The Great Pirate Era
2025-08-18
A few weeks ago I finally got knocked off of my parents Netflix and I refuse to give them a subscription.
Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 on October 14th, 2025. From my understanding the hardware requirements are forcing businesses to replace their machines in order to be able to update. This gives us an opportunity to acquire decent hardware while telling ourselves we are reducing eWaste!
So what
I'm writing this as a follow up to my self hosted post to rave about self hosting your own services. We are at a point where all companies are trying to squeeze as much money out of us through subscriptions services and some of them feel unavoidable sometimes.
- Spotify, Apple Music, etc
- Video Streaming
- Cloud Storage
But so many of these are replaceable with a self hosted alternative and you can even keep almost all of the convenience.
Replacing Netflix
I was currently using Netflix for two shows: Better Call Saul and Dan Da Dan. The first instinct people may have is to setup qBittorrent behind a VPN and download whole seasons or episodes as they come out. Then you may think about just using hdmi to plug your computer to your television to watch. This setup lacks the convenience of running an app on your TV.
The answer is using Plex or Jellyfin to host your content so its available through the Plex app or through something like Kodi with the jellyfin addon. Then you might run into how annoying it is to name your folders and content correctly for these services to correctly read them.
The Answer?
This guide. Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr. These services once setup run like DVR in the sense that you set what shows you want to download and once its available in your legal collection of downloaded content that you access through torrents these services automatically download the media and can even be setup to continue scanning for a better quality version. It names it correctly so all you have to do once the content is available is open your streaming app and its there!
Limitations
Currently I am limited to 100gb of space. I could upgrade my machine or even setup another machine to act only as storage but honestly I have no need to do any of that yet. I have enough space for 1080p versions of the current season I am on for two shows and then the new episodes coming out for another show. I have space left over after that. This allows me to be more intentional about what shows we decide to watch and prevents me from scrolling through all the available streaming options and wasting precious time.
Other Apps
In the future I am looking to replace the apps I use for tracking lifts, calories, and expenses with self-hosted version. Even if you use free versions of these apps they tend to be limited unless you pay for a subscription.
Please give it a shot!
Imagine the power we can take back from the internet if we all had little servers and self hosted our apps!