This is both a review and a petition to the XMR community.
Here’s an overview with some of the pros and cons of 8 VPS hosts:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/vps/
7 of the 8 accept Monero. Only ones personally used by the author were evaluated.
The 8th is Shinjiru and could maybe be convinced into it if they felt there was enough demand to do so. This is Shinjiru’s email below, they offer low prices, good customer service, and have good censorship policies, but only accept fiat or Bitcoin/Ethereum. They’re Malaysian but offer servers all over. Most companies that aren’t US or EU charge more. The general rule is the less developed the area, the MORE expensive the servers because of the infrastructure.
If you’re looking for a neutral country that wants business bad enough to not harass you, while having good enough infrastructure for speed. Then Malaysia is a good choice in my opinion. When you compare them against the 7 other choices on that list, you'll see the point. Especially if you want no KYC crypto, no-US no-EU, unblocked email ports that are kept off spam lists and offer domains too.
I want you to send them 1 polite email kindly asking them to accept Monero:
support@247livesupport.biz
Do not spam them or harass them, then they’ll look down on us. Just send 1 sincere message that you’d love to buy service if they offer Monero and your reasons. Then please upvote this so we get more people involved.
Malaysia is not politically neutral, FYI, but for this use-case it's likely fine. Why not go for providers in the EU?
The EU has:
In contrast Shinjiru has a good track record on censorship. If you look them up, the only criticism I found is someone complaining they would NOT take down someone else doing copyright infringement. While of course, I can not endorse breaking the law, I do support free speech.
Of course, EU is no haven for free speech. No doubt about it. My point was simply that EU servers might have better prices. Of course, if you don't care about that, Asia might potentially be a better idea (not Japan or Korea though).
I didn't know France sent people to jail for using Tails, that's insane. However, from the POV of a network, how would they even find the person? Unless they happen to operate a significant portion of the TOR network/NSA gave them some juicy exploits
You mean, like Hong Kong, or India, maybe? What do you mean by “not Japan or Korea though”? I’d feel China would be worse. Privacy-focused services tend to be pricey anyway, both in Europe and in the US, and the price comparison is tricky as EUR/USD can move weirdly. If you’re talking about Njalla (Sweden), it’s indeed rather expensive.
Although France seems to be generally anti-cryptography, of course you wouldn’t go to jail just because you use Tails. There was this notorious incident related to French activists & Proton, though. Also, the Netherlands can be scary. They arrested a developer of Tornado Cash, right? Although, those things have nothing to do with VPS!