CoreLabJoe

joined 5 days ago
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How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide in c/canada@lemmy.ca
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 2 points 7 minutes ago

A good point indeed!

Two current methodologies in practice these says, mostly.

  1. Dump your 'smart' devices (Including the spyware TV) into their own "IOT" style VLAN and block it from touching your own network but allow it to reach internet, or NOT.
  2. Network wide adware/spyware/analytics blocking via adguard/pihole/unbound etc...

I'll end up writing a guide for this at some point ;)

How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 2 points 12 hours ago

OOhh very nice! ...

I've been hesitant to include links for this on the blog / guide but, this is quite the 'educational resource' you've shared!!!

How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 2 points 12 hours ago

Glad you read & enjoyed it! I aim for comprehensive coverage of a topic so some of the posts can be a bit long, but in the end cover a lot of ground.

Thanks - Cross-posted over there!

26
How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide (corelab.tech)
 

Hello PieFed! I feel there's not enough content in regards to tech or self-hosting focused on us Canucks, so I started writing a blog last year. A lot of it fits into anywhere as it's all centered on self-hosting and cybersecurity but I specifically write some posts & chunks of posts, directly for my fellow Canadians!

Welcome to Core Lab =) Operated & Self-Hosted in Canada, by a Canadian.

I personally 'cut the cord' back in 2012 , tired of the high costs and limited options of Canadian cable. Over the last 14+ years, I’ve moved from trying basic OTA antennas (Mohu Leaf anyone?!) to advanced automated self-hosted setups using Plex/Jelly and/or Real Debrid integrations!

I wrote this guide to save you the trial and error. It filters out the outdated advice and shows you exactly which hardware and streaming protocols actually work for reliable, high-quality streaming in Canada in 2026. Let me know if you have any questions or if this guide helped you out!

Disclaimer: This post does contain some affiliate links, but no ads ! I'll never have popup or in-line ads...

GitHub - spacebarchat/spacebarchat: 📬 Spacebar is a free open source selfhostable discord compatible communication platform in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 66 points 22 hours ago (11 children)

HHhhmm... Do container/docker install option. This is why it's probably stagnated in adoption from the selfhosted community.

It needs a container based install, no one likes installing dependencies and crud onto their pristine environments any longer.

How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 2 points 23 hours ago

OOhhh I didn't know about this!!! Thanks so much, I'll be playing with that later...

How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Hahaha yes... I agree... I was very hesitant to include this as my header pic but I was like, eehhh, it's realistic at least! The key is it shows certain 'apps' running on that Google TV. 😆

How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Yes sadly there's a bit of a stranglehold on the market regarding sports. It's the one thing that is held very close to the chest by the large Corps & broadcasters.

Thanks for taking a read through! Lots more to come ;)

91
How to Cut the Cord in Canada (2026): The Ultimate Guide (corelab.tech)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
12 comments fedilink
 

Hello PieFed! I feel there's not enough content in regards to tech or self-hosting focused on us Canucks, so I started writing a blog last year. A lot of it fits into anywhere as it's all centered on self-hosting and cybersecurity but I specifically write some posts & chunks of posts, directly for my fellow Canadians!

Welcome to Core Lab =) Operated & Self-Hosted in Canada, by a Canadian.

I personally 'cut the cord' back in 2012 , tired of the high costs and limited options of Canadian cable. Over the last 14+ years, I’ve moved from trying basic OTA antennas (Mohu Leaf anyone?!) to advanced automated self-hosted setups using Plex/Jelly and/or Real Debrid integrations!

I wrote this guide to save you the trial and error. It filters out the outdated advice and shows you exactly which hardware and streaming protocols actually work for reliable, high-quality streaming in Canada in 2026. Let me know if you have any questions or if this guide helped you out!

Disclaimer: This post does contain some affiliate links, but no ads ! I'll never have popup or in-line ads...

What's your opinion on Ubiquiti/Unifi gear? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
[–] CoreLabJoe@piefed.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I've been using Unifi APs since 2017 and they are fantastic. I control them with the Unifi Network Application via docker compose. Incredibly well priced APs that fit right into the 'prosumer' market for sure and still powerful enough to do SMB no problem.

As for FOSS Networking options - OPNsense FTW !!! It's an open source firewall/router based on FreeBSD and extremely performant, feature rich, stable and secure... Absolutely love it, it's the core of my network.

In regards to ZFS, I've been running a ZFS system of one type or another at home since 2013/2014... Totally valid & usable for home networks, many many do use ZFS storage systems. I'm very preferential to OpenMediaVault which is a NAS OS, but based directly on Debian! Debian is basically the Linux OS you want for reliability but paired with OMV's gui - makes having a custom NAS easy.