Secure, Shared Hosting?

skrysakj asks: "I have been searching high and low for a hosting company that can provide SSL encrypted POP3 or IMAP at an affordable price. I'd like something that is shared, not dedicated, to keep costs down. I believe that pghoster.com is a good option, since they offer a personal SSL certificate, a dedicated IP address, and more. Has anyone else found another viable and cost effective solution? Other features, such as SPAM filters, control panels, PHP, MySQL are all 'standard' but I just can't seem to find a company that offers that extra mile for paranoid security freaks such as myself."

Comments

Run it yourself, save a buck or $100.

[Mr. Darl McBride]

If you want to run a box yourself, you can always go with a dedicated server or a virtual dedicated server. Then you can install all you like. You can use a self- signed certificate, or get one from a free public registry. You'll have to manually accept it the first time in each browser you use, or you can carry a copy on a USB fob and add it in for extra security.

For a dedicated server, look at Server Beach for a cheap (about $100/mo) server. The only support you get is rebooting and reinstalling, the ToS are no-nonsense strict, but the box is yours, the price is wonderful, and the bandwidth is mind-blowing.

For a cheap virtual dedicated server, I absolutely cannot speak highly enough of JVDS.com. They use User Mode Linux to host whichever Linux distribution you like. Uptime is excellent, Rus (the guy running it) is very attentive to security, and you can choose from several locations if you have a geographic preference for the server. Most of the machines are hosted with Jipes or Cogent-class bandwidth providers which has sometimes meant brief outages in the past. I haven't had recent problems, but it's been a few minutes every couple of weeks in the past. For $20.00/mo for root, that's easily forgiven.

The down side to both is that neither are paying me for their goddamned licenses, so I'm going to sue all the customers blind as soon as I figure out how to go after JVDS' FreeBSD users too.

~Darl

Massive pimping but..

[rf0]

What about the shared hosting we do is via User Mode Linux we offer root access on a shared host, but everyone is totally seperate at a lot lower cost than dedicated.

Rus

Re:Massive pimping but..

[Komarosu]

memset is the daddy when it comes to UML VPS.

Re:Ask Slashdot: Secure, Shared Hosting?

[Mr. Darl McBride]

I have been searching high and low for a way to advertise my hosting service. I'd like somewhere that is visited by many people in the tech community, but is still free to post my adverts.

Too bad the moderators will help reveal the fact that his prices fall down miserably (read:suck) compared to ServerBeach and DreamHost and traceroute says he's running on SCO's own favorite *EV1.NET* machines.

Re:Ask Slashdot: Secure, Shared Hosting?

[etymxris]

Looks legitimate. Doesn't look like he has a business relation with the company based on his resume

My own advice is 1and1.com, cheapest virtual hosting available. May not have everything he needs. If you want dedicated, I would say managed.com, 1TB of bandwidth for $60.

$60 Dedicated box..

[slashkitty]

I think running it yourself is the way to go. You can get dedicated boxes in the $50 to $60 range.. like at managed.com ...

Re:Ask Slashdot: Secure, Shared Hosting?

[etymxris]

Serverbeach and Dreamhost both suck compared to managed.com. Just compare bandwidth and price.

Re:What's the point of encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of encrypted POP3 or IMAP is not to encrypt the email, but to encrypt the password, which would otherwise pass in the clear.

HostNexus

[Mizery De Aria]

HostNexus offers several shared hosting plans as well as monthly promos in which any monthly promo can be used at any time. I am not sure about the dedicated IP, but you can always ask about it on their forum, which is for socializing as well as customer support. You can also email them for support or use their trouble ticket system. The forum is convenient for most issues. HostNexus uses Plesk and offers CPanel as well. Take a look at their services and feel free to post on the forum. By the way, I am not affiliated with HostNexus other than being one happy customer. Other features, such as SPAM filters, control panels, PHP, MySQL are all 'standard' but I just can't seem to find a company that offers that extra mile for paranoid security freaks such as myself."

Try OpenHosting

[gtrubetskoy]

Try here

We provide VServer based virtual servers and by default we provison them with IMAP and POP SSL-enabled only.

As a side note - I've been using SSL for IMAP since 1997 or so and I cannot believe there still are people using unencrypted POP/IMAP, but there are. If you ever happen to be sitting with a laptop at a corporate meeting, one where everyone plugs into an old ethernet hub in the middle of the table, it is always a lot of fun to fire up a sniffer to get all the passwords from the non-technical people at the table checking their e-mail (probably using Outlook too). Then you blurb out the password in the middle of a conversation and whatch the person's reaction. (Be careful - what may be interpreted as a harmless joke in the late nineties, these days will probably get you fired!)

Luxsci.com

[ncl2fth]

Has SSL POP3/IMAP email services. Excellent.

Marc