I noticed that there were some accounts that were hijacked by the instance owners. All the posts from that user were then edited to say what happened.

This kind of surprised me, I figured instances could delete posts, but not edit them. So how much control do they have?

I assume they can’t see my password (hopefully). Can they post in my name? Do they have all the access to my posts to foreign instances that they do over local posts?

Edit: thanks for all the responses everyone! I’ve wanted my own instance for a while, but maybe I’ll get on it now

  • Psythik@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    Can you recommend a good free web host for running your own instance? I haven’t dabbled in web development in over 15 years now, so I’m kinda out of the loop.

    • Salamander@mander.xyz
      3·
      1 year ago

      I’m not sure about Web Hosting. Many of us use a dedicated virtual private server (VPS)

      I use https://serverspace.io, I think Lemmy.ml is hosted with https://www.hetzner.com/

      These are servers that you access via SSH and can install the instance inside of it. I personally install using docker compose, but there are some other methods that are claimed to be easier. The cost starts at ~$5 / month. Currently I pay about $15 / month. You would then rent the domain name from a domain name registrar (I use namecheap.com) and ask them to point the domain name to your server’s IP address.