What difficulties are you finding with it and are you switching from Google? The results are as custom as Google given they haven’t scraped your life history so wondering if that’s it? I’ve been using DDG without any issues. About once every 6 months I struggle to find something so try the Google bang but have never found better results. In fact, I was shocked last time how crap the Google results were, just full of AI generated crap and SEO based crap.

To be honest, DDG is also struggling with that now as it’s based on Bing. I have been trying a public searxg but not found it very good so far.

Before you go too far into it and spend lots of time, I think most VPS services let you installed a new OS on their admin site so you can start again from scratch. If you’re not sure that is the right linux flavour, go for something else more mainstream so you can find lots of support online. Looking at the OS, I’m sure it might be good but I’m also sure you can install all the features very easily yourself, especially if it’s just using docker mainly.

I second UFW. I found this guide useful: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/ufw-essentials-common-firewall-rules-and-commands. You might want to try tailscale as others use it for easily setting up vpn access but not used it myself. Also go for fail2ban or, for more assurance but harder work, try crowdsec too.

You could also use cloudflare dns and add IP and/or country restrictions to block all traffic before it gets to your VPS. I have a country filter and it’s crazy how many bots get blocked from all over!

I don’t use the docker labels feature so it doesn’t really matter to me but can see why you would want this to be implemented if you did. Hopefully they can figure it out.

I have a “local” version with every prod service on. It’s only accessible on my home network with a pihole dns resolver. I just add the services manually to the services.yaml file, which doesn’t take long at all. I then have a “remote” version which is a much smaller with only services accessible outside my home network and is behind nginx/authentication software/cloudflare. Again, it doesn’t take long to add services really. Two different docker compose files, volumes with the settings, and ports makes it work fine for me. I guess depends how often you’re adding services.

I have two homepages, one for local and the other for remote (behind nginx and my authentication software). I also have one on a vm i use for testing before deployment. They are different docker containers but don’t see why you couldn’t have separate ones given they are just websites.

Yes, I have it under a subdomain I own on cloudflare. Then it’s behind nginx proxy manager on my server which takes care of the ssl too. I have fail2ban too so consider it enough security for if the user passwords are long enough. You can set minimum lengths if letting others use it, or in my case I helped family set it up and made them have strong passwords.

Like others have said, the apps cache everything locally. I have used it without issues with no mobile Internet (e.g. for my cc pin numbers I store on there when i was out in the country with crap reception). I guess you’re more likely to create accounts at home anyway but if you have to when out, it would sync whenever you have it back on the lan.

I imported my keepass database into vaultwarden with no issues

I switched from keepass to vaultwarden (self hosted bitwarden) and am glad I tried it out as am finding it so much better on all my devices. I definitely recommend giving it a try if you’re just looking to tinker with things

I bought a new phone after having the old one for 3 years and as a treat to myself. It was an S22 Ultra. I regret buying it as the improvements are very minor compared to my old phone, and definitely not worth the massive hike in cost.

The camera is better but tbh, I barely notice it as its mostly a few photos for memories. I’m not printing them on canvas or anything so no point really having such high quality photos. Will definitely hold onto this one for as long as i can