Due to Google Reader's imminent demise I've switched over to my self hosted solution based on the Selfoss RSS aggregator running on a Raspberry Pi in my network at home. I've been using it for around two weeks now and it just works perfectly and has all the features I need. And quite frankly, every time I use it I get a warm and glowing feeling for a number of reasons: First, it's because I very much like that this service runs from my home. Second, I very much like that all my data is stored there and not somewhere in the cloud, prone to prying eyes from a commercial company and half a dozen security services. Also, I like that I'm in control and that all communication is encrypted.
Although quite natural today I get an extra kick out of the fact that I am sitting halfway across the globe and I can still communicate with this small box at home. Sure, I've been using services hosted in my home network while traveling abroad such as my VPN gateway and Owncloud for quite some time now but those are always running in the background, so to speak, with little interaction. Reading news in the web browser on my smartphone delivered by my own server at home, however, is a very direct interaction with something of my own far far way. This is definitely my cup of tea.
So very jealous. I’ve been trying out all the alternative readers over the past few weeks, and they’re all subpar.
@Stefan: give Selfoss a try!
@Post: i can very much confirm the feeling 🙂
It is nice to connect to your own services at home and which you control yourself from abroad.
On the other side: if something doesnt work, of course you have to fix it on your own.
I dont always have the time to fix things right away and have to investigate how stuff works first because i lack some Linux experience.
But after all, its just great 🙂