Since we published our list of the best adult web hosting available for the money recently, we’ve received a ton of emails asking for a follow-up of a closely related cousin: our list of the best offshore hosting providers 2023 affords.
Being a staunch fan of freedom and everything it represents in our age, we agreed, and here we are today, penning down the best companies to go with, so far as DMCA hosting is concerned.
This will be a long piece, this much we know and can tell.
However, immediately below is a TL;DR version, if you’re very busy and will want to land straight to the recommendations without any further ado.
However, if you have a little time on your hands and will appreciate gathering every piece of information possible to make up your mind, continuing your reading below isn’t (and won’t be) a bad idea.
What Is Offshore Hosting?
In the simplest terms, offshore hosting (or DMCA ignored hosting, if you prefer) is hosting whose servers and administrative control is outside your own country of residence.
Naturally thus, such a company won’t be subject to local laws and regulations.
For example, someone who lives in the US but ignores the popular US hosting companies like A2 Hosting and SiteGround and instead, contracts a foreign company like Vice Temple (located in faraway Amsterdam, Netherlands ) for his hosting needs can be validly said to have opted for ‘offshore hosting’.
In general terms, however, a DMCA ignored hosting or offshore hosting means a hosting arrangement or company that will ordinarily allow a kind of content or activity on its servers that most mainstream hosting companies will outrightly object to or at least, be reluctant hosting.
Further, a hosting company that qualifies as ‘offshore’ could also mean any hosting contract that implicates companies outside ‘mainstream’ countries like the US, UK or Canada. Accordingly this, reference cannot, in this sense, be made to the UK (from the US) as ‘offshore’. In this regard, the term makes reference to hosting available from companies (or data centers) in many of the island countries or countries that generally take personal privacy protection very seriously and are accordingly, more open to dishonoring a DMCA takedown request.
Summary?
Offshore hosting implicates:
- Hosting with a company outside one’s own country of residence or a company with data servers outside one’s country of origin.
- Hosting with a company, domiciled in a country notorious for extreme privacy laws or leniency towards piracy or copyright infringement.
- Hosting with a company that has policies lenient enough to tolerate content most mainstream hosting companies would object to.
Depending on who you ask (or what your needs as a hosting customer are), any of the above definitions could be offered or fit.
Or, most likely, a mix and clever blend of one or more of them. Or, a marriage of all three above.
Do you get the picture?
Why Is Offshore Hosting Also Called “DMCA Ignored” Hosting?
At the turn of the millennium, Congress debated and passed a very curious and interesting Act: an Act meant to protect holders of ‘digital copyright’ from infringers who, before the Act, had a field day.
The Act was carefully worded and clearly protected holders of copyright that implicated written text, photos, software, videos, music, and all things digital – especially options that were available and accessible via the internet.
This Act, passed by Congress, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and became known as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act aka DMCA.
However, being an American law, it applies principally to the US and other countries that may have treaties with the United States in such a manner as implicates copyright.
It also applies to territories under the United States and applies, loosely, to countries that are signatories to the 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
For countries that are not (obviously) the United States, are not territories under the control of the US, and importantly, are not signatories to the 1996 treaty mentioned above, this law does not apply.
Now, what is important to note is that the laws of the land where a hosting server is locally domiciled is what governs such a website or online asset and not the laws of the locale where the parties to the hosting contract are actually domiciled.
Accordingly thus, a webmaster who is domiciled in India and a web hosting provider domiciled in the Bahamas but with a hosting server physically located in Russia will have Russian law as the overriding authority governing both their transaction and contract.
Now, since offshore hosting mostly implicates hosting that is outside the US and has no business with the DMCA, it is only fit and proper to refer to it by an alias that is smart, savvy and likely to hold better: “DMCA Ignored Hosting”.
Why Do You Need Offshore Hosting (What Are The Advantages Of Offshore Hosting)?
Usually, offshore hosting is always portrayed in inferior light – as something that is opted for if someone wishes to hide something, is interested in secrecy or is a criminal.
Is that true, however?
Are there (genuine) reasons to consider offshore hosting? If there are, why should you consider one for your website or your company?
1. Privacy And Anonymity
There are a billion and one privacy concerns to bother about today: from the devices we use to facial recognition concerns right up nosy governments and corporations with or without probable cause.
For anyone who is remotely aware of the huge threat these issues present, this is a very serious cause for concern.
Then, there is the ever-present threat of identity theft in all its evil glory.
These are troubling issues that bother even the calmest and purest of hearts.
With offshore hosting arrangements, these concerns, as far as hosting is concerned, are limited to their very minimum: the barest.
This peace of mind (or ‘insurance’ if you will) doesn’t only cover the website in question or the data such a website contains: it covers you, the webmaster in awesome ways that are better imagined and clearly not possible with conventional hosting.
For instance, your offshore hosting company isn’t under any obligation to offer any information to a person, group or government demanding the same of you from the company under whatever pretext or excuse.
Now, if you’re sharing something super sensitive with the world, live in the very repressive regions of the world or simply want to breath easy and sleep better at night, this is a no-brainer.
If you’re also interested in a hosting solution that won’t bother knowing who you are by way of demanding that you pay for its services by means of an option that leads directly to you, going the way of a ‘DMCA Ignored’ way is smart since most of these solutions are happy to accept crypto-based or powered payments.
2. Freedom Of Speech And (Of) The Press
Speech isn’t free in many parts of the globe today – even in advanced democracies that claim this. Theoretically, though, this right exists in many law books but in practice, there’s usually no freedom, especially after the speech is uttered.
This is especially true if you’re hosting super controversial stuff or are writing or talking in such a manner that the government of your state of residence is likely to be (negatively) affected or even outrightly annoyed.
In such instances, opting for an offshore hosting company would be your best bet especially if you’re interested in freedom both before and after having your say.
Beyond personal freedom of speech, another variant of freedom (of speech) that is super important to protect and as a matter of fact, a DMCA ignored hosting will ensure its active protection is the freedom of the press.
Journalists and media houses that have stories, photos, and (hard) indictments of governments, especially their home governments will certainly do well to ensure that their content is hosted in an offshore manner, far from the clutches and reach of such governments, corporations or entities.
A quick example comes to mind: imagine what would have been the fate of WikiLeaks were it to be hosted locally in the United States.
3. Avoiding Local Regulations
Avoiding the local regulations of your place of domicile is also one of the many reasons and advantages of taking your hosting files off where they can be easily reached and taken down.
Depending on where you live, many things might be illegal – like gambling, sale of drugs, the escort business, pornography, or the sale of firearms online.
Now, if your business model implicates any of the government prohibited (or heavily regulated) business models, your best bet remains to take your business files or website and host them outside of that jurisdiction, to avoid that particular local regulation that you’re being careful of (not to violate).
Remember, the applicable laws when hosting or where hosting-related issues pop up remain the laws of the land where your hosting servers are actually located.
The implication of this is that, while the sale of pharmaceutical drugs online may be a crime in the US, it isn’t in a country like Sweden or The Netherlands. If you’re in the business of selling pharmaceutical drugs or food supplements online (and are an American citizen), you’ve broken no law since your website and business is hosted in a country where your actions are completely legal.
The home of your files or your website, also known as their host, determines what laws are or aren’t applicable to it.
4. Cost
Everyone knows one thing: North America is crazily expensive to live in – so is much of Western Europe. Because of these, the man-hours and general prices reflect accordingly when doing business in the States, hosting inclusive.
When you’re interested in hosting in the US for instance, or Canada, the expensive nature of these places and the premium man-hour rate is transferred to you and the result is a higher than average cost for a product that shouldn’t cost a premium in the first place.
These costs add up and take a hit on your business over time, especially if you’re just starting up. This isn’t where anyone wants to be (even the super established businesses).
A smart way out of this is simply to host your business files and websites offshore, with a hosting company physically located in a country where the cost of living is more affordable and as a result, the man-hours are reasonable, businesswise.
With this type of thinking, you’ll effectively save on cost and reinvest that saved cost on other (more) important areas of your business that will ensure growth.
Take a cue from the major American concerns like Apple, Dell, and HP. There’s a major (and smart) reason these giants shun the US and instead (though they are fully American concerns) opt to base their productions in China, India, and other Asian nations where the cost of living is more affordable and the man-hours, not through the roof.
5. Reliability
In the world of business and website hosting today, data is everything.
Unfortunately, this data is often very fragile and is always on the brink of annihilation, especially when chances are given or lapses permitted.
The threats on your data and the enemies that are intent on making certain that you lose all that you’ve worked for are real and come in two forms: human and natural.
With a good hosting company, competent in that it does, one does not need to bother with the protection of files or website security: it comes as a default; a given that is standard.
However, what cannot be mitigated is a natural disaster. According to the natural disaster index, China and Japan, for instance, rank high on the list of countries likely to be struck by natural disasters.
Be it an earthquake, flood, or any other Act of God, these can affect a data center, and depending on the severity of such a natural mishap and the readiness of both the government and your hosting company, you could have a downtime staring you straight in the face and may span days, weeks or even months!
If you live in China or Japan, for instance, or are a citizen of any of the countries that are prone to natural disasters, your best chance at hosting is to consider an offshore option, choosing a country where your hosting company is less likely to have its data centers and by extension, your websites, and files invaded by a natural mishap or an Act of God.
6. Load Time And Customer Considerations (Without Added Expenditure)
Data hosted online by means of a website is an awesome thing: a request is made on such files from one edge of the world and the files get served from a server that is physically located at the other end of the universe.
This is why, it is possible for you, as a webmaster, to sit in Australia and host your website on a server, based in the United States. This is the joy the reality of technology presents.
However, if as a webmaster you were to have your audience, clients, readers or customers (depending on who they may be at any particular point in time) based in Australia and not the US, there would present a unique challenge that would be difficult to counter without added expenditure: server latency – if you host your sites in the traditional fashion in the continental US.
Server latency is defined as the time it takes files, requested from a server to get delivered to the person who initiates such a request. Usually, this time is shorter for users of a website or online service who are closer to the server hosting such files.
For users on the other end of the world, it makes sense that the data needs to ‘travel’ longer to meet them, hence the delay. Often, this delay would make you leave tons of money on the table or suffer horrible conversions – depending on your focus or aim for the website or app visitors (at the worst) and at its very best, (simply) ensure that your web property is seen as ‘slow’ in the eyes of search engines and penalized accordingly.
To avoid these two (horrible) realities, if you’re hosting elsewhere from your audience, distance-wise, it makes sense to have a Content Delivery Network (CDN), an arrangement like Cloudflare have your content and web files strategically placed on servers and smartly forwarded to the requester of same from a center that is closest to them.
However, what if this cost is too much for you? For the records, it isn’t exactly cheap deploying a CDN. What is the next best option?
Host your files or web property closer to the bulk of the persons who need to access it from time to time, i.e. your customers, clients, readers, or audience.
This is where offshore hosting comes to bear. If for instance, you’re based in the US but, your audience is largely from Asia, it makes sense to host your files or websites offshore, somewhere on a server in Hong Kong or if your audience is largely Europe based, having your files on a server in the Western European city of Amsterdam would be a smart choice: you’ll get privacy for you and your online estate and further, ensure the very lowest latency for your audience without breaking the bank in the process of engaging the services of a CDN.
Win-WIn for all parties involved.
7. Lenient Content Policy And Ignorance Of The DMCA
The DMCA is an awesome thing: it ensures that intellectual property rights are respected and acknowledged in a manner that was never possible or even feasible prior to this time. The internet, from the time this law came into force, has seen some sanity and importantly, has seen to it that content creators and intellectual property owners actually benefit exclusively from their work as it should be.
However, it isn’t all rosy though – especially for industries that the lines of copyright infringement and fair use are easy to mistake or simply blur into each other such as pornography, the photo business, and generally, creations that get shared over and very easily without much thought to it.
Now, if this is your niche, there is one thing that should be very clear by now: porn is basically free online, and differentiating the copyright content from the options that are royalty or attribution free is one of the most difficult tasks today. So are photos, toons, and memes. In many instances, this is plain impossible!
Then again, there is the challenge of some lawyers who basically earn their living sending copyright cease and desist letters to persons deemed to be in violation of some copyright held by their ‘clients’ with the intention of getting some ‘appeasement’ money as a precondition for not getting sued (over the said claim).
The sad reality is that this army of ‘copyright lawyers’ is growing by the day as many unscrupulous fellows with a law degree have discovered that this is an easy and hassle-free way to get quick cash.
These are headaches and challenges that you may simply want to avoid, especially if you deal in an industry or niche where the issue of copyright violation is seriously blurred and it is difficult to offer attribution or employ fair use, even if one wanted to.
You will, trust us, appreciate a hosting company (assuming your niche has blurred lines regarding fair use and copyright infringement) that completely ignores any sort of DMCA claims (at best) or one that is very lenient of DMCA claims (at the very worst).
As it is usual, there’s only one answer to the challenge that ticks all the boxes shared above and, importantly, offers privacy, anonymity, and peace of mind while doing so: offshore hosting.
MORE: The Best DMCA Ignored Countries For Bulletproof Hosting
3 (Notable) Affordable DMCA Ignored Hosting
Having cleared the ground and made certain that the definition of offshore hosting isn’t in the way and importantly, why you should consider it (even if you’re not on the wrong side of the law), here are our top three (3) picks you cannot go wrong with today.
Remember, these options were handpicked by us and many factors were considered: general service offering, support, actual uptime reality (not mere guarantees on paper), how privacy-conscious these hosts are, and importantly where the servers of these DMCA ignored hosting companies are actually sited, irrespective of the fact that they’re offering a shared hosting plan, a VPS or a dedicated server.
Let’s fire!
1. Shinjiru Hosting
There’s nothing today that inspires uncertainty and fear as the online world; especially for persons who know just how wild and nasty things can get on cyberspace.
In more ways than one, it is The Wild West of the world in horrific and completely unimaginable ways that are better left to the imagination of the very brave.
This makes even basic activities like hosting potentially dangerous affairs that need to be handled with care, no thanks to criminals, hackers and generally, dark-minded persons who are interested in breaking and entering at the slightest chance they get.
This makes hosting companies that are security inclined so attractive and sexy at the same time. The challenge, of course, remains that these companies are few and far in-between.
If you’re interested in a hosting option that upholds the sacred tenents of privacy and online security and as a matter of fact, takes things to the next level – raising the bar and setting the same for all other offshore hosting companies, few options compare to Shinjiru Hosting.
Shinjiru hosting is one of the very few offshore hosting companies that take privacy to a whole new level – a level it is still very uncommon to see in the industry today.
For instance, you could host your site with the company in the most anonymous of manners and keep your identity hidden even from the team over at the company – if you choose to.
This is made possible by the use and complete acceptance of cryptocurrency as legal tender on the hosting platform.
The interesting aspect of privacy doesn’t stop there: the company deploys this security over and beyond just hosting, extending it to the registration and transfer of new domains to them. Effectively thus, both domain and hosting service could be registered and operated in a completely anonymous manner, except you, the webmaster wants to offer your identity to the world or prefer to remove your anonymous veil directly.
Things get more interesting as we dig deeper though. For instance, the company offers an impressive security architecture to make sure that your sites aren’t only anonymous, they are equally secure; as secure as a fortress.
The deal closers for us, here, however, remain the fact that the company has been online and offering these awesome services since 2000, has a ton of offshore servers to choose from, offers cutting edge customer service (when the need arises – and in the hosting world, this is pretty often) and to close, offers to transfer your files from whatever host you may be coming from (irrespective of what system that hosting company uses), free of any cost to you.
What is there not to love?
Take a good look at Shinjiru Hosting yourself and if possible, talk to them to see if they aren’t offering your privacy dreams. And more.
2. Vice Temple
For many persons who are interested in offshore hosting, only one trait of the offshore reality actually interests them: the ability to host files that conventional hosting companies would not have on board.
Most (conventional) hosting companies in the US today (and elsewhere) have a strict policy of rejecting most adult content on their servers, especially when one is interested in hosting pornography.
The reasoning behind this is usually simple and straight to the point, especially on shared servers: resource allocation and reputation protection. These companies are interested in making certain that the other users of the shared plans also have a healthy allocation of the server’s resources which would be difficult to ensure in a setup that isn’t primarily designed for such a hosting reality.
Then again, there exist bothers about the reputation of the other hosting projects that would share the same server with one running porn or any other adult content. Since the standard practice is to have all web resources on a server share the same IP address, this is worrisome.
If you’re tired of facing such challenges when attempting to host an adult-oriented website and are desirous of trying an option that won’t discriminate against you based on the content of your site, you’ll find a home in Vice Temple.
Vice Temple has a unique approach to hosting adult content, especially, pornography: why keep all the good things to yourself?
In pursuing this business model, all copyright claims or anything remotely related to the DCMA is ignored; as a matter of fact, you don’t even get to even hear about the claim at all.
This gets you two awesome things in one fell stroke: the ability to host your adult sites without issues and while doing it, be free from lawyers who have made the dirty work of contacting ‘violators’ online a lucrative pastime for them.
The height of the attraction to Vice Temple of course, remains the sheer array of services that are offered – irrespective of where your website may be at the moment.
If you’re already attracting serious traffic, there’s a plan for you; if you’re only starting out too, there’s a plan for you – you only need to look ask – whichever you prefer.
There’s nothing not to love about Vice Temple: the best starting point is to take a quick look yourself and see if this is the type of offshore hosting solution you’d appreciate for either your files, personal or business website.
Take a look at Vice Temple directly here.
3. Blue Angel Host
The world of hosting is used to perks and add-ons that have come to be accepted as standard today. Without these options, the whole offering of a web host appears to be incomplete and out of sync with what webmasters demand and actually expect.
The traditional hosting companies, especially home-based companies here in the US have caught up with these offerings and are running a killing, offering them to their customers, across service packs and plans.
The results remain completely satisfied clients and webmasters who run websites that are in tune with the reality of the times; covered by the protection that these options offer.
For those who have come to rely on and actually expect these options served with their hosting plans, it is a no-brainer that any hosting offer excludes them. Options like 24/7 support, 99.99% uptime guarantee, and a solid no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.
Unfortunately, many offshore hosting companies do not offer these. If these options (and many more, similar to the listed) are important to you, you’re covered with Blue Angel Host.
The approach of Blue Angel Host is simple and devilishly effective: offer what the traditional options do, go an extra step, and slap a healthy dose of offshore reality into the whole mix, and voila – you have an awesome offer.
Things, for the skeptical webmaster, can only get better from there: just in case you don’t like or appreciate what you get, simply demand your money back within the first seven (7) days and it will be offered back to you – no questions asked.
However, the deal closer for us is entirely something different: the offer to help with file transfers – if you’re coming from another hosting company. This is one technical aspect that offers, perhaps, the greatest challenge to many webmasters and if not handled carefully and with the utmost professionalism, results in loss of files and usually, unwanted downtime that is easily preventable in the first place.
Slap in free DDOS protection, the ability to pay anonymously via crypto and a 24/7 support reality and you have a winner here.
If you have any reason not to believe what you just read, you should check out Blue Angel Host directly.
Wrap Up
There are a billion and 1 reasons to opt for offshore hosting: these reasons are also super legitimate and according to your reality, maybe options you simply may not be able to do productively without.
This is understood. And even encouraged – after all, there can never be too much privacy and one cannot be too careful in trying to protect him or herself online.
If you’re still trying to decide which option is the best for you, however, remember that Shinjiru Hosting, is in our books, the best offshore hosting money can buy at the moment.
If you’re interested in hosting pornography (or any form of adult content), look no further than Vice Temple – no option beats it at the moment.
However, if you are so in love with traditional hosting offerings and won’t want to miss the awesome options that traditional hosting companies offer in your quest to guard and protect your privacy, your best bet remains Blue Angel Host, at least for the year in question.
Whatever option you opt for, remember (and this is very important) that privacy invasion is very real online. Protect yours at all (legal) costs!