Sharing content online has become a lot easier over the past few years. More services than ever are offering hosting options for all kinds of niche needs. You can publish your stories on mainstream Medium, or on a more crypto- and tech-specialized forum like Publish0x. These services are great, but you can only publish what their format allows. Alternatively, Blogger or Wix allow you to build a more customized format. They do want to know who you are exactly before allowing you to do so though. If you’re looking to share custom content online, maintain your own blog or app while not giving away who you are, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I will show you how you can share content via Secure and Anonymous Online Hosting services.
I previously reported on Setting up a Hidden Tor Website. This does allow you to share your content anonymously, but only to a Tor-specific audience. This is great, but very limited. Besides anonymous hosting options, I will discuss anonymous domain name registration in this article, too. I will also touch anonymous monetization through ads that pays e.g., via Bitcoin. Read on and find out how you can establish your privacy-minded online presence.
What you Need for an Anonymous Online Presence
Even if you find a service that hosts your content without knowing who you are, you still have to take advantage of that. Using your real home IP address or paying with your personal VISA or PayPal will give away your identity almost immediately. There are a few precautions to keep in mind when setting up your anonymous online presence, which you can find below.
Use a VPN for Everything
Your home IP address is somewhat like a fingerprint. Whereever you go and do something on the internet, you leave your traces in form of IP logs. Web servers, DNS, many chat services (except for some), and many more store a list of IPs that accessed their services. Many of them include what exactly you accessed, and when. If authorities find that any of these activities are tied to unwanted behavior (this be whatever), your name is on a pretty short list of suspects to talk to. Depending on the type of (legal) content you want to share, it might still be unwanted in your jurisdiction.
To prevent any investigation unnecessarily leading to your real identity, you should use a VPN service. There are different ones out there, but given this scenario you will want one that does not keep logs of your activities. One great option is Private Internet Access (I reported on it here). It is cheap, very accessible and low effort, and works on all major platforms. You can use whichever VPN provider feels best for you. Be sure to use a log-less one (the free ones aren’t!).
Use this VPN provider for signing up for the web hosting service, any FTP actions, SSH connections, and for testing your website (use a privacy minded browser). This way, connections to your online presence won’t tie back to yourself.
Ability to Pay Anonymously
Using web hosting services costs money, and in the large majority of cases you won’t be able to pay in cash. This means that you will have to perform an online transaction. The most common ways to do this include credit cards, PayPal, or direct debit. All of these will immediately identify you to the payment receiver. If you are looking to minimize the use of your personal identity, you need to use an anonymous payment method.
Paying with Crypto
One of the most prominent ways to pay anonymously currently are crypto currencies. Many of the well-established crypto currencies can be tracked through their public blockchain ledgers, though. You have two options to work around this:
- Use Monero (XMR): Monero is a very popular, privacy focused crypto currency. Through technical measures, their blockchain establishes plausible deniability for your transactions by mixing them together with a number of other, unrelated ones. This means that even when someone traces your payment through their blockchain (which is intentionally made difficult), they won’t be able to put their finger on you as the sender or the receiver of a payment. Many providers that accept crypto also accept Monero. Monero/XMR is getting more difficult to obtain these days though. You will have to find a crypto exchange that sells it, or need to mine it yourself.
- Use Bitcoin (BTC): Bitcoin is the most wide-spread crypto currency of all today. It is easy to buy, but most if not all exchanges require KYC. That means you have to give up your personal details to exchange money for BTC. To acquire BTC without identifying too much about yourself, you can mine BTC yourself. You can also buy it at more discreete marketplaces like NoOnes or Paxful. If you cannot buy it anonymously, buy it on a regular exchange and switch it to XMR on decentralized exchanges like Bisq.
One alternative is to buy physical Paysafe cards with cash from local stores and using that for payment if the service provider accepts it. This keeps you very anonymous too, with just a little more effort.
Finding an Anonymous Hosting Service
The most vital part in hosting an anonymous/private website is finding a service provider that allows you to do this. Secure and anonymous online hosting providers often operate in countries with lax hosting laws (like Iceland) or operate completely offshore. Below is a list of providers that offer both, web space and domain services that do not require you to identify yourself if you don’t want to. They all have reasonable pricing structures and are quite accessible.
| Provider | Price From/Month | Offers Web Space | Offers Domains | Accepts Crypto |
| OrangeWebsite | 3.40€ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Njalla (Domains & VPS) | 15€ | No | Yes | Yes |
| FlokiNET | 3.50€ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shinjiru | 3.95€ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Impreza | $7.00 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AbeloHost | 6.99€ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BitcoinWebHosting | 3.00€ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Onion Host (ignores DMCA) | $4.99 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| VSYS | $5.00 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
This selection of hosters is crypto-friendly and offers the most relevant services for web hosting. Many allow you to set up a WordPress installation with their own tools. Some also offer VPS (Virtual Private Servers) if you are looking for an anonymous Linux shell, too. Look at each offering in detail to find out if they meet your exact requirements in terms of space, bandwidth, etc.
Anonymously Registering a Domain Name
Web domains are the memorable name of your website. They uniquely identify your web presence on the Internet and allow people from all over the world to access your hosted content. This is also why most regions on Earth require you to provide your personal details when you register a domain name. It is mostly for accountability reasons, not for billing. If you host content someone is offended by and want to take legal action, they have three options to find out who you are.
The Imprint on your Website
Large parts of the modern world require websites to feature an imprint for legal reasons. Many countries require you to provide one on your website if you have commercial interest in publishing content. This includes showing ads. There are many regions with specific laws, especially in state law in the US. For the EU region, regulations have been put in place to enforce an imprint on your web presence. The legal bases are:
- Germany: Telemedia Act (Telemediengesetz, TMG)
- Austria: E-Commerce Act (PDF) (E-Commerce-Gesetz , ECG)
- Switzerland: Federal Act on Unfair Competition (Bundesgesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, UWG)
- France: Digital Economy Law (Loi pour la Confiance dans l’Économie Numérique, LCEN)
- Italy: Legislative Decree No. 70/2003 (Attuazione della Direttiva 2000/31/CE relativa a taluni aspetti giuridici dei servizi della società dell’informazione, in particolare il commercio elettronico, nel mercato interno)
- Spain: Law on Information Society Services and Electronic Commerce (Ley de Servicios de la Sociedad de la Información y de Comercio Electrónico, LSSI-CE)
- Poland: Act on Providing Services by Electronic Means (Ustawa o świadczeniu usług drogą elektroniczną)
- United Kingdom (even if not in the EU): Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002
The WHOIS Record of your Domain
Every domain is registered to an individual or a business entity. When you register a domain in your own name at e.g., Namecheap or GoDaddy, the WHOIS record will show your personal name and details. It is easy to find the WHOIS record of any domain. Just open this website and enter the domain you want to find out about. Some services (including Namecheap) offer “extra protection” in the form of WHOIS privacy packages. That means they put their business name into the WHOIS record instead of yours, but charge you for it. Other providers (like the ones listed above) don’t charge you extra.
The Contact Information held by your Hosting Service
Most companies you start a legal contract with will want to know who you are. This is called KYC (“Know Your Customer“). KYC is voluntarily in many cases, but for areas like financial services or property, KYC is a legal requirement in many regions. Hosting providers ask for your personal details to make sure they can hold you liable in case of requests from law enforcement; they are not necessarily required to keep your records. Some jurisdictions do require this though, so the vast majority of hosting providers will want to verify your exact details. Above I list a set of hosting providers that does not require KYC. They mostly operate in jurisdictions that do not require it and hence just ask for fair use and to hold up community standards.
Even if no legal action against your person is intended, anyone may file a DMCA Takedown request against your domain or content.
Best Practices for Staying Safe when Hosting
Domain records, imprints, or hosting service records aren’t the only ways to unwillingly give away your identity. One of the most common issues of unintentionally uncovering your personal information is actually too lax day to day handling of your web presence. Below lists some of the main areas you should pay good attention to in order to stay as private as you can.
Keeping your Website up to Date
This one should be a no-brainer, although all too often ignored. 0-day exploits are a very real issue, and many software suites suffer from them. While companies are usually quick to react to critical security flaws and provide proper patches, users can only benefit from this if they apply them. Some examples of security issues commonly exploited by hackers are:
- Flaws in authentication: A bug in the user handling system can easily give an attacker access to accounts.
- File system access: Faulty scripts can give wide-spread access to the underlying file system, exposing critical internal data and information about your infrastructure.
- Access to databases through cross site scripting: Every service has some sort of database in the background that contains customer records, payment information, or transaction details; unallowed access this information can lead to serious implications for your service, website, or business.
Keeping your website/service up to date with the latest patches protects you from most of these issues. Software suites like WordPress offer a site health report status and inform you about plugin updates. Make good use of these tools, they may safe your privacy.
Use Privacy Protection Services
If you absolutely must use a domain name service that does not cover your WHOIS identity by default, be sure to book additional protection services. Namecheap for example let’s you book such an additional protection.
If you operate from within a country that requires you to offer an imprint, use an imprint indirection service. These services provide you with a legal business address for relatively low fees. You can put this address on your imprint instead of your real address. One such service with rather low fees is Anschrift.net (from 6.70€ per month). Even your physical address information must be kept private for safe online hosting.
Consider Content and Metadata
When you build your website, ensure that no personally identifying details remain in your HTML, JS, CSS, etc. files. Even images you use can contain metadata that gives away your exact GPS location (via EXIF metadata).
Source code comments, even if just for your own use, can contain information about yourself. Review all code you upload to publicly accessible webspaces thoroughly. One single file containing your data can ruin your entire anonymity/privacy strategy and tie all other content of your website to your person. The same is true for content you link to, or information your publicize. If any of this links back to your other online identities (like a public GitHub profile), they are forever tied to your web presence as well.
Communicate Securely
You may have set up an anonymous website, considered content, metadata, WHOIS records, and payment. Be very sure to also anonymize the communication channel between your hoster and yourself. Using your personal e-mail address gives away vital information about your identity. Use a secure and private e-mail provider like Proton Mail or Tuta.
Getting Paid Securely for Your Services
If you set up a website using secure and anonymous online hosting, you might want to tie a paid service to it. Whatever you offer, when your customers pay you you don’t want to give them your personal PayPal address or bank account data.
There are several services specializing in providing anonymous payment infrastructure. Here is a list of some of these services to get you started:
- CoinPayments: As a well-established payment processor, CoinPayments makes it super easy to receive money. Your customers can pay you directly without knowing who you are. This service allows you to easily integrate with their API to properly process payments and provide access to your customers afterwards. They have a processing fee of 0.5% for incoming crypto payments.
- BTCPay Server: This is a self-hosted solution that allows you to accept payments entirely autonomously. You don’t need to sign up for any service, pay no fees, and have full control. The downside is that you need to manage it entirely yourself.
- SpectroCoin: Generally a crypto exchange, but SpectroCoin provides you with a VISA debit card and an IBAN bank account that you can use to receive payments. This is very convenient given that these are available to the vast majority of potential customers.
The above are just three very different approaches to being paid anonymously. There are more options, and the above should give you a good starting point, knowing what kinds of services exist.
Using Anonymous Ads
One other way to get paid for your online presence is through using ad networks. While large networks like Google Ads or PropellerAds do exist, you shouldn’t use them for anonymous websites. These services have strong KYC requirements and keep extensive logs about where the ads are shown and who you are. Instead, have a look at anonymous options like A-Ads. They do not require any KYC. If the simplest case, they don’t even need your name or e-mail address and are very quick to set up.
Using Other Services Safely
You build your website using tools of your choice. If you’re generating assets or using coding assistants, these can retain information about how you use them. I point our potential issues with two categories of tools below: Coding assistants, and image generators.
Coding Assistants (e.g., GitHub Copilot)
Tools like GitHub Copilot have drawn significant developer attention towards them. They make coding life so much easier by understanding what you intend to build, and build it for you. The downside for some is that all the code you did write goes to Copilot’s servers. Some of it is retained for training purposes. If you now include code in your files that gives away your intent, this code will be stored on Microsoft’s (they own GitHub) and OpenAI’s (they own GPT that powers Copilot) servers. This does not necessarily break any laws. Ff your website code is analyzed at some point though and cross-referenced to Copilot code, you are quickly identified as the real you building that exact website.
Image Generation Services
Many websites (if not almost all) use visual assets. With GenAI becoming more wide-spread, it is tempting to generate beautiful assets for your website. If you decide to generate logos, UI elements, backgrounds, etc. the same applies as for Copilot-like tools above. The assets you generate may be stored on the servers of the service you use. These can later be linked to your work and your identity if you use the service under your real name.
Be careful when using third-party services if you want to stay anonymous. Either obfuscate your intent (edit the final results you get from the services sufficiently), use them under a separate identity, or do not use them at all.
Legal Implications of an Anonymous Website
Why you want to operate a website anonymously is entirely up to you and your use-case. There may be many reasons. Be aware though that local laws and regulations that require KYC and personal identification in many regions can lead to introspection into your website if you do not give up personal details. This is likely to occur if you hit legal limits, or start accumulating negative visitor experiences. Be sure to know where the grey legal area ends and what you should definitely not do.
While some hosters in neutral areas simply ignore law enforcement requests, others may be quick to either take down your content or hand over whatever information they have about you. With the information from above you should be well equipped though to minimize your own identity footprint on your private web presence endeavour.
Conclusion
In this article, you got an overview of how to set up a secure and anonymous web presence. You learned about major hosters not requiring KYC, what to look out for when working on your site, and how to pay and get payed anonymously. If your use-case allows, setting up a hidden Tor website may be a suitable alternative. The above though gives you everything you need to get your presence up and running in the clearnet. Secure and anonymous online hosting requires taking precautions, but can well be worth the effort if you want to effectively protect your identity when serving content. Just remember to use a VPN and visit your own website with a privacy minded browser!
If you liked this article and want to share your own thoughts and experiences, comment below to get the conversation started!