Debate /
Searching for Additional Providers
Guidelines for Selecting Providers
Check the Acceptable Use Policy:
- Does it censor political or religious speech? Specifically, look up if it censors hate speech, extremist ideology, offensive content, discrimination, or racism. How do they define these words? Often this results in political or religious censorship.
- In many countries, censorship is required by law. In such a case, sysadmins must censor to follow the law. But, check if the provider requires a legal court order before it censors.
- What is their abuse policy? Do they notify us first to give us time to respond, before shutting off our services?
- Does it allow IRC?
- Does it allow email?
- Does it allow tor?
- Does it allow game servers?
- Does it allow VPNs?
- Does it allow running DNS servers?
- Does it allow torrents and filesharing?
Other Important Criteria:
- Does it support OpenBSD or other alternative operating systems?
- Does it provide DDoS filtering? IPv6? rDNS delegation? What size of an IPv6 subnet do we get?
- Do they offer colocation, or dedicated servers? We no longer want VPSes, they are too unstable.
- Where are the data centers located?
- How long has this provider been operating?
- Do they have a good reputation? Is there a strong user community?
- How do they provide customer support? IRC is best, second would be email. Discord and Telegram are not ideal. Support tickets can be very slow.
- What payment options do they accept? Paypal is not reliable. Credit cards are acceptable but cryptcoins would be best.
Send an email to customer support and ask them a few of these questions. If the customer support is friendly and helpful, you can continue researching. If they ignore your questions or are unhelpful, you should find another provider. If they aren't helpful before the purchase, you can be certain they will be unhelpful afterwards when they already have our money.
We especially need providers in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore), Australia, Africa, and South America.
Currently Using
- https://buyvm.net -- Las Vegas, New York City, Luxembourg
- https://aliendata.com -- Texas
Recommended
USA
- EndOffice -- Supports free speech, (DDoS filtering?)
- Colocation America -- includes DDoS filtering
- https://us.leaseweb.com -- fast reply, allows anything legal
Europe
Hong Kong
- https://simcentric.com -- fast customer support, 3 day trial
- https://hosthongkong.net -- allows anything legal
- https://serverrun.com -- replied no colo
- https://sunnyvision.com -- allows anything legal
- https://serverhk.org -- allows anything legal
- https://hkcolocation.net -- allows anything legal
Untested
USA
- BudgetVM
- SharkTech -- unresponsive tech support, did not respond to abuse reports, offers DDoS filtering
- blazingfast.io?
- colohouse.com? -- replied
- glowhost.com?
- http://ddoshostingsolutions.com/
- https://www.hostclean.net/
- https://www.datapacket.com -- very expensive
- https://www.quadranet.com/
- https://spartanhost.org/dedicated -- uses psychz
- https://www.prometeus.net/
Europe
- Orange Website -- Supports privacy, (free speech?), (DDoS filtering?)
- SharkTech -- unresponsive tech support, did not respond to abuse reports, offers DDoS filtering
- contabo?
- flokinet?
Hong Kong
Potential
- LowEndBox
- List #1 of Bitcoin VPS providers
- List #2 of Bitcoin VPS providers
- List #3 of Bitcoin VPS providers
DDos Filtering Providers:
Don't use
- OVH -- censors hate speech, perhaps prohibits IRC?
- Amazon AWS -- AUP censors offensive content without really defining what offensive is
- Google Cloud -- censors hate speech
- Digital Ocean -- censors hate speech
- Linode -- censors hate speech
- Microsoft Azure -- censors hate speech
- HostSailor -- censors hate speech
- Anynode -- no ddos filtering, unresponsive customer support, lacking IPv6 rDNS API
- ideastack.com?
- HyperFilter? -- forbids IRC
- Psychz -- DDoS filtering, censors hate speech
- Choopa -- includes DDoS filtering, censors hate speech
- hetzner
- PRQ.se -- Supports free speech, (DDoS filtering?); but no IRC and slow customer support
India
- Yourlasthost -- AUP bans IRC
- Arise Server -- doesn't know what IRC sys
- bigrock -- doesn't know what OpenBSD is
- b4u india -- doesn't allow chat servers
- Royal Clouds -- doesn't respond to customer questions
- go4hosting.in?
- leapswitch.com?
- crazyhosting.com?
- onliveserver.com?
- rdsindia.com?
- cyfuture.com?
- serverbasket.com?
- hostingraja.in?
- resellerclub.com?
- everdata.com?
- ricohidc.com?
- milesweb.com?
- nowindiaonline.in?
- cloudoye.com?
- softsyshosting.com?
- nowindiaonline.in?
- cloudoye.com?
- webji.in?
- hostkarle.com?
- serverscart.com?
- vnetindia.com?
- superbytehosting.com?
- sytes.in?
- royalclouds.net?
- nowindiaonline.in?
Pakistan
Hong Kong
- quotecolo.com -- replied but didn't answer questions
- hkcolo.com -- replied but didn't answer questions