Tired of the big companies controlling your Internet experience? What if there was a way that the average user could bypass Microsoft, Apple, and Google? Some users do set up their own servers. But that can be an expensive and daunting task. The people behind Freedom Box say that it doesn’t have to be. According to the organization: “FreedomBox is a joined effort of people to regain control and privacy in the digital world by dragging it into the physical. Our vision is to use free software running on cheap hardware to replace services that are not under our control.”
FreedomBox is a private server system that enables you to easily host your own Internet services. You could set up a VPN, share files, send messages, make voice calls, host a website, and even set up your own search engine. No giant company collecting all of your data.
To accomplish this goal, Freedom Box offers the software necessary to run your own server absolutely free. The software will run on inexpensive single-board computers like Raspberry PI (which can be purchased for around $40). Freedom Box also offers a link to a $91 kit. The kid comes pre-loaded with the software.
The developers promise the software is very user-friendly and there’s also a large support community out there to help new users get started.
There’s a great video at this link that explains how to set it up. Just scroll down the page a bit: https://freedombox.org/
Even if you aren’t ready to try it, it’s kind of cool to see how simple it would be to set up. And if you are technically adventurous, it certainly seems like a fun project to undertake.