Pihole was my first venture into privacy, and it was years ago. Of course I did not realize that is what it was at the time, I thought it was just ad blocking. I still have a google account for youtube, and I hate that I am using it but that is where the creaters are. I currently do not have anything strong enough to do the whole YouTube without the google thing yet, I hope to be getting a new to me Mac mini that I will install Debian on next week where I will try invedious but right now I have a pi 5 running librewolf with adguard and sponser block. Do not get me wrong it hurts me knowing I am taking money away from creators doing this but it makes me feel better knowing that the Google is not selling me.

I have my own domain that hosts emails I have a wildcard email address so I can give out random emails to people so that I could stop using Apple’s hide my email as I was slowly moving away from Apple already. When Trump got in for his second term and the boycott the US movement started I started self hosting a lot of services.

I in no way meant to implement everything at once, it has taken me years to get where I am. The pihole was just my gateway drug into doing stuff.