Hi there, I’m looking to get into self-hosting for privacy reasons and I wanted to ask y’all: how inadvisable is it to utilize an ISP-owned router/modem? I feel like they’re able to track everything I do online with their more than likely integrated spyware.
ISP can see your traffic anyways regardless if their router is at your end or not. In here any kind of ‘user behavior monitoring’ or whatever they call it is illegal, but the routers ISPs generally give out are as cheap as you can get so they are generally not too reliable and they tend to have pretty limited features.
Also, depending on ISP, they might roll out updates on your device which may or may not reset the configuration. That’s usually (at least around here) made with ISPs account on the router and if you disable/remove that their automation can’t access your router anymore.
So, as a rule of thumb, your own router is likely better for any kind of self hosting or other tinkering, but there’s exceptions too.
Honest answer, why tf would s/o vote this down?
I’ve often wondered about down votes as well. It’s not the points, as I care nothing about that. However, if you’re going to down vote something, have the balls to explain why. Maybe the down voter knows something that we all can learn from. It just seems like a common courtesy to do so.