Second this, I've been using them for a couple of years and the service is rock solid.

A similar solution but I use https://ntfy.sh/ I have the app on my phone and have it set to alert when jobs ping the service. Mine ping on success but it is possible to ping when the job fails as well.

I don't have strong opinions but I've been happily using Vimium for years

Agreed, if the box works for you I'd look at cycling out the drives - 10 years is a long time for spinning disks to last and every day is another day closer to a failure.

Err, I agree with the greed part. But the obligation to maximise profits is not true. A quick web search will bring up, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits and many other sources. Companies can do whatever they like, as long as it's within the law. The fact that most choose to maximise profits at the cost of other things is entirely on them.

Thanks. I have all of that. I've been at this for a while and am now looking to move to centralised authentication and access management because I've got everything else working as I want it. It's just not ideal to have to maintain seperate logins across each of the services that I'm running. Hence starting to look at authentication. I know it's complex and the original post was wondering if there is a nice simple introduction to the subject matter.

Ok, I found this - https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2020-08-26-setting-up-authelia.

Which, if I'm reading it correctly tells me that SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) is essentially a web server, reverse proxy with lets encrypt support. It doesn't seem to do any authentication.

Authelia is a component of an identity and authentication solution that provides single sign on and 2FA but, crucially, does not include a user directory, by default it uses a YAML file but can be connected to an LDAP server - https://www.authelia.com/overview/authentication/first-factor/

Which I think goes towards the point in my original post - none of this is simple so I'd like a nice explanation that helps me understand what I need running, how they work together and what settings to use.

Thanks for the pointer, I'll check it out. I don't think I've come across SWAG before, and a web search comes up with lots of references to sleeping bags (I'm in Australia - https://outbackreview.com.au/best-swags-australia/). Could you provide pointers and/or a homepage? Thanks in advance.

And how does it compare to the usual suspects; Nextcloud, Syncthing, etc. ?

I know it's painful for me, and I think anyone who has a mortgage is feeling the pinch at the moment, as is anyone who rents. Meanwhile - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/08/a-quarter-of-homes-sold-in-eastern-australia-in-2022-were-bought-without-a-mortgage-data-reveals