this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
80 points (97.6% liked)

Selfhosted

57630 readers
1377 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

  7. No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi there, I’m looking to get into self-hosting for privacy reasons and I wanted to ask y’all: how inadvisable is it to utilize an ISP-owned router/modem? I feel like they’re able to track everything I do online with their more than likely integrated spyware.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're ISP probably provides some overpriced really crap hardware that they probably have a back door to, that I'm also not about to screw around with. I've always had a router behind their modem/router combo for many reasons, the first being that I have had a 100 ft Ethernet cable since 2005 that let's me put my router where I want, I can place my wifi where it works best, not just within 6-10 feet of wherever someone 20 years ago decided to drill a hole. Second is because a ddwrt router is so much better than anything you'll get from your provider, and you can find pretty good compatible ones on eBay or at your local thrift store for cheap.

I've always begrudgingly purchased rather than rented from my provider because after a year or so it is usually paid for. So far I've purchased four modems over almost 20 years so it's worked out for me. As for the device itself, I don't trust it, but I'll still set some firewall rules just because. I have my router behind it where I do the real stuff. If I'm ever given a device that I need to connect for some sort of monitoring, like my solar panels or something like that, it can connect to my ISPs crap and do whatever sketchy shit it's gonna do.

Each of these points makes it worth it. Price is always overlooked. Renting is same as a subscription. If you buy your modem it's more expensive, but at the end you still have a modem. Renting at the end you have nothing.