Here’s an interesting hosting company I came across today. It’s called NearlyFreeSpeech and is and came to my attention when I was researching a host for a friend who wanted to host a controversial website. They seem to be pretty unusual in that they have a very libertarian attitude to hosting and won’t take down a client’s site unless the accuser can prove that some wrong-doing has been perpetrated. Here’s how they describe themselves:
Due to our libertarian Terms & Conditions of Service we allow many things that other hosting companies do not. Consequently, we receive a large number of abuse complaints. Unfortunately, most of them are spurious or non-actionable….
In other words, if it’s not illegal, your content will not be compromised and your identity will be protected. I find this pretty commendable, and the threads on their forum show a passionate and vibrant community behind the website.
They have an interesting charging model too. Clients are charged by usage, not by monthly subscription. So, if you have a website about your mum’s collection of golf equipment, you probably won’t pay more than a few cents per month. If you decide to run an adult site and get thousands of hits, then your charges increase as your popularity does. I was pretty impressed with the service, so I thought I’d blog about it for posterity.
I’ve been using NearlyFreeSpeech for a while now (not for anything controversial, mind) and they’ve been nothing but excellent. I was especially impressed by their response to a script vulnerability on my site: they disabled that one script and sent me an email telling me what they thought I should do about it. Can’t argue with that kind of service.
Personally, I expect all hosting companies to do this anyway. Anyone who doesn’t is offing the same level of service as a landlord who randomly evicts his tenants without notice.
Mmmm, makes me wonder what your friend is up to…
But is it Jacqui Smith proof? I doubt it, she controls all. Muhahahaha.
interesting, just found out about them through a client that hosted with them, never even heard of them before
Have been using them for over a couple of years, and have recommended them to a whole lot of people.
I host 4-5 sites with them, and no major problems.
Nearlyfreespeech offers something no other web host offers, Nearly free hosting. They are dirt cheap, and the site operates excellently.
The ‘catch’ is that support is at a premium, in fact they’d prefer you don’t call them up and figure it out yourself. Support is done via support points that cost $0.50 each. However, trust me when I tell you this, if you have a problem it’s probably not them, it’s you. Because the site operates flawlessly.
If you can live with the catch, try living with this. For a regular blog operating on wordpress, you’re probably paying in the region of 4-5 cents/day. Which works out to $1.50/month. Now try to find that kinda hosting elsewhere.
That’s really cheap for really good hosting. I host my blog with them, no issues. Absolutely recommended.
I’m about to try installing a joomla site on the server, will let you know once it’s done.