Guides & Resources
Useful things, plainly explained.
Clear, jargon-free guides on clean websites, sovereign hosting, and digital privacy. No fluff, no tracking, no sales pitch — just things you can actually understand and act on.
Featured · Start here
Why your site doesn't need 40 trackers
The average website quietly loads dozens of third-party trackers before a visitor reads a word. Here's what they do, what they cost you and your visitors, and the faster, safer, more honest alternative — the guide the rest of this hub grows out of.
Read the guide →The Field Guide
10 guides · Privacy & SovereigntyOne thesis, ten threads: the things quietly added to your site take something and slow it down in the taking. Each guide proves its point in your own network tab — and every one traces back to sovereignty and non-extraction.
Your fonts are phoning home
Loading fonts from Google's CDN sends every visitor's IP to a US server before a word renders. What a German court decided, and the ten-minute fix that's faster anyway.
Read the guide → AnalyticsMeasure traffic without surveilling people
Count your visits without cookies, fingerprinting, or shipping reader behaviour to a third party. What you get, and what you honestly give up.
Read the guide → ConsentThe cookie banner confession
A banner isn't proof of consent — it's often a confession that tracking is happening that needs covering. A site with nothing to track needs no banner.
Read the guide → SovereigntyWho owns your website?
You pay for it every month — but can you leave with it? Where lock-in hides, and what it means to own your site outright.
Read the guide → PerformanceFast is a privacy feature
The scripts that surveil your visitors are the same scripts that slow your page down. The surveillance build and the slow build are the same build.
Read the guide → AccessibilityYour site should let everyone in
A site that excludes people with disabilities is taking their access away by default. Accessibility is non-extraction in its purest form — and the fixes are plainer than you think.
Read the guide → PrivacyYour email is someone else's filing cabinet
A free inbox lives on someone else's computer, readable by them and mined for metadata about your whole life. Who can open the drawer — and what holding your own key means.
Read the guide → PrivacyThe CDN that watches everyone
A CDN speeds your site up by routing every visitor through one company's network — a quiet chokepoint that sees who visits, from where, across millions of sites at once. The privacy cost most owners never chose.
Read the guide → PrivacyWhat your keyboard sends home
Your phone's keyboard sits between your fingers and every app you use — and many quietly send data home with what you type. What actually leaves, who gets it, and the keyboards that send nothing.
Read the guide → ConsentConsent isn't a contract you sign once
The web treats consent as a one-time signature — click "I agree" and surrender forever to terms that change without asking. Real consent is living: specific, revocable, ongoing. The idea under everything here.
Read the guide →Plain Terms
11 guides · Buyer's LiteracyThe words the industry uses, decoded in language that doesn't cost you. No jargon, no fear-selling — just what you're actually paying for, and the plain questions that reveal it before you sign.
What "managed hosting" should include
You pay for it every month — but what does the word promise? The plain-language checklist that tells a real service from a thin one wearing the label.
Read the guide → HostingWhat "unlimited" bandwidth really means
It usually means "we won't measure it, but we'll stop you if you use too much." Where the real limits hide, and the plain questions that reveal them.
Read the guide → PrivacyThe real cost of "free"
Free doesn't mean no cost — it means the bill is paid in a currency you didn't name. How to tell honest free from extraction wearing a zero.
Read the guide → HostingUptime guarantees & what they don't cover
"99.9% uptime" sounds airtight, but the guarantee usually excludes the outages that actually hurt — and pays pennies when it's broken. What the SLA leaves out.
Read the guide → SovereigntyDomain vs. hosting — not the same thing
Your domain and your hosting are two different things, often bought from two different companies. Confusing them is how people lose a site or get locked in.
Read the guide → SecurityWhat "SSL included" actually covers
The padlock is genuinely good — but it promises something far narrower than most people think, and "included" sometimes hides an asterisk worth finding.
Read the guide → HostingThe renewal price trap
That $2.99 plan and $0.99 domain are year-one only — renewals routinely jump 200–400%, held in place by how hard it is to leave. How not to get caught.
Read the guide → HostingWho actually backs up your site?
"Daily backups" is on every plan — but the contract usually says data loss is your problem. The difference between a backup as convenience and as guarantee.
Read the guide → SEOWhat "SEO included" actually means
Nobody controls Google's rankings — so a guaranteed position promises something the seller can't deliver. How to tell real SEO from the hollow kind.
Read the guide → Pricing"No setup fee" — and the math that hides
Free installation sounds generous, but the cost rarely vanishes — it moves to a paid phase two, a steeper monthly, or the cost of leaving once you're locked in.
Read the guide → PerformanceWhat a CDN actually does
A simple idea behind a sold-to-everyone acronym: copies of your site kept near your visitors. What it really does, and when a clean light site needs none.
Read the guide →The Field Manual
4 guides · The DoingThe field guide is the why; this is the how. Calm, step-by-step walkthroughs for doing the thing yourself — each one paired to the essay that argues for it. Just opened, and growing.
How to actually leave a platform
Leaving a host feels risky, so most people stay stuck. It isn't. The calm sequence — copy, test, switch — for moving your site with no downtime. The doing of "Who owns your website?"
Read the guide → How-toMake your forms keyboard-accessible
A form your visitor can't navigate is a closed shop with the lights on. The 20-minute keyboard test and the handful of fixes that let everyone complete it. The doing of "Let everyone in."
Read the guide → How-toSet up privacy analytics in an afternoon
Replacing surveillance analytics is an afternoon's work: pick a cookieless tool, paste one snippet, remove the old tracker, drop the cookie banner. The doing of "Measure without surveilling."
Read the guide → How-toGet your domain into your own hands
Your domain is the one piece you most need to hold — yet someone else often controls it. The calm way to take it into your own account and never be locked out. The doing of "Who owns your website?"
Read the guide →What this hub covers
The hands-on side
These guides describe what I do for a living.
When you'd rather have it done than do it yourself — clean site builds, managed hosting you own, and privacy hardening — that's the work over on the main site.
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