chisel

If you’re fine with self hosting, you can just self host it and backup your local drives to a remote location. That’s what I do.

For backup software, I use Duplicacy. But Veeam, Borg, etc… would work just fine. For images, since they’re just static files and you don’t really need a version history, you could get away with a scheduled rsync job. Though, technically that leaves you more at risk of ransomeware or something that overwrites your data.

For remote storage, I’d first consider a Hetzner storage box since they are flat-rate pricing and pretty dang cheap at $13/mo for 5TB. You might also consider StorJ, B2, S3, etc… I’d just stay away from any lesser known ultra-cheap storage providers.

There is malware that can infect you simply by opening an office document. One of the cooler security trainings I’ve been through was a recorded demo of it. Opened a doc on one computer, enabled editing, then another computer was able to extract credentials from ram or something.

I hate this move and love my sideloaded apps. However, there are plenty of self hosted apps on the play store. It’s just putting in a unique address at setup, not compiling a whole unique app for each server.

Wtf are you talking about? People buy Tylenol all the time.

By “first-party” here, I mean sites that make the product they’re selling. Like I wouldn’t trust the reviews on Samsung’s website for a Samsung phone. Amazon is separate enough that the conflict of interest isn’t really there, but Amazon reviews are so targeted by illegitimate reviews that they’re not S-tier trustworthy.

I never trust reviews on first-party sites. However, reviews on other sites can be very helpful. Maybe not yelp lol.

Is leaving a review really free labor? I view it more as community building. Nobody has reviews shoved down their throat without asking, they are sought out and helpful for the consumer. And so sellers like reviews because consumers like reviews and it makes them more likely to patronize their business.

I enjoy leaving good reviews. Helps my fellow humans find quality things that I enjoyed and helps the business I like make more things I like. It’s a win win win situation. This is especially true for small business, many of which live or die on reviews.

And Samsung just got rid of ads in their apps, like Samsung Health, a few years ago. One step forward, two sprints back.