Update: Seedboxes are VPS hosts with a focus on privacy — you may want to consider them first.
The VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosts I list below meet the following criteria:
- Located in a good privacy jurisdiction to keep user data safe
- Long-term reliability
- Good performance throughout the server network (speed and reliability)
- Good Privacy Policy
- Tech support/knowledge quality
FlokiNET
FlokiNET is an Icelandic hosting provider that is quite popular with privacy advocates.
They allow users to pay with cryptocurrencies, as well as cash by mail and Paysafecard (prepaid card).
Flokinet is rated 3.5/5 at HostSearch. FlokiNET doesn’t have the near-perfect review ratings that OrangeWebsite has, but unlike OrangeWebsite FlokiNET accepts payments via cash by mail and Paysafecard. The company’s Icelandic Virtual Private Servers are a lot cheaper than those from OrangeWebsite. This is a good option for those who want privacy-friendly hosting in Romania or Finland.
Romania is the country with the least surveillance in Europe (though that might have changed since the report is from 2010) and Finland increasing their mass surveillance in the country.
A good sign that FlokiNET takes privacy seriously is that they allow Tor exit and relay nodes as well as VPN services to be hosted on their dedicated and virtual servers. Not many companies do this, especially when it comes to Tor exit nodes that get regular abuse complaints.
FlokiNET doesn’t enforce DMCA — and also has a legal department to deal with abuse complaints. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].
The FlokiNET staff use end-to-end encrypted communication systems and all of their workstations are pre-boot encrypted with AES 256-bit encryption.
OrangeWebsite
OrangeWebsite is an Iceland-based offshore hosting provider that focuses on privacy and freedom of speech. The owner is said to be an anarchist that strongly supports freedom of speech and opposed SOPA and PIPA legislation.
OrangeWebsite ignores complaints that do not violate Icelandic laws or OrangeWebsite’s Terms of Service.
OrangeWebsite offers two-factor authentication and only requires an email address to create an account. They also accept anonymous payments via cryptocurrencies.
OrangeWebsite’s servers run on 100% green energy.
OrangeWebsite is the highest-rated Islandic web host with a rating of 4.72/5 on HostSearch and 9.0/10 on TrustPilot.
Iceland is widely regarded to be the best country to host websites for those who value privacy and abhor censorship. The 2016 Data Center Risk Index rated Iceland 100/100, making it the safest country for data centers among the 37 countries they looked into.
This is the country that told the FBI to leave Iceland when they came there to get Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The Pirate Party is Iceland’s third largest party and the party’s leader is a former WikiLeaks member. That politician was in 2010 the chief sponsor of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, which set out to make Iceland a journalistic safe haven. The proposal was adopted unanimously by parliament and under that proposal, the Icelandic government is now tasked with strengthening freedom of speech and information.
Another advantage of Iceland is that it’s situated between North America and Europe, making it the optimal country if you want to provide fast loading times to both continents without using a CDN
Exoscale
Exoscale is based in Switzerland and has a nice DigitalOcean-like platform. Switzerland is one of the best countries for online privacy. CERN uses Exoscale.
Exoscale embraces open-source software and at the moment they have 217 repositories on GitHub. There’s a detailed guide for setting up a website with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt on Exoscale here. The data centers Exoscale rents are located in Geneva, Switzerland; Frankfurt, Germany, and Austria.
I emailed them and the support staff answered within an hour early in the morning. I do however have some criticism. The payment options are credit/debit card and PayPal, but recurring payments via PayPal have not been enabled as a payment option. So unless you want to store your credit/debit card info with Exoscale’s payment processor PostFinance you’ll have to manually add funds to your account. This is a problem because Exoscale doesn’t notify you before your account runs out of money, they send an email when your account is out of money and your VPS has been powered down. They give you 29 days to pay the bill before the VPS is deleted, so your data will be preserved.
There’s also a similar Swiss VPS hosting company called cloudscale.ch. However, they are a lot more expensive than Exoscale without offering anything that Exoscale does not already provide. Cloudscale.ch also runs analytics in the form of a Matomo instance, which is as privacy friendly as you can get with analytics since Matomo is self-hosted and open source. However, apparently, Exoscale doesn’t use any analytics at all, which is even better.
Bahnhof
Bahnhof is a hosting provider based in Sweden, which has some of the strongest press freedom laws in the world. They have hosted WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay in their nuclear bunker called White Mountain and are known as a free speech ISP.
The same people who run Bahnhof also run the privacy non-profit called the 5th of July Foundation. Bahnhof is currently providing hosting to a press freedom hosting service that helps news agencies in regimes to stay online. Bahnhof’s data centers are 100% powered by renewable energy and all the excess heat generated by the service is used to heat up nearby households.
What really makes Bahnhof laudable is their stance and actions against mass surveillance. Their slogan Internet with privacy says it all. Back in 2013 when the Swedish Security Service secretly started pressuring ISPs in Sweden into opening access to their systems in order to conduct mass surveillance. Bahnhof was the only ISP that spoke out and they did so when the CEO of Bahnhof, Jon Karlung, secretly recorded the Swedish Security Services demands and threats and leaked it to the Swedish press (article in Swedish).
Last year, Bahnhof leaked documents about a government proposal for increased data retention[1][2] (which is also in violation of EU data regulations). The day the European Court of Justice overturned the EU data retention directive Bahnhof published a press release saying: “Just hours after the verdict I [Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung] ordered our technicians to abort storing traffic data about our customers. Moreover, we erased existing data.”
When copyright trolls started suing Internet users across Sweden and demanding Internet subscriber info from Bahnhof, but since Bahnhof only stores IP addresses for 24 hours there was no data for the copyright trolls to demand from Bahnhof. The company then decided to register the name of the copyright trolls’ campaign, Spridningskollen (roughly translates to The Distribution Check) with the Swedish Patent and Registration Office, send the copyright trolls a collection letter for trademark infringement and start a website in Swedish called Utpressningskontrollen (roughly translates to The Extortion Check) about the issue and all of the ongoing legal cases.
NFOrce Entertainment
NFOrce Entertainment is a Netherlands-based hosting provider that is known for donating dedicated servers to the Tor network via “torservers.net”. They are also one of the three hosting companies ProtonVPN uses for their VPN servers. Needless to say, they are quite trusted when it comes to handling private hosting. They are also quite generous when it comes to hosting live-streaming sites.
NFOrce Entertainment offers paid backups with recovery points. User reviews for NFOrce Entertainment are positive and can be found on Web Hosting Talk and Reddit.
Greenhost
Greenhost is an environmentally friendly hosting provider based in the Netherlands that focuses greatly on privacy and security. Greenhost hasn’t logged any data since 2009. They have urged other hosting providers to do the same by setting up an informative website in Dutch.
Greenhost is a big supporter of open-source software and encryption. The service is mostly built on open source software, has integrated free, open source Lets Encrypt TLS certificates into their hosting platform, and supports DNSSEC.
Greenhost performs daily website backups and daily database backups for free.
Greenhost signed an open letter calling for state ambassadors to implement Net Neutrality in Europe making it the only hosting provider to sign the open letter and also the only corporate signee as all other signees were organizations. Greenhost also signed an open letter urging Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, and CEO of Facebook — to defend Net Neutrality. Greenhost has published a Basic Internet Security manual, that helps journalists and activists around the world to communicate freely and sponsors organizations that are committed to freedom. They are the most chosen and promoted by the non-profit organization Privacy First.
DataCell
Datacell is a privacy-oriented provider in Iceland, recommended by PrivacyTools.IO. More information forthcoming…
Orange Web-Hosting – simply THE BEST privacy oriented hosting on the market!
We are a small group of activists from Russia. We live in an oppressed state, especially on the subject of . We had colossal exposure material on one of the most vicious powerful Russian teachers-healers-politicians named Gleb Alexandrov (pseudonym Dmitriy Raevskiy). But he had (still has) unlimited power to block websites across the Russian state. So we started to look for a webhosting to publish this life-saving information resistant to his dominion. After two years of bad experience with other hosters and after endless searches for a privacy AND anonymity oriented provider, we have finally found the EXCELLENT “Orange Webhosting” (https://orangewebsite.com) on 2018. We carefully reviewеd and deeply examined seven hostings which claimed to protect your Freedom Of Speech, your PRIVACY (and had a possibility to pay anonymously (bitcoin/ cash by mail) to be protected from vicious hackers or state level actors from Russia)). And now, after three years of intense interaction, we can wholeheartedly state, that “Orange Webhosting” is the only company out there, that not only makes beautiful claims about privacy, freedom and quality of service, but indeed acts by those claims (https://www.orangewebsite.com/different.php). Here we got solid privacy and total freedom to express ourselves thanks to this solid hosting provider and it’s honest politics.
Moreover, having vast experience with many “recommended” hosting companies in the past, only here we got literally THE BEST Customer Support. Super fast, super professional and very very patient. We want to thank from the depth of our hearts to all the support team Members. And especially to one man. He is one of the chief managers of Orange Webhosting named Stefan Bjorn Adalsteinsson. Throughout the past three years, this man gave us ENDLESS support. And huge professional advice. Never ever we got some “copy-paste” answers from all the support team of Orange, nor from Mr. Adalsteinsson. It’s something our team never got from the “big/ best” companies we worked with.
Last but not least is the “Reliability” of the hosting provider. Orange is an absolutely reliable service provider. Although the company is not relatively big, so it has no extra-super resources like many competitors, we had only one time big downtime in the past 36 months. And even for this incident, we got two months of free service.
As for the price – the price for the service is good, average for the market. But thanks to the open-minded manager (Mr. Adalsteinsson) and the humanely politics of the company (money is NOT everything), if you are a committed customer, you can get discount when having emergency circumstances or you pay 36 months ahead.
In conclusion, Orange Webhosting (https://www.orangewebsite.com) is one of the best hosting providers on the market. In all parameters. And, in our opinion, literally THE BEST web-hosting provider for those, who you are seeking for privacy, anonymity and freedom of speech (bonus: THE BEST customer support you can ever get!).
Thank you very much, dear Orangewebsite. And special huge gratitude to Mr.Stefan Bjorn Adalsteinsson. You and your team are not only making money for living, like the vast majority of businesses. But you also help this world to become a BETTER place. You don’t just talk, but you really HELP.
With great respect and thankfulness,
Members of http://www.anti-raevskyalexandrov.xyz website.
1984hosting.com
Bahnhof seems to only be available for Swedish customers as of now?