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Compare Offshore Hosting
There are a number of reasons you might want to offshore your web hosting — from avoiding censorship to remaining anonymous. But not all hosts may offer the kind of privacy and freedom that you seek.
The best offshore hosts feature a commitment to privacy, have liberal use policies, and accept cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. It’s also critical to pick hosts in a country like The Netherlands that has strong privacy laws. Opting VPS (virtual private server) hosting may offer greater technical options for retaining privacy.
How Did We Pick the Best Offshore Hosts?
We put together a preliminary list of the offshore hosts that met the key criteria we mentioned. Then we combined them with thousands of expert and user reviews to rank them. Based on this, we chose our top options.
What You’ll Learn
Site owners pursue offshore hosting most commonly because they’re seeking freedom from government intrusion.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of offshore hosting? What factors do you need to consider to choose a host? How can you find a quality offshore host?
In this article, I’ll share top cautions about offshore hosting. And you’ll get my personal recommendations on quality offshore hosts.
What Is Offshore Hosting?
Offshore web hosting is the practice of hosting a website on servers located outside of one’s own country. Usually, this is done to gain specific benefits.
Technically, anytime you host a website on foreign servers you are engaging in offshore hosting.
However, the term implies doing so deliberately in order to achieve a specific goal, usually related to privacy, security, free speech, or freedom.
Saving Money by Globalization
Our contemporary economy is rooted in globalization.
If it is cheaper to make t-shirts in one country than in another, you can be sure there are a huge number of people moving their t-shirt making operations there. It makes economic sense.
Government Interest in Business Activities
Another fact of life is government interest in pretty much every activity of human life. Business and communication are at the top of their list.
Through regulations, taxes, censorship, and criminalization, governments of all countries make it difficult (or, at least, less profitable) to engage in certain types of businesses or say certain types of things.
Advantages of Anonymity and Offshore Hosting
Hosting your business website(s) abroad is a big decision. Businesses and individuals often use offshore hosting in order to reduce legal risks.
5 Reasons to Use Offshore Web Hosting
The goals of offshore hosting typically include:
- Freedom of Speech
- Freedom of Press
- Avoiding Local Regulations
- Taxes and Legal Residency
- Anonymous Services
- Let’s explore these in greater detail.