# Taking Back Control In my last article I talked about how modern society and technology give other people far more control over your life than ever before, and why that is a very bad thing. > Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely > Those who trade liberty for security will have neither. I have been taking practical steps to take back control from centralised platforms and gatekeepers. ## Syncthing Syncthing is the most important application. It allows you to sync files between your devices, and with people you trust. Choosing _files_ over _apps_ is significant because it gives you portability between tools and transparency over where your data is stored. I use plain text files for many different things: - The family shopping list - Notes organised into folders - Photos and screenshots of store cards ## Mobile Phone I switched to GrapheneOS, which offers finer-grained control over the apps running on your phone. In addition, Google is moving towards Apple's model: whitelisting the apps you can run on your own device. That is a red line for me because it gives one party too much power over your device. GrapheneOS has committed to letting you directly install your own apps. On my phone, I mainly install open-source apps from F-Droid. - Authy/Google Authenticator -> **Aegis** 2FA codes that remain on your device and can be backed up - WhatsApp -> **Briar** Chat that can work peer-to-peer in local/offline scenarios - WhatsApp -> **Molly** A compromise; Signal tracks you far less than WhatsApp, but it is still a centralised service - Google Maps -> **CoMaps** Open-source maps that do not track your location or interests - Bitwarden -> **KeePassDX** Passwords that stay with you - Dropbox -> **Syncthing** The gold star. Everything starts here. - Gmail -> **Thunderbird** - Notes App -> **Material Files** Create shortcuts to important files on your home screen I also learnt about [whatomatic](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.parishod.watomatic/) to encourage your contacts to install Signal. TODO: learnt from where? ## Linux Desktop On desktop, Linux gives me two major wins: - Better control over software installation and updates - Better visibility into what is running and where data is stored I also mirror the same file-first model from my phone: plain text notes, local files, and Syncthing as the transport layer. ## Self-Hosted Server I run a few apps on a self-hosted server. This is extra effort and probably beyond what most people want to manage. - **Syncthing** Sync when devices are not simultaneously online - **Home Gallery** View photo albums and share with others - **Actual Budget** Access my budget across multiple devices (PWA) You can run Actual Budget using pikapods fairly cheaply (end-to-end encrypted), which I think is a good compromise between effort and control. ## What I Learned Self-hosting is an ongoing struggle. I would much prefer decentralised apps that communicate to each other, which use a redundant, simple sync application on a server. Syncthing is the model here: the server is entirely optional, but convenient. I love using plain text files for notes. I can organise them where they need to be, but it is just as easy to use them as an app because I can create shortcuts to them on my phone and desktop. Signal is blocked in some countries that don't dare to block a much more popular app: \<TODO: examples here\> Taking back control is less about one perfect tool and more about changing defaults. If your defaults are open formats, local-first storage, and software you can move away from, you keep leverage over your own life. The main struggle going forwards is going to be open computing. I certainly believe that governments will lock down computing to whitelisted programs. They are already moving in that direction. This is a threat to human life itself.