SamSpudd

For this project, that’s maybe intentional lol

Hey, it’s been a while, but just wanted to say that following this fixed my instance, and numbers are now normal again. Thanks! 💛

For something such as PiHole, your main machine may be overkill honestly. It can run on literally potatoes (or raspberries). That being said, if the price of keeping your machine on is not an issue, it’s perfectly reasonable to run something on it whenever it’ll be needed. If possible, potentially a smaller computer like a Raspberry Pi may work for this, or even a small online VPS (cloud server).

It’s kind of the same thing as a Raspberry Pi/Mini PC, though can be seen as more reliable (since someone else is being paid to make sure it doesn’t, or you and potentially many others will complain), as well as typically being very scalable if you require more power later down the line, as opposed to buying hardware for yourself. There’s many other reasons, but those are some of the main ones.

A VPS is a Virtual Private Server, basically a cloud computer that you rent access to and can use it for whatever you want. Primarily, people use it for hosting websites/services that need to be on 24/7, which it can be since they are typically in massive datacenters, but they can have other uses.

For me, something like PiHole for DNS-based Adblocking, as well as potentially a Wireguard/OpenVPN installation (via PiVPN potentially) for an easy adblocking VPN combination. Depends on the available bandwidth, however, but some lower powered applications, even up to a small personal Matrix Synapse server could be viable on 1GB Ram if not abused.

Problem is Oracle sometimes just hates people, so declines all attempts to get the Free Tier.

I know from experience

I still haven’t, but I’m going to right now! :P

Mine, though it says 202 users, is only actually 2, me and a test account, cause it got botted due to me leaving open registration. Luckily found out about 10 seconds after it started, but still, annoying. Though yea, just myself on here for now. :D

To echo what others have said, I’ve been running a personal/friends only matrix server for about a year, and have found it, though difficult at first, to be stable enough to use as a universal messenger combining discord, messenger, WhatsApp and others in one app. It’s very convenient.