

Ask HN: Who is the best web host outside the US? - chrisblackwell

With everything going down lately with the NSA, I&#x27;m sure we are all getting a little anxious about our data sitting on US servers (especially if you are not a US citizen and therefore have no rights).<p>Who would you host your website with, or your server with? I&#x27;d love to hear everyone&#x27;s recommendations.
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venomsnake
I would say take it easy. A lot of powerful lobbies are up in arms right now -
see how things will turn out. If there is wide migration outside of US (which
seems likely at the moment) I am not sure that the rest of the world have the
capacity and bandwidth to accommodate such traffic. So having disruption in
the service but outside of NSA reach may not be that good of a trade off.

Also migrating content outside of US is not as easy as it sounds - US have the
strongest free speech protection right now so you have to make sure you are in
compliance with the local laws - In wide parts of Europe stuff that is illegal
is - Nazi symbols, holocaust denial, pornography and in a weird case - bank
rumors "I think bank X is threatened by insolvency" is punishable by fine and
maybe jail time in Bulgaria no matter if it is honest opinion or even truth.
Britain have insane libel law and so on.

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ben_pr
Take a look at this one: [http://www.nine.ch/](http://www.nine.ch/). It might
be worth looking first at countries that don't honor U.S. extradition, which
Switzerland up until a few years ago was strongly in that corner but lately
they have been giving finance info etc to the U.S.

Some other sites have already done the work so look for sites that you are
sure would not be hosted in the U.S. and then try this:
[http://whatmyip.co](http://whatmyip.co)

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mhd
Hetzner often gets recommended, not sure whether the recent security troubles
will (or should) change that.

Although you probably should look into a country that itself has no troubling
issues, which wouldn't quite apply to Germany. Don't a lot of the file sharing
sites run from Switzerland because of that. And speaking about them, maybe New
Zealand is worth a look, too.

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mattl
I like [http://www.Bytemark.co.uk](http://www.Bytemark.co.uk) \-- have used
them for years and would recommend them to anyone who wants to host things in
Europe.

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maykelrr
Host in Canada! [http://www.speedyrails.com](http://www.speedyrails.com) and
Peer1 are great alternatives :)

~~~
maykelrr
From [http://www.peer1.com/infrastructure/datacenter-
vancouver](http://www.peer1.com/infrastructure/datacenter-vancouver)

"Canada's strict privacy laws provide a safe haven from numerous controversial
laws including the US Patriot Act, and the political stability, security, and
pro-business attitude helps conduct business operations"

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balac
Would simply choosing a non-US data centre location with a US company provide
any kind of protection?

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thesmileyone
I host with TSOhost in the UK, they are absolutely awesome.

