Slashdot Mirror

Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/
Enough said.

NearlyFreeSpeech web hosting: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.n...
They defend net nuetrality. Their pricing structure is clearly laid out with no hidden fees, and emphasis on efficiency, and they do well when you do well. They are run by highly competent individuals.


DuckDuckGo web search: https://duckduckgo.com/html/
Great search that doesn't track you. Fuck yes.


PaleMoon web browser: https://www.palemoon.org/
A modern, FOSS, secure, fast, lean, extensible, and highly configurable browser that took over where FireFox left off. It's run by individuals who have ethics, and stick to them.


Proton Mail web mail: https://protonmail.com/
FOSS end-to-end encrypted e-mail. The only issue I see here is that it is free, so you're likely not the customer... There is another end-to-end encrypted web-mail solution that is $5/mo. or so but I've forgotten the name. Anyone?

IF - and I mean this, only if - you know what you're doing then check out NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. They're awesome hosting if you're able to do the setup on your own.

Use a webhost that lets you pre-pay for service, and prepay for a bunch of it. Register the domains through that host too, and set them to autorenewal. This won't get you indefinite service, but it can get you quite some years, if the host remains in business. Also you might want a static HTML website rather than something that might need upgrades.

Nearlyfreespeech.net is an example of a host you can do that with. If you deposit, say, $500, they will keep hosting your website until you use up $500 worth of service, which for a modest static-HTML site with one domain should be many years.

I checked out their pricing estimator
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.n...
and while they're inexpensive for most stuff, they'd cost me an arm and a leg for storage. I keep an FTP mirror that while it gets very little traffic, presently has over 40GB of files. That pulled the storage charge up to about 10x what I'm presently paying, and rather considerably offset what I'd save on my two dozen domains.

Anyway, I've been using 1&1 since 2003 and been nothing but happy with 'em. Shameless affiliate link:

http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=676...

These guys are crazy!

• When their costs drop, they actually drop their prices... WTF?!
• They don't even have any unlimited plans, they charge for usage!! That means that my p0rn site which gets tons of hits isn't subsidized by everyone else!
• They actually charge for support! Why do I have to pay for support just cause I'm too stupid to figure anything out! I want my support to be paid for by everyone else who doesn't need support!!
• They have all sorts of burdensome requirements to file a DMCA takedown request, I don't have time for this when all I really want to do is silence my critics!!

Please, whatever you do, avoid NFS at all costs!!!!

These guys are crazy!

• When their costs drop, they actually drop their prices... WTF?!
• They don't even have any unlimited plans, they charge for usage!! That means that my p0rn site which gets tons of hits isn't subsidized by everyone else!
• They actually charge for support! Why do I have to pay for support just cause I'm too stupid to figure anything out! I want my support to be paid for by everyone else who doesn't need support!!
• They have all sorts of burdensome requirements to file a DMCA takedown request, I don't have time for this when all I really want to do is silence my critics!!

Please, whatever you do, avoid NFS at all costs!!!!

nearlyfreespeech.net is my go to for hosting and registration. They are transparent and do a great job of keeping costs down while providing excellent service.

I've been with them for years after my original registrar/host went belly-up. I was with GoDaddy briefly until they started the crap that they were doing (don't know if they still do, don't care). Anyway, NFS.net is inexpensive, they offer per-byte hosting, and they have an anonymity service available which I avail myself of. I definitely recommend them, they've been trouble-free for me.

NearlyFreeSpeech.Net

Solid shared hosting and reasonably priced domain registrations.

https://www.nearlyfreespeech.n...

Ah, here it is (PDF warning). It was linked from that blog post. Teach me to post before coffee!

On the general subject of badgers, we definitely do see cause for concern. It is at this point well-known among frequent Internet users -- including us -- that the rapid
proliferation of "badger, badger, badger" leads -- inevitably -- to mushrooms and, if left unchecked, a very frightening snake, in a vicious cycle with no apparent end. That
definitely seems like a concern worthy of the attention of a large UK government agency like DEFRA. We have and offer no official position on the proposed DEFRA response to the badger menace that you outline in your letter.

nearlyfreespeech.net.

They actually fight back against takedown notices. They know they're a US site and give 0 fucks what foreign governments think of your content. They have a sense of humor (anyone have the link to their response letter about badgers?). Seems perfect for you.

Specifically, this post from their blog illustrates how far NFSN will go to defend their users against anybody (in this case, the UK government) who tries to bully them without proper authority.

The official lawyers for the UK government are basically saying on official letterhead (even their own filename contains “Letterhead”), “Hey, we heard you’re small. Well, we’re the world’s 6th largest economy, so we can put you out of business with legal bills if you don’t play ball.” Now, it’s not super-unusual to see a lawyer say something menacing about how if they win, you’ll have to pay their legal fees — even though that’s often not true in the US. What’s different here is that they dropped “if we win” and added “we will ruin you.” Stating that if someone doesn’t cooperate, your strategy will be to run up enough legal bills to put them out of business whether you win or not is a little different. It’s the sort of thing you expect to hear from the smarmy thug lawyer for the big bad corporation in a formulaic TV legal drama. We don’t generally see it in the real world from the legal representatives of a developed country.

Fortunately, they heard wrong. Our excellent legal team is ready, willing, and able to vigorously defend us should the need arise.

So, the story so far is that we asked to have the proper legal process followed, and the UK’s lawyers threatened to destroy us. Despite this, we are refusing to censor our member’s site. We steadfastly believe we are under no legal obligation to do so, that we will prevail in any US legal action that arises from this matter, and that any attempt by the UK government to spend us into oblivion will fail. More news as it happens.

For this (as well as their other policies) I'd recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net - they have a DMCA policy page which clearly lays out the requirements that must be met to anybody intending to make a takedown claim. They're run as a pay-what-you-use host for people who have at least a small amount of knowledge of what they're doing (no cPanel interfaces here!) and from their blog and general demeanour it's clear that they are a company run by nerds who Do Things Properly.

I have no doubt that they'd follow the law if issued with a full and proper DMCA notice, but I also have no doubt that they would not give the benefit of the doubt to, or go out of their way to assist somebody filing incomplete or incorrect takedown notices.

(Full disclosure: While I've hosted my small website with NFSN for a number of years I've never received a DMCA takedown notice and I have no material which is at all likely to generate any.)

For this (as well as their other policies) I'd recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net - they have a DMCA policy page which clearly lays out the requirements that must be met to anybody intending to make a takedown claim. They're run as a pay-what-you-use host for people who have at least a small amount of knowledge of what they're doing (no cPanel interfaces here!) and from their blog and general demeanour it's clear that they are a company run by nerds who Do Things Properly.

I have no doubt that they'd follow the law if issued with a full and proper DMCA notice, but I also have no doubt that they would not give the benefit of the doubt to, or go out of their way to assist somebody filing incomplete or incorrect takedown notices.

(Full disclosure: While I've hosted my small website with NFSN for a number of years I've never received a DMCA takedown notice and I have no material which is at all likely to generate any.)

For this (as well as their other policies) I'd recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net - they have a DMCA policy page which clearly lays out the requirements that must be met to anybody intending to make a takedown claim. They're run as a pay-what-you-use host for people who have at least a small amount of knowledge of what they're doing (no cPanel interfaces here!) and from their blog and general demeanour it's clear that they are a company run by nerds who Do Things Properly.

I have no doubt that they'd follow the law if issued with a full and proper DMCA notice, but I also have no doubt that they would not give the benefit of the doubt to, or go out of their way to assist somebody filing incomplete or incorrect takedown notices.

(Full disclosure: While I've hosted my small website with NFSN for a number of years I've never received a DMCA takedown notice and I have no material which is at all likely to generate any.)

http://cdn.nearlyfreespeech.net/jandmstatic/strips/2012-01-25.png

NFSN is GREAT!

I've been with them for a while and have had NO PROBLEMS.

Just use their control panel to turn off CGI (server type), FTP access off/on as needed, and use FileZilla (free FTP client) to upload/overwrite your static site as needed--note the FTP server dns name and use your account PW to log in. :)

It took me a little while to figure that out.

These guys are TRULY 'pay as you go' webhosting with incredible pricing. "...you can get started for as little as 0.25 USD..."

CAPTCHA: fatality (for GoDaddy in a corporate sense if all their customers leave them over the SOPA issue....)

try https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/

NearlyFreeSpeech.Net

They are quick, cheep and fair.

Great and Awesome for low volumes sites.

...and the 4$ a year hosting site with no ads is? (want!)

I don't know what service the GP was referring to, but I suggest looking at NearlyFreeSpeech.net. You deposit money upfront, and they charge you as you go, usually in units of cents per day (but even finer than that for bandwidth and storage). It's a great deal for sites that don't get much traffic but need to be up reliably. On the down side, you don't get HTTPS or persistent processes.

www.nearlyfreespeech.net will register your domains, host your website, forward your mail, and do it all without the soul-sucking experience you get everywhere else. Speaking as a satisfied customer.

I've always been impressed with NearlyFreeSpeech.Net's (they sell hosting/domains) privacy policy: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/privacy Check it out if you want an example of one that's serious about earning your trust, not just tricking you. It's clearly written with very little legalese or boilerplate cut&paste.

I've been using BlueHost for a few years, ever since Scottsdale Hosting fell off the face of the earth. They run $10ish a month and have had, in my experience, very good uptime. I've only had one problem with them that required a restore, and they were very quick about it.

For domain reg, I use NearlyFreeSpeech.net. I also use their privacy service, which I have found no negative press for (in terms of them rolling over like GoDaddy has done in the past).

Any downtime, especially unplanned, is of course annoying. But at the same time, there's only so much anyone can do for redundancy without skyrocketing the costs and prices by keeping everything mirrored on a backup server. In this case there was a hardware problem with the supposedly redundant PSU last week, and some fallout from that today. You can see what's going on on their offsite status page. Otherwise I'd say the reliability is pretty reasonable, all things considered.

I joined NFSN a bit more than a month before they announced the price increases, and admittedly I haven't noticed any improvement yet. Still, although the new prices could be a huge increase in relative terms, the service is still fairly cheap. I'm sticking with them for now as they're apparently working on enabling mod_perl soon, which would make them extremely competitive, from my perspective at least. I also like their prepaid model, the elegant web interface, and the fact that they run on FreeBSD.

The other problem is that of course fairly cheap is what plenty of other hosts are offering. They basically raised the fixed costs from almost $0 to about $1 (if there's any php/cgi and a MySQL process running) - I've seen a few hosts that offer something like this, and at least they include some storage and data transfer in this. Here, on the other hand, all that is extra, and fairly expensive at that. Data transfer starts at $1 for GB but at least goes down with usage to (I think) 0.2/GB, but storage stays at $1/100MB/month. I partially solved this by hosting anything larger than a photo jpeg in my S3 bucket, which is around 8-10 times cheaper in comparison.

-mobby_6kl

I've had great luck with http://nearlyfreespeech.net/ - they're security-conscious, anti-spam, pay-only-for-what-you-use, and I like their political pro-privacy and pro-free speech stance. I have a feeling most of the people here at Slashdot would be very comfortable with them. They run FBSD, not Linux, but it's really not that huge a difference for web development.

Make sure you read the caveats about what will and won't work with their service. Things like Django and RoR won't really work because of the need for a persistent process, and they don't yet have support for cron jobs (but they're working on it - it's difficult because of the way they're set up). OTOH, MVC frameworks for PHP like CodeIgniter will work just fine, and they've got Catalyst installed for Perl coders. They do make it very clear about what they do and don't support, though.

Echoing this recommendation - have used NFSN for a few years now, and am very pleased with the 'pay for what you actually use' structure. As long as you're comfortable at using FTP without the help of a cPanel interface, they're hands-down the best deal you're going to find.

I've had great luck with http://nearlyfreespeech.net/ - they're security-conscious, anti-spam, pay-only-for-what-you-use, and I like their political pro-privacy and pro-free speech stance. I have a feeling most of the people here at Slashdot would be very comfortable with them. They run FBSD, not Linux, but it's really not that huge a difference for web development.

Make sure you read the caveats about what will and won't work with their service. Things like Django and RoR won't really work because of the need for a persistent process, and they don't yet have support for cron jobs (but they're working on it - it's difficult because of the way they're set up). OTOH, MVC frameworks for PHP like CodeIgniter will work just fine, and they've got Catalyst installed for Perl coders. They do make it very clear about what they do and don't support, though.

Generally the registrar will set up DNS hosting on their servers by default, with "www" pointing to one of their web servers showing an ad-laden "parking" page, regardless of what you intend to change it to in 15 minutes.

I don't doubt that it's common, but that's a pretty evil practice (abusive, even -- that domain is their customer's property; how is it their business to put anything there?). I use NearlyFreeSpeech, and they don't do anything of that sort.

I was referred to NearlyFreeSpeech.net by someone on /. in one of the previous GoDaddy horror stories, and I now use them for both domain and shared hosting. They've also got a neat little service called RespectMyPrivacy that provides a proxy contact service.

Their customer service has been top-notch, their service is easy to use, and I've experienced maybe one or two short service outages during the past year that I've used them. The only complaint I have is that DNS resolution seems a little slow. It's not really a big deal for me though, so I'm still more than satisfied with their services.

I was referred to NearlyFreeSpeech.net by someone on /. in one of the previous GoDaddy horror stories, and I now use them for both domain and shared hosting. They've also got a neat little service called RespectMyPrivacy that provides a proxy contact service.

Their customer service has been top-notch, their service is easy to use, and I've experienced maybe one or two short service outages during the past year that I've used them. The only complaint I have is that DNS resolution seems a little slow. It's not really a big deal for me though, so I'm still more than satisfied with their services.

Whatever you decide to put up there, you need probably need somewhere to host it. For low-bandwidth sites where your cost is the most important consideration, I have found nothing better than http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ for the purpose. It really is nearly free.

You complain about how all of your AOL-hosted links ceased to work and how you're unable to update all the places they were used to point to your (currently) Verizon-hosted content. Do you see the problem with this?

The solution to this is to get your own domain, so you retain the ability to move it at will. I started out with my primary domain (http://www.fencepost.net/) because I wanted a reliable email address after two successive ISPs were bought out. I would never use a carrier-provided email address as my primary, though I probably do have an @sbcglobal.net address that will continue to exist until AT&T decides to kill off the last of that Baby Bell.

As I see it, if you want a "permanent" online presence then you have two options: 1) control it yourself with a domain of your own, or 2) find an entity that you are positive will not cease to exist or restructure your presence out of existence.

Your best bet for #2 is probably an email address through your college (assuming you're a college grad) if your college's Alumni Relations office has set something like that up. Generally these are "forwarder" addresses (@alumni.mycollege.edu) that simply pass mail along to another address that you've provided them with, and sending email with that as your return address may be problematic depending on who your actual mailbox is hosted with. It's also not unheard of for colleges (particularly small/poorly funded ones) to go under. GMail does not qualify for #2. Some associations could be considered to qualify for #2 (e.g. ACM, IEEE) but if you're not using their other services then you're paying several hundred dollars a year just for an email address - a domain is cheaper.

For #1, sure it's going to cost you a few dollars and a little time each year, but anyone who's reading Slashdot should be able to register a domain and set up hosting. Simple registration is under $10/year, and depending on your needs hosting might even be available "free" from your registrar. You can also look at services such as NearlyFreeSpeech.net, with hosting prices dependent on your traffic and a minimum deposit of $0.25. If all you're doing is email and a small static website that nobody ever goes to, throw a $10 deposit at them and you're probably set for years. (Disclaimer: I've never used these folks, but they're an example of how little it can take to get things started).

I haven't used them, but NearlyFreeSpeech.NET looks pretty cheap:

https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/

(They don't support FCGI or any sort of persistent processes, but for static content with only a few readers, the price is hard to beat)

nearlyfreespeech.net. It's not free, but it costs only pennies and you don't have to endure any garbage. You get CGI in all sorts of nice functional languages, shell script access, and nice tools.

Your obsession with unlimited-service-for-fixed-fee contracts in America is quite frankly puzzling. It's like you have to make every part of your capitalistic society and make it into pseudo-communism.

I heartily agree!

That's why I use pay-for-only-what-you-use services like NearlyFreeSpeech.net, Usenet-News.net, and a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan.

I don't use any of these (webhosting resources, usenet bandwidth, or cell phone) heavily (I doubt any significant fraction ever does), and I'd have to get a lobotomy before I become stupid enough to pay for someone else's usage.

I second the motion on http://www.gandi.net/ . They handle my domains, DNS, and e-mail. https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ handles the few light webpages I want to serve. I set it all once and was able to forget about it because it's so trouble free,

Actually, we simply share the same web host, NearlyFreeSpeech.

Upload it to YouTUBE, and if it gets popular buy some real hosting ( http://nearlyfreespeech.net/ is pay-for-use with good load scaling) and put some Google ads on it and pull the YouTUBE version. If it's truly popular you'll make a small profit.

I'm not sure of the best way to put it on your page. I'd just use SUPER to stuff it into an MP4, which will then either download or be automatically streamed via Quicktime (I have to applaud Apple for that piece of cleverness).

Try Nearlyfreespeech.net They are damn ethical and domains are only $7.99 / year.

RespectMyPrivacy.com is a service provided through NearlyFreeSpeech.Net that allows users to put up proxy contact information with which people may still contact you. Snail mail and faxes are forwarded to their addresses, and when they receive any snail mail or faxes addressed to your domain, they will ask you whether you want these forwarded to yourself. There is also a proxy email that forwards to the email account that you used to register. All of this (allegedly) complies with ICANN regulations, since the information can be used to contact you. The simple solution is the one provided by RMP.C, and it doesn't compromise anonymity.

Perhaps the situation is not as bleak as you make it out to be.

Kinda like NearlyFreeSpeech.net -- except without true free speech. TPB's got to comply with Swedish (and EU) law -- so anything that can be construed as hate speech is illegal. Compare and contrast that to NearlyFreeSpeech.net, which has this "beliefs" page. They've been around since 2002, and as long as I've been using them, stayed completely true to those beliefs.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way associated with NearlyFreeSpeech.net -- I'm simply a happy customer of theirs who enjoys the free speech protections and FreeBSD cluster hosting they offer. They don't have any form of affiliate program, so I couldn't be monetarily compensated for this post even if I wanted to be.

Kinda like NearlyFreeSpeech.net -- except without true free speech. TPB's got to comply with Swedish (and EU) law -- so anything that can be construed as hate speech is illegal. Compare and contrast that to NearlyFreeSpeech.net, which has this "beliefs" page. They've been around since 2002, and as long as I've been using them, stayed completely true to those beliefs.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way associated with NearlyFreeSpeech.net -- I'm simply a happy customer of theirs who enjoys the free speech protections and FreeBSD cluster hosting they offer. They don't have any form of affiliate program, so I couldn't be monetarily compensated for this post even if I wanted to be.

I used to really like Scottsdale Hosting for their prices, but they posted on their index page that they're not taking new accounts, and I couldn't get a satisfactory (or clear) answer from them as to what's going on, so I moved to http://www.bluehost.com/ and have been pretty happy with them. *nix/cpanel interface, all sorts of good stuff.

For domain registration, I've switched over to https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/. They seem to take your privacy a lot more seriously than others. They also have a very interesting pricing model.

Careful there. That place has a pretty harsh policy for what their email servers accept. Granted, it's a good policy, but there is potential for legit mails being bounced (as with any anti-spam measures). Still, if I wanted mail forwarding, I'd use the service. After all, the owner is one of the original spam fighters (search for Jeff Wheelhouse), so I'd expect no less of his services. (For you internet young'uns not old enough to have used a real NNTP client for collaboration, this is a great historical worth reading. Plus, it outlines what fools lawyers can be.)

I've registered a few domains through NearlyFreeSpeech.Net, and have been pleased with the service. Registration fee is on par with most places (USD$7.99/yr), and the reg. info anonymizing fee is $0.01/day. Web hosting isn't too shabby, either (again, very affordable).

I go with NearlyFreeSpeech.NET for domain registration and hosting. If it works for BugMeNot, it's good for me. Plus I host some rather...interesting...content, and they haven't had a problem with it yet.

I am myself in favor of a "you only get charged for what you actually get".

I've heard good things about http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/

Try https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/

So, at my most wasteful "always upsize setting", that's a whopping <$20 for one whole year (looking at their average spending per customer, I'm probably a big spender!). Can anyone beat that? That was before. Just now, I check their news pages, and

I would like to take this opportunity to shill for my shared hosting provider, as a satisfied customer (I have not other relation with them). I was going to say that these guys offer $1 per G bandwidth, and $1 per Meg per month disk space, strictly on a pay-as-you-go basis. What was my hosting fees over the last year? I don't know, probably around $10 -> that's $7 for the domain name, and $3 for MySql, leaving a few cents for storage & bandwidth. I'm a very light user, and well, I'm working on getting more traffic/revenue etc, but it's a while yet. Ok, now I also have "unlimited account" email forwarding at $0.02 per day ie anything, ***@mysite.com gets forwarded.

So, at my most wasteful "always upsize setting", that's a whopping average spending per customer, I'm probably a big spender!). Can anyone beat that? That was before. Just now, I check their news pages, and found that the bandwidth costs have just been decreased (and check this out for those rational-minded ones out there) on a log scale!

I quote