Problems related to online privacy and security have been becoming a lot more prominent over the last couple of years with major data leaks occurring in addition to scandals circulating around companies collecting and logging user data, input and search history.
While VPN and Internet service providers, ISPs for short, have been a major talking point about the latter of these issues, hosting providers have also started to be picked up on the radar as a potential privacy breacher. But what is that and how can you understand whether your hosting provider is actually trying to protect your privacy? We will try to give you the answers to these and some more questions in this article! So without any more time spent waiting, let’s get into the field of hosting providers and your privacy.
What are hosting providers?
In order for anything to appear on the Web, it needs to firstly be hosted on a server, allowing it to connect to the global network. These servers are the units provided by said hosting providers. The servers themselves are of different types, having divergent resources. The most common types are shared hosting, where the server’s resources are split between all of the websites or applications that are hosted on it, dedicated instances, which are servers that are completely independent and have their own unique and reserved resources for just one individual user. Finally, there are also virtual private servers, which combine the best of both worlds by simulating an independent machine in a virtual environment.
How can you know that your provider thinks about your privacy?
One of the ways in which you can tell that your provider really cares and respects your privacy is to check whether they offer you to pay for their services using crypto. Bitcoin VPS for example is currently a very popular hosting service that the majority of providers are allowing their customers to take advantage of. But why does paying with crypto matter and what makes it the better choice than traditional bank transfers and PayPal transactions? Paying with this alternative method allows you to remain anonymous as such payments involve just redirecting a given amount of money from one address to another without any additional information attached to them, meaning that your privacy and identity will be preserved throughout the process. Furthermore, using this transaction method, you can also pay for your servers from anywhere at any time without having any restrictions. All you need is a device with Internet connection and your crypto wallet, which can be set up in just a matter of seconds. This allows you to pay for your VPS even if you do not have access to any traditional payment methods such as normal bank transfers or the already mentioned PayPal.
Finally, you should also check your hosting provider’s website and make sure that they are not using any third-party payment processing applications or cookies. The lack of these is a good indication that your provider really cares about your personal privacy.
