Youtube comments, Facebook posts.. if the content is disfavored by those companies or the government.

• If you share links over email, encrypt your email or use something like https://burnernote.com/ or https://ravergram.club/bin.

• SMS is also monitored and censored. Encrypted messages on Simplex, Talk, XMPP, Matrix, and Signal avoid this scanning and are private.

I keep these services secure and running well because I heavily rely on them. I would be the most impacted if anything broke down.

I have a hybrid setup with most services running out of my house and some hosted on a VPS (virtual Private Server) at Hetzner. This rarely happens, but if power or internet goes down at the house, services running from my house will be offline during such time. Sometimes I need to do maintenance and reboot the server which can cause a brief outage.

I have a 3/2/1 backup strategy done nightly. I also have an extra backup server and hard drives available if any hardware fails. Although unlikely, if some disaster happens to the house or me, services could be offline indefinitely. I recommend that you have local backup of any critical data you need. For example, if you use Nextcloud, sync files to your PC or handset with the Nextcloud app.

Unlike corporate platforms, these services are free and do not lock you in. With the inbuilt tools, you can rather easily migrate most accounts and data to another instance if/when desired. The steps are different depending on the service, and I will help you.

I cannot guarantee all of these services will be maintained forever but neither can corporations promise the same. https://killedbygoogle.com/ In my experience, these free projects running on our server are more durable.

Everybody in the US needs to understand the simple third party doctrine, and how the government collects dirt on you (video) from big tech companies and data brokers. The evidence is clear, and no laws will probably ever meaningfully protect you. We are on our own. You were warned. ;) 

I provide these services to those I care most about. I will never willingly share or sell any data on this server, and it will be extremely difficult to force me to do otherwise.

You are not a product here. Ravergram services are free of surveillance, advertising, and blockchain. There is no GACC (Government, AI, Corporate Control).

As with any services you use on any server that you do not control, you must trust the system administrator. Any system administrator can reset passwords, delete accounts, and monitor much. Data you have on Ravergram can only be accessed by you and potentially the server administrator(me). Data you put on a corporate server can and generally is collected by that corporation and the government and shared with data brokers. The business model of many big internet companies is based on harvesting, refining and selling data for profit, manipulation, and control.

I have no interest, time, or value in monitoring your activity. Most of the data is encrypted on Ravergram. I would feel like a horrible person and couldn't live with myself if I did anything like that. I will do what is needed to keep services running well and your data protected and private. When using these services, you trust me rather than for profit mega corporations and tyrannical governments.

I can help you with security and privacy on the internet and IRL (In Real Life) if you ask me anything. These guides can also help you:

https://security-list.js.org/#/

https://privacy.do/

https://www.privacytools.io/