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Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

thehelm.com

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Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#191

Post by philderbeast »

gsreenivas wrote: post #46
satyanash wrote: post #3

Dockerized Nextcloud + Postfix + Dovecot + Strongswan + OpenLDAP + SpamAssassin running on an ARM machine. Sounds mostly alright, although it seems you cannot buy it without the $99/yearly subscription, which makes me wary. Sure, a static IP and domain registration is good, but it ought to be an optional addon.

Hi there - co-founder/CEO of Helm here. We don't make the subscription optional at this time because the overwhelming majority of people on the Internet do not have a static IP address with a corresponding PTR record, which is required if you want to have deliverable email. There are other ways to handle domain registration, DNS and backups on your own, but we believe the subscription is a pretty great value for the…

so provide a dynamic dns solution with one of the huge number of providers out there?

there are plenty of ways to get around that particular problem (although a cloud server is one of the best). so why not provide the information and let the user decide rather then telling us all we need to use your subscription service.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#192

Post by philderbeast »

gsreenivas wrote: post #84
Saris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not on the site maybe? So far I haven't been able to find anything but the 128GB option.

We haven't launched these tiers yet - that's why

your comments just keep getting better

"we have additional teirs..... but we havent launched them yet"

so you DON'T in fact have addtional teirs since I can't buy them, resulting in only 128gig of cloud backup being availble regardless of what hardware I buy.

Not to mention this "cloud backup" takes my files back out of my control and hands them over to big tech (apparently encrypted, but from your other comments there is no way to verify that since there is no option for the user to access the device)

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#193

Post by denton-scratch »

rblatz wrote: post #42
miked85 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, I agree with that. But this is, at least in my opinion, a very niche product. People who even understand what the product is would probably not be willing to pay a subscription for something they could setup on their own. Of course I could be completely wrong :)

Email is hard to do right, first I’m likely going to spend 2-3x the price on a server, so instantly we have 5 years of subscription covered by that price. Then I have to buy an IP in a space that has a good reputation. Then I need to setup offsite backups, setup TLS and DKIM, plus a lot of stuff I’m sure I’m missing. Then I have to stay on top of patches and general maintenance. Plus I have to buy a domain name. Sudd…

It's true that email is hard to do right, and there are lots of fiddly bits like DKIM. And you need to have control of your DNS. And, and and. I agree with parent's hundred-hour estimate.

It's not true that you need to spend $200-300 on a server; an email server for home use runs fine on a low-powered fanless Intel Next, for example.

Hardly anyone does offsite backups of their home server, unless they do it by relying on an online backup service. What's the threat-model? Is it that a fire might destroy their server, as well as their in-home backups? OK, backup to a flash key, and give it to a friend to look after.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#194

Post by denton-scratch »

gsreenivas wrote: post #97
digitalsushi wrote: post #9

If I could reliably transfer my gmail legacy freebie grandfather thing account without it taking 7 to 11 days of API rate limited transfer at 100% luck, I would get my email out of there. Alas.

A workaround is to set up a desktop email client - allow it to fully sync, then use the desktop email client to export your email and import to another account. Google rate limiting and restricting access to your own data is pretty awful. They are similarly terrible about OAuth permissions for 3rd parties - some companies are allowed to export data on behalf of customers while others are not.

Doing this via an email client is going to be really slow. Use something like fetchmail.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#196

Post by api »

dsr_ wrote: post #177

Summing up: - the hardware looks okay - the mandatory subscription provides value, but if the company folds, all the services go away and there's no instructions on how to set them up yourself -- at which point you might as well have bought an RPi with a preconfig'd distro. - The selling point is "escape Big Tech" but the services are provisioned via AWS. - The CEO is arguing with people here telling them that they a…

- It monetizes a bunch of third party open source projects like NextCloud and probably gives nothing back, and doesn't even give the user full control.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#197

Post by api »

phone8675309 wrote: post #182
dsr_ wrote: post #177

Summing up: - the hardware looks okay - the mandatory subscription provides value, but if the company folds, all the services go away and there's no instructions on how to set them up yourself -- at which point you might as well have bought an RPi with a preconfig'd distro. - The selling point is "escape Big Tech" but the services are provisioned via AWS. - The CEO is arguing with people here telling them that they a…

It shows how much people distrust big surveillance tech that snake oil like this can thrive.

If you look for privacy or security and and are not knowledgeable in the subject, you will find a whole lot of snake oil. Some of it, like VPNs that log your traffic, is worse than nothing. Some of it is outright scams.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#200

Post by Lendal »

elzbardico wrote: post #187
ThinkBeat wrote: post #178

I used to run my own mail server for decades. I gave up when it became nearly impossible for my domain not to end up on some list or some reputation. The big cloud email providers make it a lot of work to run your own. A friend of mine tried setting up a mail server a couple of months ago at Digital Ocean on a VPS and a couple of others and his mail bounced back all over the place. I ended up with an account at one o…

I found a compromise by hosting my email with a company that makes their money out of selling email hosting and stuff instead of advertising. Not being American companies is a bonus to me, as much as I loathe facebook and google, the government is always a far more sinister threat.

That depends on which government.

Ever tried sending a FOIA request to Facebook or Google?

Within a few miles of my home I can walk into a number of government offices of my local representatives and I can at the very least air my grievances. Sometimes they even can do something about it. Optionally but less effectively I can use a phone or email.

There is no Google or Facebook office anywhere around here. Even if there were, I would have no right to enter their offices or ask to speak to the person in charge. They're under no obligation to hear my grievances.

You can see almost everything the government is up to. You can't see anything Facebook and Google are up to. They're a black box. The law is on their side to keep it that way, forever. They can change their policies at any time with no notice and no public debate or comment. And that makes them a less "sinister threat" than a democratically elected, constitutional government with representation distributed all the way down to the neighborhood level? Fascinating.

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