86
Self Hosting for Privacy - Importance of Owning your own Modem/Router?
(self.selfhosted)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
86 points (100.0% liked)
Selfhosted
61475 readers
394 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:
-
Be civil.
-
No spam.
-
Posts are to be related to self-hosting.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.
-
Submission headline should match the article title.
-
No trolling.
-
Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.
-
AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Regardless of whether your ISP is leveraging their ownership of your router to violate your privacy, they are using it to exploit you financially. Owning your own equipment is always going to save you money compared to what an ISP will charge you in rent.
Well, AT&T for example requires that you use their provided modem+router combo, which they provide for free (unless you include their plans being generally more expensive than their competitors as an extra fee). They do try to sell you on range extenders for, what I assume to be, the shit router they give you.
Their router gives you less control than you'd get with your own router, helps with lock-in because it makes it harder to change providers, and allows AT&T full root access to your network, so I wouldn't recommend it for self-hosters. However, it is the cheapest option since you're requited to use it anyway. Besides, of course, using a different ISP, which saves me tooons of money over AT&T.
AT&T fiber does allow IP passthrough mode though so if you want to run your own hardware you can.
That or you can double NAT if an ISP doesn't allow passthrough. It makes self hosting tougher but if you can port forward on the provided device and just forward everything it's basically passthrough mode.