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Exploring Free Alternatives to Paid Network Services Amidst the Growing Trend of Frugality

In recent years, the trend of "downgraded consumption" has become increasingly prevalent. Personally, I have been exploring ways to seek free alternatives to various network services whenever possible. This includes, but is not limited to, hosting, storage, image hosting, and personal account management. Below, I’ll share a brief overview of my experiences and the different approaches I’ve tried for substituting paid services with free ones.

First and foremost, as I once stated in a certain online platform's tagline:
"A netizen who doesn't cross the Great Firewall to reach the global internet is not a qualified citizen."
In a special environment like ours, having a VPN or proxy service to access foreign resources is a necessity to be considered a "qualified" netizen.

Previously, I used to pay around 30+ CNY per month to purchase lightweight application cloud servers from domestic cloud service providers like Tencent Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, or Huawei Cloud, where I would self-host a v2ray service. In some cases, I opted to buy specialized proxy services directly.

However, with the shift toward frugality, I’ve transitioned to exploring free alternatives. One such option is utilizing Oracle Cloud, which offers every user two free VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro instances as part of their always-free tier. This has proven to be a valuable and cost-effective alternative for maintaining essential services.