You can also get an old PC without a gpu and hook it up to a domain via dyndns or similar. Or just wireguard to it. You'd have higher upfront costs, but very small running costs, so it will be worth it at some point and you fully controll the data on it.
I would recommend ADTAQ. They're a small anti-corpo provider from Gibraltar who built their whole business remotely in an ultra-cheap datacenter in Quincy, Washington. Very reliable, very affordable, but with their only datacenter in WA, you probably don't want this if you live too far away.
A little bit more expensive, but with a richer product line and by-the-hour pricing is RamNode, with very cheap offerings hosted around the world.
I think ADTAQ is exactly what I am looking for and $10 a tb is a very good deal. If they are the "Anti-Walmart" of VPS's then I am sold.
Run a home server and VPN to it through a VPS if needed, so they see nothing. E2EE everything.
No one has mentioned Njalla. I haven’t used their server offerings, but they are probably the best for privacy.
You need to trust your provider. If you choose a bigger one, chances are you are a bit safer. Those kind of providers make big bucks on companies, so if they harm the trust of their customers they are out of business. You could try to choose software which implements E2EE and zero-trust to be safer, but those are not available on all software categories. VPS providers have access to all your stuff. So it's all up to you which provider you trust. I would prefer a bigger name too some obscure little basement hoster.
Check out Njalla, Kyun, 1984 Hosting and OrangeWebsite. I think they all accept crypto payments (including Monero!) BitLaunch is a reseller for Linode and Vultr that allows you to pay with crypto, and hostingbydesign is a Hetzner reseller that doesn't require KYC.
The best thing to do is not trust your vps. You can use different credentials than those you normally would, connect through a vpn to obscure your identity (questionably useful depending on how you paid) and use public/private key pairs where no private key material or certificates end up on your vps.
I’m not sure of a true “zero trust” method to secure a virtualized computer when someone else has lower level software access and physical control over the hardware it’s running on.
I would look into aruba vps; i remember it being decent; but dont take my word for it.
Hetzner has a pretty decent privacy policy afaik.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)