The standard way nowadays, to share a video online, is to post an embed link to youtube.

This then displays that video in what’s called an iframe — an embedded website within the website you are on.

What this allows youtube and parent company alphabet (read: google) to do, is to track you whilst on that website.

I want my website to be a bastion of the once-person-centric web. When people would share things on their own websites because they enjoyed it and wanted to share it with other humans.

Self-hosting videos myself

So to ensure that I don’t subject my visitors to any tracking, I choose to download any videos I wish to share and then manually upload them to my own site.

When you watch a video on my website, it actually is from my own website.

A novel idea I know.

It’s how it used to be, and it’s how it should be.

Mind your bandwidth

I am also putting a note beneath each video to show what size the video is in megabytes (mb).

My site shouldn’t preload the video — it will only start downloading it once you press the play button.

I recommend just waiting till you’re on a wifi connection. Nothing I’m sharing can’t wait till later.

Enjoy the fresh air whilst you’re out.

Disclaimer

I may still have some very old posts in my archive that have historic youtube links in them. Yes, I did it once too.

But I am endeavouring to get rid of those and replace them with self-hosted versions where possible.