Getting off of the American Tech Stack

What follows is a simple guide of my experience getting off of the American Tech stack as much as possible - starting with iCloud. Please note: This will work for getting off of Google as well. I am specifically talking about iCloud because my setup involved iCloud. If you are an Android and PC user: This can apply to you as well. You are not excluded. I am merely demonstrating how to do this using my experience. While I do have an inordinate amount of experience with Google and Android, this is not relevant to the practicality of my message. So, if you are an Android user: You can still follow this guide.

N.B. I am an Emacs user and I use Journelly for journal-notes on my iPhone. This will mean very little to most people who read this guide, but that isn't important and it isn't relevant to what is below. The simple reason that I mention this is because I have a forthcoming guide on how to eliminate iCloud from syncing your Journelly notes. I will hopefully write that up in the near future.

As many know, there have been, let's say… tensions with America and Europe as of late - enough of them that there is a very large and growing movement to get off of the dependence of American technology. Groups such as the subreddit BuyFromEU have been starting to see a lot of growth and activity. Even Americans are getting in on the act, using their boycott power to try to punish American tech as much as possible for their collusion with the fascist Trump regime now in power.

And here's the thing: I used to trust Apple somewhat - far more than I did the other big tech companies. Years ago, when I stopped using Facebook and Google, I still stayed with Apple. It was convenient, and there was a promise of data security. Apple's previous stances led me to believe (for a while, at least) that I would be safe there.

No longer.

When Tim Cook bent the knee to Trump, groveling and pandering in the Oval Office with tribute of a gold iPhone, as if catering to a loathesome and bloated Nero, I knew that era of security was over.

Still, it took a while. I've been using Apple on and off since I was around eleven years old - 1981. To be sure, I used to use Linux and Windows as well, but Apple was my "go-to" system because it was so easy and convenient to use. Also, it still looks like the most polished system of the bunch.

A month ago, however, I decided to act - along with many others. What I saw happening in Minnesota was clear: our data was possibly being stolen, or sold, to a fascist regime. Those ICE agents holding up their phones? They're scanning faces. They're using Palantir to get your entire history online - public and private, apparently - to profile you on the spot. It's dystopian to the point that I was pissed off and decided to act.

So, I am officially off of iCloud (excepting Apple Music - for which
I'm still deciding on a replacement and nearly finished with that as
well).

People in the EU have tech rights which are not afforded to Americans. Apparently "The land of the free" is less free now than Europe. That's been the case for a while. Sure, MAGA loves to scream about how we're not free here in Europe, but (as with all things) it is the opposite of what is the truth. Enter my rights with GDPR. GDPR affords me many rights, from deciding to opt-out of cookies spying on me, to data security and privacy - rights which do not exist in America. Sorry Americans, you're less free than Europeans.

Like many before, I was using an Amazon server at AWS. No longer. I decided to maintain my rights, I needed a server in Europe. Hetzner provides this now, and it provides it flawlessly. There are other options as well - you can look them up. Just search for something like "cloud hosting in europe" and you'll get a bunch. Some are here in France, some others in Germany - it depends what pricing you want and a lot of other factors. It's like choosing any other server or, "computer" for the less technically minded.

What I wanted to do was re-create iCloud as much as possible for my devices so that there was a seamless move to my own service without noticing any major changes in my workflow. And that is not only entirely possible, it's even better than what iCloud can do for you.

This is a quick little rundown of services I've migrated and the software you will need. Now, what I'd like to preface here is: This is not for the technologically faint of heart. A complete newbie will have a lot of trouble with this. This list would probably be overwhelming to look at and may cause anxiety and panic. But before anyone does actually go into palpitations and breathing difficulties, let me point out two things:

1. It is possible to do this (and I will tell you how)
   
2. Think of this as a list of how much of a hold American Big Tech has over you. At any point, the Trump administration could steal that information, or turn it off. This is why Europe, as a whole, has adopted a "Tech Sovereignty" policy, and has been acting upon it.
   

A third point, more of some advice really, is the following: If all of this is gibberish to you, then consider asking a friend who knows about tech to help you with this. Perhaps they can set up their own instance (cloud) and can include you. Or perhaps they can set up their own and, at the same time, set yours up as well. (More below on this)

Please note: This will take time. This is not an overnight process. You will not get off of iCloud immediately - one service at a time is good enough and it's not a "next day assignment" by any measure. But your goal should be independence, and each step along the way should lead towards that goal.

If you don't have a tech friend who can help you, I have a solution below. So please read down to the end.

One last point: You do not have to use the same things that I'm using. I'm merely presenting this as a guide. If you want to use other software - feel free. This is not a post about how one piece of FOSS software is better than another. I went with this setup, but I was tempted by other solutions which probably would have been equally good.

READ THE WHOLE THING BEFORE STARTING ON ANY PART

1. A server. I like Hetzner, as I've said, but there are other equally good options. You will have to research a little for pricing. If you need a tech friend to consult with, please do.
   
2. You will need to install Nextcloud. Think of Nextcloud as your own personal iCloud. It can do everything that iCloud can, and far, far, more. In fact, once you're using Nextcloud fully, you will be amazed at what Apple doesn't let you do. This is not an exaggeration. And, before you worry about security: Nextcloud is very, very, secure. It is GDPR compliant, and it is used by entire governmental departments in Europe (Such as the French Ministry for the Interior), huge companies like German Telecom, Financial institutions such as trading houses and banks, and even hospitals (which have to rigorously maintain patient privacy) and law firms - including the International Criminal Court - which have to maintain attorney-client privilege. So, if these serious institutions can trust Nextcloud, some of which transfer billions of euros a day in transactions or deal with world class security issues, then so can you. I'll write more about Nextcloud below. Also, some other server applications might be very useful and interesting to you which I will mention below as well.
   

iCloud offers many apps for daily use. I want to replace them. I want to get off of iCloud. So where do I begin? Here's a rough breakdown.

Apple Notes is a big one. I used to use it all of the time. Even as an Emacs user who keeps most things in org-mode (this may mean nothing to you, but it doesn't matter), Apple Notes was reliably one of the best pieces of software for note-taking I had ever come across. I did, however, find a perfect replacement - one which can be even more powerful and versatile than Apple Notes. It's called Joplin. It's 100% free and FOSS. It's usable on all of your devices and computers, and you can sync it directly to your server. I sync my notes to a folder in my Nextcloud instance which is available to all of my devices instantly. My setup is simple: In my root folder in my Nextcloud instance (more on this below), I have a folder named "Joplin" and all my notes are synced there. You never have to open this folder. All the file names will look something like this: "82q7FKJWEjr9283e4.md", which means nothing to us humans. It doesn't have to. It's just where your notes are kept. You won't have to worry about or ever see what's in this folder. Ignore it. What you get, thanks to this folder, is what you get inside of Joplin: wonderfully structured and composed notes in Markdown (or even Rich Text). It's as fast to pull up Joplin and start writing a new note as it is in Apple Notes. Plus, Joplin has plugins which can do more than Apple Notes can ever do. Powerful stuff. Have a look at the Joplin plugins. There's a lot there. Not everything runs on the mobile versions, but what does still makes mobile Joplin more advanced than Apple Notes is in many, many, ways. It can link to other notes, do global tags, make meta-notes, and more.

For instance, I now use Joplin for shopping lists. It's fantastically fast and reliable. One thing I haven't done yet is install a Joplin server to collaborate with others using Joplin. But I'll get there. For now, it's not that big of a concern. But if it is for you: Know that Joplin can do that as well. Easily.

You can also use your Apple Pencil on your iPad to draw in Joplin - inside of a note. I didn't use this feature much with Apple Notes, but it's a nice one. Joplin lets you do the same.

To import my Apple Notes, I had to export them in Markdown. There are several apps which can do this, some of them free. Here's one you can use for free. I suggest exporting them as Markdown. Then, import them into Joplin. It'll take a few seconds, but all of your folders will be there, as will all of the notes in them. Bask in your independence and maybe even take the time to clean up the notes that you left in messy places and conditions. The choice is yours.

Calendars were very easy to export. Go to your Apple Calendar, choose each calendar you want to export, save it to your Downloads folder or something. Then, in Nextcloud, make appropriately named Calendars, and import one at a time. They'll all be there. What's even beter is this: You can then turn off your Apple Calendars (you can even delete the calendars before you do), and add your Nextcloud calendars as a CalDAV account. You can then continue using Apple Calendar if you like the software, only it won't be talking to Apple anymore - it'll be talking to your own private cloud, and Apple won't be in the position to ever spy on you.

With Nextcloud you can also enable the Tasks "App" (Plugin) on your instance. This allows you to create tasks for calendars, or in general. Then you'll be able to ditch Reminders as well. Tasks can sync to your calendar, or you can use another app to interact with them on your Phone or Tablet if you like - it's up to you. It works brilliantly. I actually use org-mode with Beorg for my tasks - they sync to my server and my calendars on my server. That's a little more advanced, but it's an option if you're into that sort of thing. It does, however, require you knowing some Emacs which is far beyond the scope of this post.

One thing you'll have to do is to set up an internal mail server for Nextcloud so when you invite people to an event, it will email them a link (like Apple Calendars does) and they can click on the email link and it will add them to the event by popping the page up in a web browser. It all acts the same way. I'll get to the Email stuff later. For now, keep it in mind that you will need this functionality down the road.

What works in Calendars on Nextcloud? Pretty much everything. GPS locations with addresses, reminders, invitations, notes for the event, Nextcloud/Zoom/Whatever links for video meetings - basically the works. You won't really notice a difference. It looks the same, it acts the same. There is nothing really "scary" or "different" about it.

Another thing which I did was export all of my contacts. My contacts were a mess. I had been using Apple Contacts since 2012, and I never really paid much attention to them. There were contacts from the Google server accounts on there as well. No matter: I exported them all. I saved them to my Downloads folder, then I imported the whole mess into my Nextcloud contacts. Nextcloud lets you have your own contacts server, which I will get to in a moment. Once you have them all imported, you can use the merge contacts feature built into Nextcloud Contacts on your very own Contacts web page. It works wonderfully.

For exporting, be aware: Apple hates non-Mac people. If you're a PC user, and don't have a Mac, then when you export your contacts, you will lose the photos on those contact cards. This has nothing to do with Nextcloud and everything to do with the fact that if you export from icloud.com, that's an Apple-built limiation. If, however, you do have a Mac, use the Contacts App on your Mac to export. It will export the photos (or should).

Once done, I deleted all of my contacts on Apple (and google) via my Apple Contacts App, and I turned off my Apple (and Google) contacts account. Then, I added my own Nextcloud contacts account. There: All my contacts are available for Facetime, Email, and anything else. It's my own server, my own contacts, and Apple isn't using them for anything - let alone the Trump adminstration.

Don't you hate how big tech has access to your most precious moments in life? Well, they do, but there's something you can do about it: Get off of big tech. To that end, I can't recommend Immich more highly than I do. There are a couple of things that it doesn't do as well as Apple Photos: There are no subfolders, for instance. But that fact is easily overlooked when, in fact, it's better than Apple Photos. What do I mean? The AI and facial recognition is far superior to Apple Photos, from what I've experienced. It also de-duplicates flawlessly (Apple Photos does not do this well in my experience and is slow and laggy). This works with videos too. And live photos you take on your iPhone - it all works. The icon even looks like Apple Photos on your iPhone. It has a map as well for a global view of where you've taken all of your pictures, if you're into that (I am).

However, there will be some terminal commands you will have to use to do things properly. Sure, you can just export your albums one at a time from Apple Photos, but it'll ask you to choose either unedited originals, or edited - either way, you'll lose something. But you don't have to lose anything, thanks to a few command line tools. I used OSX Photos. Now, these kinds of commands may look daunting, but it's fairly straightforward. You can use a single line in the terminal to export your entire Apple Photos library - edits and information about edits - included. All GPS info, Metadata, EXIF - it'll all be there. If you don't know what a terminal is, you will want to ask a friend (or see my options below if you don't have anyone who knows how to do this).

To import my entire album in a single go, I used something called Immich-go. With one command, I had uploaded my entire set of albums with all of my pictures. I literally just went to make coffee while it did it. I had a huge library so it was done in about 30 or so minutes of uploading. It has a nice TUI interface (meaning - lots of graphs and nice looking "techie" data flying by in the terminal screen).

Once you're done importing, let Immich work for you. In the back end, under "Administration" menu on the top right icon for your profile, you can click on "Server Jobs" on the left and see what it's doing. It will be scanning faces, finding duplicates, putting all that metadata in place, and more. If you have a huge library, give it an hour or two, or maybe more, but it'll be faster than you realize - it's working in the background. It won't bother you. Come back to it after a while and your photos will be done being scanned. You can also click on "Utilities" on the left in the main page and see what duplicates you have, and it will offer to keep or trash whichever one fits the bill.

With Immich, you can also do smart searches - without ever calling on an external AI. That's right - it's all private. You can search for anything in your photos with AI and no external AI will be snooping on your stuff. It's just as good, or even better, than Apple Photos AI search. I tried searching for "Trees" and got really amazing results. I searched for "Animals" with equally impressive results. You can even search for something like "dog", "cat", "bear", or something complex like "Japan temple without people" or "Red and white fox", and it will find it. It will - get this - even use smart search on iPhones that don't have Apple Photos smart search because they're older than 4 years old.

After doing all of that, I disabled and deleted my Apple Photos iCloud (I saved the exported backup just in case), and turned off uploading from Apple Photos to the cloud. Then, I turned on Auto-Backup/Sync from Immich on my phone. Now, when I take a picture, it goes directly to Immich. It'll keep a copy locally in Apple Photos on my iPhone, but Apple doesn't have access to it. I just go in there once every now and then and delete them all as they're not needed.

This may interest people who have a lot of PDFs and document scans. I installed something called Paperless-ngx. Now, you can live without this if you want, but I recommend it if you want a really proper document organizational system with OCR, tags, and more.

I used to use Apple Notes to scan documents, and as easy as it was…it was a bit of a messy affair at times. This is no longer my experience. As I've ditched Apple Notes, I now have a proper document system with instant scans to my server where they can be organized, tagged, and structured as well as instantly searched. Internal AI makes this easy (your data is never going anywhere but on your own server).

With the Paperless app, I have instant access to my data on my phone or iPad. I can open up the app like opening any other app, hit the "+" button on the top right and choose "Scan Document" and start scanning - just like Apple Notes scans, I don't even have to hit a button. It can scan pages one at a time until you're done: a single document, a single receipt, a set of stapled pages while you turn over each one, one at a time - anything instantly. Once you're done scanning, just hit "Save" for that scan, or set of scans, and it gets uploaded to your server where it is cataloged and tagged, dated, and becomes searchable within seconds. When I'm in the Paperless app on my phone or my iPad, I can also open a document, hit "share" and choose to share it with whatever other app I want - this means you can instantly email your documents to anyone you like, or send them via Whatsapp, or Messenger, or Apple Messages, or Airdrop them - whatever you want. And it can be as messy or as neat an archive as you like. It's up to you. The interface is very easy to use and manage. It can also do pictures if you like (though, naturally, I use Immich for that).

Paperless-ngx will require you to install via the command line so, again, if you don't know how to do any of that, ask a friend who does or look at the bottom of this post for my very opinionated solution. Techies will already know where I'm going with this.

I can only recommend LibreOffice for Mac and it's counterpart (and free App) "Documents", available on the App store. If you're using Pages, you will have to export your files to Microsoft format. But once you do, you can open them freely with LibreOffice (or Documents). I had zero problems with this. The UI looks a touch dated, but that doesn't honestly matter much to me. What matters to me is that I'm no longer paying for Microsoft and they don't have my data and neither does Apple. I synced my entire Documents directory structure to the top level Nextcloud directory which I created (I just moved the entire contents over so that the default Documents folder on Apple is now basically empty). With Documents on your mobile devices, you can open synced Nextcloud documents at a single press of the button. Edit all you want - it'll be synced automatically. And while LibreOffice's UI might seem a touch dated, "Documents" is not. It's as new-App looking as ever. You'll probably really enjoy it.

Let's talk about Nextcloud. It's sort of the elephant in the room. So far, I've mentioned it a lot but I haven't really mentioned what it can do for you. I have mentioned other apps such as Paperless-ngx and Immich, but what does Nextcloud do for you? Well…more than Apple can.

For a start, think of it as your own personal icloud.com. But you can add so much more functionality (or "Apps") to it. You have access to Nextcloud Talk - just like Apple Messages, with video calls with multiple friends or colleagues, screen recording, sending each other pictures, gifs, emojis - whatever floats your boat. But you can also do full presentations in Nextcloud talk. You can add apps such as a whiteboard, a collaborative "Freeflow" "Mindmap" sort of thing where you can collaborate and draw while in video conference. You can add RSS feeds to your own instance which keep track of the news sources you want to keep track of without getting an algorithm pushing their shit in your face. You can add a Kanban board to use with friends or colleagues. You can use a FOSS app like Floccus to sync your browser bookmarks and history to your own server instead of Apple's, where you have access to it on all of your devices. You can add a Cookbook app to keep track of recipes you like, and even share them with friends. The amount of useful free "Apps" for Nextcloud is very large indeed. You can also have integration with other things for working in a large project or for work in a company. If you don't want to use Immich, Nextcloud comes with a fully integrated Photo app already ready and waiting for you. Immich is just much more versatile and robust, but you can do whatever you want. You can also make a very nice summary and useful dashboard (which I happen to use) in your browser with just a few clicks. As you can see, it's a lot more useful than iCloud is, and no one is able to see your information except for you.

Tailscale. What the heck is that? You know what it is? It's something that you install, activate, and forget about. You almost never really think about it. It's there in the background working for you, like your server, but after setting it up you rarely ever have to deal with it. It's just on and it works.

Yes, but what is it?

Tailscale is, to the non-tech people out there, like a private invitation to your private network. Once you install it, and configure your Caddyfile (more on that below) with it and your DNS (more on that below), you can put any service behind it and no one can even reach it online. Unless they're invited to your private network, they can't reach that site. It's not there for them. It's like a Harry Potter cloak of invisibility for your installed apps.

Setting it up is pretty easy. Go to Tailscale and sign up - it's free. You can use a passkey so you don't have to depend on a big tech company like Google or Microsoft (which runs github). You have options. You will probably need to ask a tech friend (or see other solutions below) to set it up on your server via command line. On your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, or any other device, however, it just means downloading the free app like any other app, opening it, signing into it with your credentials, and your device will be on that private network. A device can't join a private network unless you invite it. For instance, my Paperless-ngx instance resides behind tailscale - only I can see it. That's because only I want access to it. Nobody else needs to even see a login screen. They just get a "this site doesn't exist" sort of page. I suggest using it. You probably won't want this for Nextcloud in some circumstances, but in general: Tailscale is amazing and you will want to use it.

Okay, this is an easy and hard one. Easy because it's very easy to buy a domain, but hard because what you will want to do with it can be slightly involved at times.

First of all, you will want to go with an EU based domain company. Namecheap, as great as they are, are located in Phoenix, AZ - a great place to live, I might add (I lived there for five years), but a shitty place to depend on your domain at this time.

Second of all: You will want to look into EU-based domains. That means that .com, .org, .net are right out. Google owns .dev (which this site is currently on) so you can expect my URL to change in the near future as I'll be ditching it.

Find out which ones are EU-controlled. For instance: .eu, fr, .de - all EU controlled with GDPR. There are a few others, and I suggest you check them out. I used Hetzner to get some new domains because I'm already on Hetzner. But if you go with something else in the EU, try them out first. And only get EU based domains.

Why do you want a domain? Well, for your nextcloud to resolve easily, for your email, and other things. You are, after all, starting up your own personal icloud.com. So pick something you like and take it if it's available. It's not going to be expensive and it's usually paid on a yearly basis. And whereas Apple limits you to something like 3 domains or iCloud+, you have no limits with your own server. So if you like more than one, and you can pay for it, go fucking hog wild with that credit card.

Now we get to one of the hardest parts. Email. iCloud.com gives you the yourname@icloud.com, but you can also add up to 3 other domains to customize your email. However, with your own email server, you can add a million if you want. Ten million. A billion. There's probably a technical limit somwhere in there but most people will never reach it unless they become like their own Google with a billion servers. For your case: there's no limit.

But, and this is a BIG BUT: Email is fucking complicated.

Now, I've been setting shit up like this since literally the early 90s. I kid you not. I've tinkering with stuff like this since before some people who are reading this were even born. And Email is…very tricky. I'll be honest: Even I used AI to do it. Email was literally the start of the internet. It has a dozen or more files to edit, encrypted lines which your server and DNS and certification has to approve - it's not for the faint of heart. Even with AI setting it up for you, it may make you tear your hair out. Perhaps not, but maybe. Also, it is finicky when it comes to other email servers. You see, when you send email out, there is a trust level at the other server receiving it. If you're a new server, it may not trust you right away. I haven't had any problems, but that isn't a guarantee.

However, if you're willing to go down that rabbit hole, it may be worth it. You can set up whatever email you want on your domain, as well as make your own "hide my email" aliases. That's actually pretty simple to do once you have your email server set up. You can ask the AI to set up a script for you that does that automatically very easily for email forwards - just like Apple does with different emails for different logins. It's not hard. That might be worth it to you. If not, I can recommend MailMask.eu. 100% GDPR, 100% European, 100% free. It has the easiest interface in the world and it couldn't be simpler to use.

If you do want to try setting up your email server yourself, I think you should first consider some alternatives.

Why bother with this?

Well, do you really want Apple to control your email? After everything I went through with my notes, photos, calendars, and the rest, there's no way in hell I'm letting Apple have my emails. And apart from setting up your own server, you'll have to pay for it.

I can recommend two out of the gate that are EU-based.

1. Proton
   
2. Tutanota
   

Both are very, very, well known privacy-oriented, EU-based, companies. I actually am signed up to Proton, but not for their email (though I have access to that if I want it). I use their VPN. It's fantastic, it works on all devices, and I love it. But Tutanota is also a great choice. You'll have to decide for yourself. And there are guides online on how to migrate your email from iCloud to those services.

If you're going to try running your own email server, however, you will have to look to a friend, or learning about Dovecot and Postfix. This is very advanced stuff. Newbies beware: You will need help along every step of the way. You can do it, it's just not where you should start. It will discourage you in the face of everything else where you could be successful.

What is Caddy? It's not a golf thing. It's a web server.

Everyone "knows" what a web server is, right? Well, not necessarily. There are applications which serve up web pages - that's what web servers do. But they also do other things like check security and a lot of other cryptic stuff which may not be very interesting or informative for newbies. Enter Caddy. Caddy is pretty easy to set up. You set it up via the command line in most cases (and in your case with a remote server, that will be the way you do it). Then it automates most things for you. It will automate the very important "https" instead of "http" that you want to use so that all your web pages are secured. You will want some help with the configuration, however, but they are small configurations for each entry. So use Caddy as your web server and you'll thank me later for keeping it simple and secure.

This is important. Everyone knows that backups are important - and they are. You know of Time Machine from Apple? It's a nice, powerful, piece of code that makes backups of your important stuff in the background. Well, Time Machine was based off of a utility called "restic". Restic is fast, powerful, and perfect for your server. It doesn't have a pretty interface like Apple Time Machine, but it can do everything that Time Machine can do. You will need help setting it up, but it doesn't take long, it's very quick to install and configure, and then just leave it running. It'll back up your stuff every hour, or every night, or whenever you set it to do that. I have a script which downloads my latest restic backups to another storage drive and to offsite once a week - just for safekeeping. I won't get into how to do that here but you can look below on how to get these kinds of solutions. Just keep in mind that you do want this. Don't live without backups. Ever. Especially if you're going independent, which this guide is trying to help you do.

If you know what you're doing, you might want to host your own server at home. It's entirely doable. IF it's your first time, I recommend either using an older computer with a Linux distro (there are far too many guides on how to do this to list one of preference), or getting a little Raspberry Pi to start. I have one which manages my offsite backups here at home. It works flawlessly. It can do far more than that, but I'm just presenting it as an optional idea. If you already know what a Raspberry Pi is, you probably don't need to learn too much from this guide.

Okay, so here's the rub: You may not even know what a "command line" is. And if you see a picture of one, you're thinking something along the lines of "hackers in the movies".

That's fine. Someone will still need to use it if you're going to get set up. Here are some options before you get scared off:

The great thing about all of these packages is: everything is private and encrypted. That means that you don't have to do this alone if it terrifies you and, in some cases, you can't afford your own server. After all, paying for your own server and storage is slightly more expensive than paying for iCloud (but honestly, not by much - we're talking about a few dollars a month more in most cases). But, if you go in on it with a friend or two, you might find that you have more for less. Got a best friend who can do this? Why not go all in together with another friend or two and make your own server instance? You can do that. It'll cost less than iCloud per month, give you more storage in many cases, and give you far more power and capabilities. That's definitely a good option.

Get a friend to set you up who can do this stuff. Maybe you have one or two "tech" friends who knows this stuff and can get you going. It's a possibility. Many people have that one "tech" friend in their circles. It's a pretty common thing these days. They could even explain more of this stuff in detail for you. Keep it in mind.

And here's the opinionated elephant in the room: AI. Yes, AI can help you do this - pretty easily, in fact. One thing AI is good for is configuring this stuff, and teaching you how to do it. Now, if you use the free AI models, you might get a lot of crap before you end up on the right commands, so I discourage that. Instead, I suggest paying for a month of AI to help you with a more advanced model. Here is the key:

TAKE NOTES!!!

You don't want to have to rely on AI all of the time, and you won't have to. A good practice is, after every session, to tell the AI to put out a full summary of what you did in your setup as a downloadable text file (Use Markdown, Rich Text, or even org-mode if you're an Emacs user). Save those text files in a folder in Joplin (or whatever else you choose). Then, you will have a full, searchable, set of notes on how to restart docker containers, check if they're down, and all of the rest. This may seem, again, like gibberish to you now but it's actually fairly straightforward. And even better: You can ask the AI to teach you how to make "aliases" for the terminal so that you don't have to copy/paste huge amounts of lines to periodically redo commands. You can type a single word, and it will do everything for you (just like an Apple Shortcut, but with text commands). Document your aliases and your setup. It's not hard. You may think right now that it is, but I promise you that it isn't. A month long session/subscription to a good AI model (I like Claude as do many other tech people out there) is worth it if you're serious about this. But keep notes so you don't have to pay for another subcription if you want to get off of this. And you can use incognito mode for sensitive stuff. I recommend not sharing passwords of course, even in incognito mode.

AI, and people, are not perfect. At first, you'll want to just test things. The worst thing you can do is install Nextcloud and start using and depending on it without having tried it out for a few days to see what you can do and how you can configure it. The first time I ran Nextcloud, there were a lot of options I had left out, or had misconfigured, because I didn't know they existed yet. This entire endeavor is not a project where you will get off of the American Tech Stack overnight (unless you're an absolute pro, and even they fuck up - trust me). This is a "One step at a time" kind of deal. Take this post, make a list of your own services you use on iCloud, and do one at a time - not all at once. Setting up an email server, for instance, even with AI, is a royal pain in the ass. You will scream for joy once you did it. And you can do it, but it will take a bit of effort.

Yes. There is no doubt that it is worth it. I'm not going to beat around the bush here and say "use what works for you" when it comes to this. You do want to get off of big American tech. Just think about how that can terrify people - it may even terrify you. And then you will realize that they control your lives. They can switch you off - your entire fucking life - with a single command.

Do you want that? Do you really want to be at the mercy of an insane President who can order shutting down your account (as they may have done with Microsoft and the ICC)? Do you want your life to depend on what idiots in the USA vote into power every four years?

I don't. I don't want anyone to have that kind of power over me, and neither should you. What this post is about is how you can control that yourself, and change almost nothing in your life, except be happier because you control it. You won't have to change how you take pictures, or write notes, or make calendar events with friends, or use a grocery shopping list, or anything else. It'll stay the same, but it'll be yours and, in most cases, even more powerful and useful than it is now.

So yes: I will not say "do whatever" and that it's okay if you don't do something like this. You should do this. You can use other FOSS software, you can use another service in the EU, but you should do this. And if you're going to be smart about your life, you will do this.

Anyone can do this. Anyone. Not everyone can do it alone, even with AI helping them (though at this point, I think most can if they have time), but they can still do this. You just have to want to do it. You have to set aside time and make this a project. Given how important our data is in our phones and our computers, and given how volatile things are, I would say that everyone should make this an important project - even a priority one.

When Donald Trump was first elected, I was accused by many of hysteria over what he would do. I stand proven correct each and every time. A whole lot of us who predicted that he would never leave power peacefully after his first time were called insane, hysterical, and worse. I stand proven correct. When we said that he would put troops on the streets and would violate the Constitution daily, we were again called hysterical and crazy. That has happened. It has happened that his own little private fascist army has also now killed people for doing absolutely nothing, and they face zero charges in court for executing people in public in cold blood.

Take the worst that Donald Trump can do, and believe that he will do it. So, do you need to do your part to secure your own data privacy and even access? Yes. Yes, you do. And if you don't think that you do, if you think that this is a fucking exaggeration, just remember what everyone else thought was an exaggeration when we warned against it, and what has already come to pass. So, don't wait. Do it. Plan for it now. Take a month, or two, or even three - to be sure, you can't do it overnight. But make it a priority to get it done.