Your shipment should include:

• The server box itself
• Optional USB drive for making backups
• cat6 ethernet patch lead
• Mains power supply

To set the system up you'll need either a smartphone or a laptop/desktop machine.

Connect the server box to one of the sockets on your internet router using the ethernet lead.

Plug in the power supply and power on.

Most internet routers come with zeroconf/mDNS enabled so that you can plug in network printers or other gadgets. If this isn't enabled then access your router's settings page and turn that on. Usually internet routers are accessed via a local IP address, such as 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254.

Using a smartphone or laptop/desktop open a browser and navigate to http://freedombone/admin. Don't use a Tor browser for this, because you're accessing only the home network. The default browser should be good enough.

You'll see an initial screen like this:

Write down the login credentials, or store them in a password manager such as KeepassXC. You'll need them to log back in later.

After a confirmation screen the box setup process will start. You may be asked to enter a domain name for the box. If you don't have one then just select continue.

This might take 10-20 minutes, depending upon the hardware specifications of your box. What it's doing during this time is mainly generating encryption keys and applying any operating system updates.

Open a browser and navigate to http://freedombone/admin, then log in. You should see the main menu, like this:

You can navigate through the menus by clicking or pressing the icons, and you can use either the browser back button or select the Freedombone logo at the top to go back to the previous screen.

Select the apps icon and you can then add new internet apps to the box by pressing the + button.

Some apps can take a while to install, so keep checking the apps screen and don't expect it to happen immediately.

Up to a maximum of ten people may be added via the members screen. It's advisable to add the apps you want and then people later if you're going to have multiple members of your household using this system.

If you're familiar with using a GNU/Linux terminal then you might want to enable secure shell logins from the settings screen. You'll need to supply an ssh public key if you do.

The admin menu is primarily meant only to be accessed from within your home network, but it can also be accessed remotely with a Tor browser via an onion address which can be found by selecting the Freedombone logo on the initial menu screen.

On a smartphone first install F-droid. Open F-droid, go to settings then repositories and enable Guardian Project Official Releases. When that's done update the repositories by swiping down, search for Orbot and install it. Also search for OrFox and install that. Using the Orfox browser you will be able to access onion sites.

On a laptop or desktop machine navigate to the Tor project site and download the browser suitable for your operating system. Follow the install instructions on the site.

Once you're running your own internet software then keeping backups of your data becomes important. You can do this via the backup icon on the admin menu. You'll need to give a password which will be used to encrypt the backup, so that if you lose the USB drive it will still be hard for someone to read your files.

If you leave the backup USB drive plugged into the box then it will backup automatically once per day. You might want to have a few USB drives and rotate them occasionally so that you have more than one backup to return to if one of the drives fails.

The internet was designed as a decentralized system with no clear distinction between clients or servers. Freedombone is about taking it back to where it belongs, working for people and not against them.