Hey folks, over the past years I changed all my stuff step by step from big tech to open source and europe alternatives. I came from Google Workspace to iCloud with advanced protection to Proton to kSuite. (I left Proton cause of the lack of webdav, caldav, carddav)
I did this with all my stuff. From Instagram, X, Facebook, to Fediverse. And I like it.
Now I heard that Swiss is planning to add laws which are able to identify me, even as a German, and have all the rights to read my drive stuff if they want to. It’s not possible for me to trust them anymore.
So they choice is really thin out there. I could host my own NextCloud instance, and I did A LOT of times on my webspace and every time an updates comes, it brakes and I loose all my stuff. I don't want this and I don't want the overhead to fix this stuff or make sure, I can go back. 99% of all updates didn't even let me login anymore. No login at all. Whatever ... I thought about a NAS. Before the NAS, there is an OpenWRT router with AdGuard Home and Wireguard VPN.
So. Is this the end for my chase of a trustworthy Contact, Calender, Drive? If I buy this, I am on the most independent stuff possible? (I don't want a big server or something like this - I just want to settle down and don't switch companies because their country decided to get the next NSA).
And if so: Which one is good in terms of privacy? Synology? QNAP? I would buy a 2 bay NAS where one drive is the clone of the other, so I can change drives, if one is dead, without worrying at all.
Thanks for reading, excuse me for my bad english, and thanks for your ideas in advance.
The simple answer is: Yes! If you want to be completely sure no one is accessing your data - now or in the future - then you have to host it yourself. There are companies and countries that are more trustworthy/safe than others, but you never know how politics will change.
I've been using a Synology NAS for ages, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it! Especially if you don't have that much experience with Linux and servers, but also if you want something that's more Plug-n-Play and stable, or you want access to some of their proprietary services or really good customer support. Just make sure you get one that supports Docker, because that's how you'll install most if not all of the 3rd party services.
That being said, building one yourself can also be great fun, and you do have that one additional level of control if everything is open-source and installed by you.
Thank you so much for your comment! Really helpful!