Monero VPS Review and Community Action (simplifiedprivacy.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by SummerBreeze@monero.town to c/monero@monero.town

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This is both a review and a petition to the XMR community.

Here’s an overview with some of the pros and cons of 8 VPS hosts: https://simplifiedprivacy.com/vps/

7 of the 8 accept Monero. Only ones personally used by the author were evaluated.

The 8th is Shinjiru and could maybe be convinced into it if they felt there was enough demand to do so. This is Shinjiru’s email below, they offer low prices, good customer service, and have good censorship policies, but only accept fiat or Bitcoin/Ethereum. They’re Malaysian but offer servers all over. Most companies that aren’t US or EU charge more. The general rule is the less developed the area, the MORE expensive the servers because of the infrastructure.

If you’re looking for a neutral country that wants business bad enough to not harass you, while having good enough infrastructure for speed. Then Malaysia is a good choice in my opinion. When you compare them against the 7 other choices on that list, you'll see the point. Especially if you want no KYC crypto, no-US no-EU, unblocked email ports that are kept off spam lists and offer domains too.

I want you to send them 1 polite email kindly asking them to accept Monero:

support@247livesupport.biz

Do not spam them or harass them, then they’ll look down on us. Just send 1 sincere message that you’d love to buy service if they offer Monero and your reasons. Then please upvote this so we get more people involved.

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[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Malaysia is not politically neutral, FYI, but for this use-case it's likely fine. Why not go for providers in the EU?

[-] SummerBreeze@monero.town 6 points 11 months ago

The EU has:

Moved faster than the US towards CBDC tyranny
Digital Services Act which has privacy and censorship concerns
Politicization of Certificate Authorities (Cas)
France banned non-EU VPNs, although it’s not really enforced yet, it’s chilling effect
France jailed people just for using Tor / Tails

In contrast Shinjiru has a good track record on censorship. If you look them up, the only criticism I found is someone complaining they would NOT take down someone else doing copyright infringement. While of course, I can not endorse breaking the law, I do support free speech.

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Of course, EU is no haven for free speech. No doubt about it. My point was simply that EU servers might have better prices. Of course, if you don't care about that, Asia might potentially be a better idea (not Japan or Korea though).

I didn't know France sent people to jail for using Tails, that's insane. However, from the POV of a network, how would they even find the person? Unless they happen to operate a significant portion of the TOR network/NSA gave them some juicy exploits

[-] Saki@monero.town 2 points 10 months ago

Asia might potentially be a better idea (not Japan or Korea though)

You mean, like Hong Kong, or India, maybe? What do you mean by “not Japan or Korea though”? I’d feel China would be worse. Privacy-focused services tend to be pricey anyway, both in Europe and in the US, and the price comparison is tricky as EUR/USD can move weirdly. If you’re talking about Njalla (Sweden), it’s indeed rather expensive.

Although France seems to be generally anti-cryptography, of course you wouldn’t go to jail just because you use Tails. There was this notorious incident related to French activists & Proton, though. Also, the Netherlands can be scary. They arrested a developer of Tornado Cash, right? Although, those things have nothing to do with VPS!

[-] Saki@monero.town 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It’s true that the EU is getting “difficult”. Ironically, the US (without GDPR) can be better, where the right to anonymous speech is more or less protected (although, of course, US hosting companies in general are not good for that).

IncogNet is a good example, where you can get a domain anonymously, just like from Njalla but the price being much affordable. Not only that, they’ll set up an onion/I2P version for your website for free. (This is not a recommendation, though. DYOR.)

Floki was once famous but, yeah… they’re getting a bit less popular now after the Covid things. It’s not Iceland and Seychelles based; basically it’s a German company, having servers in Iceland, Finland, Romania, and the Netherlands. Island was once very popular, but anymore. Using a .is domain now assuming it’s “safer” is a bit yesterday.

Especially, be aware of France: they’re like “you use encryption because you have something to hide, doing something bad.” Also, you might want to avoid EU domains (.fr etc.) in general: check about NIS2, so called “Thick Whois“ to see what this means. For example, you can’t get a .nl anonymous domain anymore (a recent change); a similar trend being expected soon in other EU registrars/resellers i.e. “domain KYC”.

PS: Incognet is based on Fran's (Frantech/BuyVM) in Canada, which has been generally trusted and has some good track record. One might want to consider BuyVM etc. too (Not a recommendation, DYOR).

PPS: Incognet accepts xmr, but you can’t do crypto-related things like mining on their servers. A negative point for some of us.