Those who’ve been reading my crap for a while might remember Eternity Road, where I blogged before I moved here. I did so because I and my Webmaster had a falling-out, and I, being ignorant about blogging software, could not maintain the site by myself.
However, I’ve begun to have misgivings about Blogger. Yes, it’s free of cost. Yes, it’s easy to use. And yes, I’ve been here for six years now and nothing terrible has happened.
But it’s a Google platform. And Google, like Facebook and Twitter, has become increasingly hostile to opinion from conservatives and libertarians.
So I’m thinking seriously about re-establishing Liberty’s Torch at a location less likely to turn on me without warning. But I’m as ignorant about blogging software as I was in 2012. So I need:
- Suggestions about Web hosts that are committed to freedom of expression;
- Ideas about what blogging engine I should use and what supports it requires;
- A Webmaster who knows his stuff and won’t ask a fortune for his services.
Would any of my Gentle Readers care to contribute their thoughts...or offer their expertise?
8 comments:
I've only started the task of looking, so don't have much I can contribute. Two hosting companies that seem fair are HostGator
https://www.hostgator.com/
and BlueHost
https://www.bluehost.com/products/shared
It appears to run in the range of $5 to $7/month. This doesn't include any services for porting or the blog authoring itself. HostGator has a tab for WordPress hosting. One would assume that it means using their software for the blog itself, but not WordPress hosting, and thereby be independent of the censorship WP is doing.
Hope that's useful. In turn, I'm interested in what you turn up.
I'm in the process of setting up my own Web site, for precisely the same reason as yourself. I'm working with a Web company to create the site from scratch, including Wordpress' new Gutenberg editor, and set it up with fast hosting and all the rest. There's probably too much information to provide in a comment like this, but if you'll drop me a line (my e-mail address is in my blog profile), we can set up a phone call, and I can put you in touch with the folks doing the work for me.
Good luck!
Peter
Crusader Rabbit uses Blue Host, one of the sites SiGB mentions. It uses Word Press, and has been the same since Darin took it over from KG. I've authoring rights there that I use sparingly, but what I've done I've liked. Especially the comments tool kit is much better than Blogger's.
I've seen at other sites that use WP that there are a number of features not being used there. That tells me it gives you plenty of latitude to employ tools at your discretion. You'd have to ask KG or Darin directly about other details related to it and Blue Host.
If freedom of expression is the paramount consideration, you might look into mee.nu. It's run by Pixy Misa, whose hobby is getting banned from Twitter. This is the same Pixy behind the scenes at Ace of Spades. There are a couple of downsides: mee.nu uses Pixy's own blogging software, which may not be as easy to figure out as Blogger or WordPress; and, if anything happens to Pixy, I don't know what will become of mee.nu. I keep a mee.nu site as an emergency back-up should my present web host become rabid, but my main site runs on WordPress and is hosted by InMotion Hosting, whom I pay just enough to keep the site ad-free. Basic WordPress is simple enough that I can usually figure out any problems on my own.
What a calamitous state we've reached if we're worrying about this.
But, given the behaviors we've seen lately, I too am getting worried about it.
I've used Bluehost. I keep it active, even though I have a site on Blogger, as I want to be able to mirror my work. Not that it's all that tremendous, but, I use it to reflect back on the development of my thinking, as well as my writing.
Can't compare mee.nu - no pricing info.
You've got volume that I will never have to worry about, but recently I've taken the time to install my own web server hardware and software in my own basement on an old PC. My site is actually just for myself and my family to use, so as I said - low traffic. But if
$100 for the fanless PC off of eBay.
$25 per year for a domain name through my existing internet service provider.
Ubuntu Linux, Bitnami stack to install WordPress locally.
It means you've got to handle everything (including backup, etc.) yourself, but it's independent of everyone but my domain-name provider. I completely get that you'd probably rather do something else with your time, but I was actually fairly surprised at home simple the back-end setup stuff ended up being.
Sorry. Done trying to jump through grrrgles hoops. Contact me if you want real answers.
Andy
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