It's been less than a year since I got into the idea of self-hosting, but in that time, it's already changed a lot about how I use my devices and services. Of course, I no longer pay for Microsoft 365 or Google One since I have my own storage, but self-hosting has also removed the need for many extensions I used to have in my browser.

Since I can replace a lot of those features with tools that are fully under my control, why wouldn't I? And in many cases, these self-hosted tools are better. Here are some examples of Chrome extensions you too can replace with self-hosted alternatives.

uBlock Origin

Pi-hole and AdGuard Home are just as good

In an age where so many websites bombard us with pop-ups and ads that constantly get in the way of what we want to do, sometimes even serving dangerous content that could infect our PCs, ad-blockers have become essential for many people. Not to mention the privacy implications of having your browsing activity tracked by advertising companies all the time.

Blocking ads is something I used to do manually with an extension like uBlock Origin, but since I started self-hosting, I discovered solutions that automatically do this on all my devices, such as Pi-hole and AdGuard Home. I initially set up Pi-hole on my NAS, but personally, I'm not even self-hosting it "properly" anymore since my Wi-Fi router now has AdGuard Home built-in. Both of these services do essentially the same thing, though, and you won't need an adblocker nearly as much this way.

The only downside of these self-hosted solutions is they can't block YouTube video ads, but for the majority of the internet, this is all you need.

RSS Feed Reader

Miniflux to the rescue

Staying on top of the latest news is pretty important, and to do it reliably, I used to have browser extensions for RSS feed readers. The problem with these extensions is that I'd often have to set them up for each computer and they don't sync across devices, or there's some kind of paywall in the way.

Enter Miniflux, a self-hosted RSS feed reader that works beautifully. The web UI for Miniflux works very well, and with a browser like Vivaldi, it's possible to add the webpage directly to the new tab page as a widget, or add it to the sidebar. What's more, many RSS apps can integrate with Miniflux as well, so you can pull data directly from it. And because I access Miniflux on my server, whenever I mark articles as read, they're marked as read for all my devices, meaning I don't have to worry about duplicates.

Keepa/Honey

I'll make my own price tracking

Everyone loves saving money, and there are a few extensions that aim to help with that, including PayPal's Honey and Keepa. But while those are certainly useful, tools like Honey rely on tracking your browsing habits, not to mention the recent scandals around how the company cheated many content creators who advertised it. If you want to be in control but still know when prices drop on certain products, then ChangeDetection may just be for you.

ChangeDetection can detect any changes to a web page and send you notifications about it, so it's perfect for keeping track of news or just verifying the status of a website. However, it also works great for tracking prices, and it even has a dedicated price tracking feature built-in that can identify availability and pricing information on some pages. That part is a little more convoluted, but by simply tracking changes to the entire page, you can have a notification system that lets you know when something has been updated, and quickly check if the price has dropped. It's not as elegant, but it's functional if you're looking to have more control over your data.

Grammarly

Bring your own LanguageTool

You may have noticed this before, but I tend to make quite a few typos while writing quickly, which is why a tool like Grammarly has been invaluable to me over the years. But with the company pushing more of its AI features onto me, it was time for a change, and then I learned about LanguageTool, which is a grammar checker you can self-host.

LanguageTool still works as a Chrome extension if you want to use it in your browser, but instead of having your text checked by an unknown server, all the communication happens with your own server, so there's nothing to be worried about in terms of privacy. Plus, LanguageTool is a lot less pushy about its AI capabilities, which gives me some peace of mind.

Honorable mention: A password manager

Vaultwarden is a better option

This one isn't really an extension, or at least it doesn't have to be. Chrome and other browsers typically have password managers built in, but there are also extensions for services like LastPass or Proton Pass, which often require online accounts. The good news is you can host your own password manager too, thanks to Vaultwarden, and it's pretty cool.

Vaultwarden is a self-hosted backend for Bitwarden, which is also available as a cloud service if you prefer. But if you want total control over your data, Vaultwarden is the way to go, and it's fairly easy to set up. You do need to make sure you're using a verifiably secure connection, which means you'll need something like Tailscale and a reverse proxy to add a trusted certificate to the page, but once that's done, it's pretty great. Bitwarden comes with a capable password generator, too — better than most built-in options, at the very least. It comes highly recommended if you're looking to live the self-hosted life.

Self-hosting is a way of life

All of these are great examples of services you can self-host to replace tools you might be relying on today. Whether it's because they lack certain features or you're worried about your privacy, self-hosting tools can really change the game, putting you in control of your data while sometimes enabling more capabilities. Not everything needs to be self-hosted, but all of these come recommended if you have the hardware to run them.