Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Seeking US Hosting Recommendations for Controversial Chemistry Site LambdaSyn

Mephisto - 10-8-2024 at 12:23

Hi everyone,

I am the founder and admin of lambdasyn.org, a German website for synthesis guides with a small amateur science forum. Back in the early 2000s, I was quite active here, and the 294 posts were a bit more back then. My website has been online since May 25, 2004, but a hosting provider change is imminent, which is why I’m reaching out to you for recommendations.

I was very satisfied with my previous host, Lunarpages, until they were acquired by HostPapa. Then, the monthly bandwidth of my hosting plan was reduced to the point where it caused downtime. I was then pushed into a contract that was twice as expensive, which I could have tolerated until I found out that the price for next year would be over 400% of the original Lunarpages price. I believe that long-time customers are being financially squeezed, and I see no future for a constructive partnership with HostPapa.

Our website and forum are about 80-90% focused on hobby chemistry, but we don't shy away from topics like psychoactive substances and energetic materials. Therefore, the site is controversial and hosting it in Germany is legally challenging. We operate within the boundaries of what is published in scientific literature and do not tolerate illegal activities in our forum. However, the site remains somewhat controversial.

I'm looking for a US-based host because of the freedom of speech protections. Our requirements are fairly modest: 20 GB of disk space, owner obfuscation in Whois, and ideally a reseller service where a middleman buys the hosting plan and resells it to us. The host should, of course, not have issues with controversial content.

This topic is directed at everyone but primarily at the senior members here. I definitely want to keep LambdaSyn independent and not be co-hosted with another chemistry project, which also reduces the risk of clustering. I’m looking forward to your recommendations. If you have suggestions that shouldn’t be made public, please send me a U2U.

Best regards,
Mephisto

macckone - 10-8-2024 at 17:11

This thread might be helpful.
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/386/web-hosts...

You may want to talk to the sales rep of any company you host with.
They can tell you what their responses are to your content.
Obviously they cannot do anything about search warrants that come from law enforcement.
And keep nightly backups so data loss is minimal if you get cancelled.