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This page aims to list community experiences with Tor and various Internet Service Providers (ISPs) around the world. Some ISPs are Tor-friendly, some are not. Some are competent and clueful about Tor or about security in general. Let us know! Be sure to provide useful information like how much bandwidth you pushed, whether you thought the deal was cheap or expensive, how hard you had to work to make them understand what's going on, how long your server has been running, and whether you'd recommend them to others. Also include dates.
Good experiences US
Table of Contents Good experiences US Austria Germany United Kingdom France Finland Iceland Italy Netherlands Norway Sweden C anada Slovenia Ukraine Lithuania New Zealand and Australia Hungary C zech Republic Poland Bad experience US Phobos' research Germany France Finland C anada Sweden United Kingdom Italy Slovenia Netherlands Malaysia Romania Russia Switzerland C zech Republic Ukraine Poland
Amazon Web Services (AWS) (hosting) allows customers to run any non-exit of Tor servers provided any abuse complaints are handled in a timely manner. This enables Tor volunteers to run Tor Cloud servers on AWS. AmeriNOC - Allows Tor as long you comply with their TOS, but in reality, i have not any problems for years. Arvixe (hosting) Openly and respectfully state that while they dont permit a Tor exit on shared hosting accounts, you are very welcome to run one on a VPS account. 6/19/2013 Axigy is a superb Tor hoster. Handles abuse perfectly. Ask for custom quote. Blacklotus allows Tor exits and has (quote management) "pretty liberal abuse handling policies" Binary CPU allows Tor nodes. I got a promotional unmetered package and been hosting an exit relay since January 2012. - December 2012: Sadly everything has come to an end, I guess. Binary CPU has discontinued their VPS services so there goes my fast exit node :( BuyVM.net Low cost and "good" bandwidth limit. Tor exit nodes were once allowed but no longer (per their Acceptable Use Policy. Relay nodes are fine. ChunkHost Good bandwidth, great uptime, excellent support, all around excellent VPS provider. However they questionable policies about Tor. They received one DMCA notice and despite the standard response, tell me VPS will be disable with one more notification. Still working this out. -hRB Jan/2012 Team Cinipac Team Cinipac "allow on all server locations services like Tor/VPN/I2P because we are supporting projects who safe the privacy like wikileaks, Tor etc. We stand behind our customer and abuse will be forwarded to you to take action. If you have problems, need help etc. just only contact our Abuse/Law Department they will help you in this case. We do not provide any kind of information to third parties. Our company locate in Panama and we ignore court orders from other countries, because we think privacy is an human right." Cyberonic is now on the COVAD backbone, so you should be able to get service from them anywhere you could get other COVAD-based service. They offer 6.0m/768kbps at $59/month, w/ a static IP. Can't recall ever having downtime due to them and their TOS only restrict Email relay servers (and that's probably only enforced if you have complaints). All other https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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servers ok. If you sign up, tell 'em brianwc sent you and I think I get a free month. -- BrianC Ethr.net is a Tor-friendly ISP that already has a 20Mbit Tor Exit Node hosted there. Their services are a bit pricey, but they have excellent peering, and offer a "Cheap-Net" option to give you he.net bandwidth at a little less than half of their listed prices (~$20/Mbit). Evolucix is a low cost VPS provider. They offer TUN/TAP extensions on top of OpenVZ to provide VPN capabilities. They are fine with bridges and relays but due to the US regulations running exit nodes can be tricky. Great service from my experience. Future Hosting didn't seem to having an opinion on Tor exit relays. It was easy to get another IP address and configure rDNS on my "unmanaged VPS" plan. There have been no DMCA notices yet. (Dec 2013) HostGator allowed Tor on VPS and Dedicated at least last year (2011), however you might want to check if this policy still applies. Their phone and live chat support is on 24/7. Hosted an exit relay for a couple of months. I discontinued my VPS because of the heavy price (still a great host though). IPXcore allows non-exit nodes. Luna Node Fine with Tor relays, good bandwidth & cheap. (May, 2014) RoadRunner (TimeWarner) (USA): Very reliable service. Been running web server on 80 for several years. IP changes when cable modem reset (almost never for me). No ports blocked (that I know of). No BW limits, only speed caps. I've got 5Mbps down/384kbps up. Definitely recommend. Running Tor since Jan 06. -- MichaelAnsel Softlayer allows for customized WHOIS, reverse DNS from their portal, and they are an utility provider. They have dedicated servers and cloud instances (Hourly or monthly billed). They come with 3,000 GB bandwidth standard, if you get a dedicated box. You can pick Dallas, Seattle, Washington D.C., and San Jose for server locations. By the end of the year (2011), you will also be able to run nodes in Europe and Asia as well. You may remember these guys: ThePlanet.com merged with SoftLayer in late 2010. Slicehost/Rackspace (a hosting provider, not an ISP) allows running Tor on their servers, but if anybody downloads copyrighted material illegally through Tor, that's a ToS violation. I had an issue with a DMCA (copyright violation) notice triggered by Tor activity exiting through my server, and I had to agree to block the port on which the material was downloaded for them to let me continue running the exit relay. Setting an ExitPolicy that only allows certain ports is probably smart if you don't want to get into trouble. Otherwise, the service is great; each server gets guaranteed 10 Mbps, and the network has never been down in the 6 months I've been a customer. Plans start at US $20/month, reasonably cheap as these things go. Update: 3 March 2010: Approach with caution. I'd love to move my exit node to Slicehost, but after trading several e-mails with a Greg in technical support, I could not get a straight answer about whether Tor complies with the company's AUP. Greg's response when pushed: "Again, we do not recommend this service to be run on our platform. If you have any other questions, please let us know." -- EricB Sh3lls says their dedicated servers can be used for anything legal, as long as the customer handles abuse they're fine. As of December 4, 2013, Sh3lls notified me that my exit node will be terminated due to "excessive complaints", despite the fact that I've handled every notice brought to my attention and I'm running a restricted exit policy. Sh3lls.net is no longer an exit node friendly ISP. Tailored VPS has a blog post about hosting Tor relays so I assumed they allow hosting one. Been their member since late January 2012. Good experience so far. -> I can confirm they are quite tor-tolerant (even exit nodes). They ask you to deal with the abuse letters they forward you, and may ask to add an exit policy to the "victim"'s IP as a precaution. Not the cheapest, but they play nice with Tor relays. Tailored VPS was bought out in January 2014 by Front Range Hosting, whose acceptable use policy specifically disallows Tor exits. VPS6.NET Tor initially allowed. Been hosting for an exit a couple of days there (also very nice support team!). - December 2012: They are now more strict about Tor. Middle nodes should be fine. However, if planning to host an exit, you might https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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want to check if your desired exit policy is fine with them. VPSWebServer.com Windows VPS provider who allows to install Tor on their VPS Servers. I'm their customer for few months and ask them to install Tor and get positive answer. They allow to install all applications which are legal and don't abuse others. Also when you make order you will get dedicated IP address. Also their support is full managed who always help to solve your problem's and issue's. Inerail ISP/Hosting provider that allows Tor exit relays. Found the staff to be reasonably security conscious. All they asked was that I keep up with any abuse complaints. Service was a little pricey, but very reliable, I was able to do 100+ Mbps of traffic. Tor not permitted on virtual servers - colo/dedicated only.
Austria EDIS GmbH (Hosting) doesn't allow Tor Exits anymore. Relays/Hidden services allowed (fusl, 03/2014) InterneX GmbH (Hosting) seems not to care about Tor nodes, likely mainly because their upstream/IP provider does not (see next ISP, UPC). Rather cheap VPS but openVZ based with low limits on connections. (william, 12/2011) UPC Austria GmbH (ISP) does not care what their customers do at all (unless you have a business connection), Cheap 100Mbit (down) 10Mbit (Up) connections (59EUR with VAT). (william, 12/2011) Silver Server GmbH Forwards abuse. Hosts already some big exit/entry nodes which seem to have no problems. Very expensive traffic. (william, 12/2011) Tele2 Austria GmbH Forwards abuse at business connections, good quality traffic, does not like "proxys" on private lines. Cheap synchronous (SDSL) connections. (william, 12/2011) A1 (former Telekom Austria) Does not like Abuse (in any form) at all. Seems to give out customer data at alleged abuse. Not recommended but cheap. (william, 12/2011) xpirio GmbH in general rather relaxed at all services, but better get in touch with their (very understanding) support when you expect abuse. (william, 12/2011)
Germany netcup GmbH allows hosting and does not restrict any Tor services at all but everybody should be aware that there can be huge legal consequences if laws are broken. I received this statement from the CEO Mr. Dipl.Ing. Felix Preuss today via mail (goose, 07.11.11) netcup changed their AGB (sometime around mid 2012) and disallow any tor service. They actively sweep their network for tor traffic and send you abuse notifications, if they find even a tor relay (nichrome, 07.08.2013) Me and a friend hosted Tor both on our own netcup server a year ago, and the consequences were fatal! They wanted more than 350 EUR for a special effort (disable my and my friends server). We responded with the official EFF statement about Tor. No response from netcup. 1. dun, 2. dun. We went to a lawyer. He wrote them. No response from netcup. 1. collection agency, 2. collection agency. Lawyer responded to them and to netcup. No response from netcup. Finally they gave up. But they NEVER responded to any action me or my friend took. I wouldn't recommend netcup as a Tor friendly provider. NEVER! I also had a _terrible_ experience with netcup: The service in it self was not very good. Being artificially limited to 400KB/s is extremely bad, especially when https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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bandwidth was supposedly 'free'. Inability to cancel something via the internet that I was able to order via the internet. How can I legally enter an agreement over the internet but not exit an agreement? That is ludicrous. Weesly is very liberal and allows hosting Tor in any kind. Statement in German: "Bei mir kann man alles machen was nicht gegen das deutsche Recht verstößt", in English: "With me you can do anything that does not violates German laws" (q23p, 10.06.11) Note that you should let them know about your intention when ordering a server or in advance. (ch, 06/2013) Although its located in the Netherlands, Germans could try Leaseweb. They're hosting more than one *big* Tor-server and are quite tolerant. (anonym, 4/2010) EUServ seems to be a good ISP for Tor (see what they think here). They have a bad support, but if you know how to maintain your server, this ISP is a good choice. --JensKubieziel? (http://identi.ca/notice/15888906) IPX-Server.de (DE) has generous traffic limits (there are contracts including 1TB/Mo) and behaves as I'd expect it from good partners. Some BSA-notice regarding Torrents arrived, they informed me and told me to stop this "illegal activities" and said, after reading and (at least it seems so) understanding my reply explaining Tor with "ok, we won't interfere, your problem". HostEurope: "generell schränken wir die Nutzung nur bei IRC-Diensten ein. Tor-Server können grundsätzlich betrieben werden. Allerdings müssen wir eventuell auftretende Beschwerden dennoch an Sie weiterleiten. Vor allem wenn der Server als Exit-Node fungiert ist es wahrscheinlich dass Beschwerden eingehen werden." I've had a contradicting answer a few days later: "Leider müssen wir Ihnen mitteilen, dass wir aufgrund interner Richtlinien das Hosting für Ihre gewünschten Zwecke ablehnen müssen." I had a positive answer again (regarding running Tor on a VPS): "Tor services are allowed, as long as the load on the host system is not getting too big." (1/2012) (but note that numtcpsock are set very low (550) on their VPS) http://www.keyweb.de/ offers cheap and reliable Virtuals Servers with 2GB HDD-space and liberal policies. The cheapest VPS is around 8 Euros. Not useful for high traffic nodes, they limit heavily after 5TB Afterburst (formerly Fanatical VPS) provides unmetered VPS on 1000mbps line. Fair usage applies. Quoting Nick from the team: "Yes hosting tor relays is allowed, however depending on the VPS you choose you'll probably want to enforce a speed limit". The Micro package fair usage is 1-2mbit a second which I gladly honor. Been hosting an exit relay since November 2011. As of March 2014 exit nodes are not allowed according to their acceptable use policy. I've asked their support and I got a negative answer (4/2012): "We used to allow Tor on our nodes, but unfortunately we have had some issues with our datacenter (Hetzner) in terms of AUP and such. Sorry but we cannot allow anything torrelated anymore." That's sad but understandable. This policy likely means "no new Tor relays". I had some problems with abuse this month (5/2012), and they said it's fine for now but if they see too much abuse they would ask me to switch to a non-exit node. Still counts as a good experience as Nick seems to be very understanding of Tor. No longer allows exits at all. Middle relays are fine. Tried to sign up for VPS for non tor related purpose, was informed that when doing a "fraud check", they found my email https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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associated with Tor. I asked for a refund. Server4You (Germany, part of Intergenia AG) hasn't complained about a Tor server (running on a non-virtual server) pushing 300GB/month for more than two years. They only block incoming port 6667. They are hosting more than a dozen Tor servers. -- SvenNeuhaus (2008/01) Server4You limits on virtual servers are ridiculous, actually. numtcpsock 288, tcpsndbuf/tcprcvbuf 3598712, lots of failcnt. Can't use them with Tor. [2010/02] I've asked Server4You support and they state servers with complaints about Tor will be canceled immediately (see the quote in the "Bad Experience" section)
United Kingdom Clustered.net has nothing against Tor nodes in principle, but warned that they'd asked me to stop if a large number of abuse reports were received. My fast/stable exit node's been running there for three months now with no hassle. Gigatux has graciously allowed me to run a Tor relay for over a year and a half with no problems. They actually run their own relay named 'gigatux'. Customer support has been very good as well, and they have helped me handle two abuse complaints admirably. They also offer servers in the US, Germany, and Israel. -Blackpaw Bitfolk allows Tor exits and relays. They are very knowledgable and understand Tor and its uses. They are hot on spam and abuse so advise changing the default exit (good idea in the UK anyhow). Any DMCA notices received were simply forwarded on without agro.
France Gandi VPS now accepting Tor relay but charge the bandwidth over 500GB per month. FirstHeberg now accepting relay. The technical director of FirstHeberg has announced "What happens on your server does not concern me.". Online.net just changed their conditions of sales (2013-07-30) and Tor is no longer unauthorized by the contract. Some Tor relay are now running on Online.net since several weeks. It seems that Digicube are accepting several Tor relays (including exit nodes) on their network since several month.
Finland TeliaSonera Finland: Largest ISP in Finland. I've been running Tor node on 8/1 ADSL with semipermanent IP address (changes rarely). ISP has not interfered in anyway. They block only port 25. In the future TSF may activate "black lists" based on DSN (sorry effort to "fight kiddied porn). 60+ kBps continuosly. -- JussiSavola
Iceland 1984Hosting Has no problems with Tor, asked directly and was told they are fine with them. Fairly cheap as well. -Maquis196 https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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FlokiNET Privacy Hoster - Tor Nodes are welcome
Italy Prometeus Middle relays are fine, exits are forbidden by TOS. "A relay only Tor node or similar software which only allows traffic to other nodes is OK. For example, Freenet is allowed."
Netherlands John Brooks runs a 2TB node at LeaseWeb. He would recommend them for running a relay. -- JensKubieziel. In a mail to Tor-talk, a LeaseWeb employee (Alex de Joode) offered his help to sort out complaints regarding Tor. Ecatel explicitly allows Tor exit nodes and forwards abuse/DCMA, but their network isn't the most stable. You need to email them for a custom offer. They also accept UKash/CashU. Netrouting has no problems with Tor DirectVPS has no problems with Tor Versio was said to have no problems with Tor, but they disabled my Cloudbox VPS anyway. Might have been because it was an exit node... I think they disabled it after an abuse report, but I don't know for sure. They just stated it was against their policy to run "a tor network" (sic), though I can't find anything on proxies or relays in their terms of service. I also went over the bandwidth limit, but that was not given as a reason for disabling the VPS. They even included a screenshot of the top command where tor was running, so it really doesn't seem to be about exceeding the bandwidth. I think as long as you go without abuse complaints (e.g. run an internal relay) and don't exceed the bandwidth limit, they won't notice. AuroraNet ran an exit with default exit policy on a Versio CloudBox for over 6 months without issue (2013) NForce has no problems with Tor CyberBunker has no problems with almost anything you could think of (which would include tor) and customers can remain anonymous. SnelServer does not mention anything about Tor or similar software being run on their servers but after sending an email, they have said customers are welcome to run any software they wish on their servers which is legal in the Netherlands and abuse complaints must be responded to within 24 hours or the system automatically suspends your account until you do. Very reasonable pricing for dedicated servers and I personally run 5 exit nodes with them (350mbps +/- 100mbps) and have had no problems. I would recommend using Tor's boilerplate response for abuse notices. Very reliable network, great support staff, reasonable prices (79 Euro for 20TB out, unlimited traffic in on a dual core dedicated) and they also accept Bitcoin although you do need to submit ID documentation if you plan on purchasing more than 5 servers. (2014)
Norway NextGentel (Norway): Allows Tor-servers. Assists Norwegian secret police in doing total surveillance of customers they torture for sharing their opinion without warrant or even a reason.
Sweden https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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TeliaSonera is also big in Sweden and deliver where other ISPs can't (They were previously the state monopoly, which they still are, but they now pretend it's free competition while they still own all the fiber). Blocks port 25 for all customers. Does not bother Tor-server operators. PRQ has no problems with Tor exits and abuse forwarding, but at a heavy price...
Canada TekSavvy has a server-friendly Internet Use Policy (e.g., running a Tor relay) and has taken a stand in favor of net neutrality. (2008-12)
Slovenia With Tuš Hosting we had really good experience running a 5 MB/s full-exit Tor on a dedicated server on colocation. They said that they care just that we pay our bills and they just simply forward DMCA notices to us to handle (or ignore) them and forward police to our home doors to question us. I really recommend them and if anybody wants to put another Tor node/server there I am willing to help. Mitar (mitar@…)
Ukraine Colocall allows Tor exits
Lithuania Baltic Servers been running a Tor exit node for several months. All abuse mails they got yielded support tickets, and in each one I stated running a Tor exit node and having taken action when possible. Also not having taken action seems not to have been a problem yet (in cases where forumspam or port 80 SQL injection probers were involved). If I do get shut down I'll ask if they have a policy regarding Tor or a maximum of abuse reports.
New Zealand and Australia http://rimuhosting.com/index.jsp Quite open to the proposition when approached. Have servers in N.Z.; Sydney; London; and Dallas. Locations may vary, but quite happy with the specific Oz/NZ query. No co-lo, but root access. "You can run anything you like, as long as it's legal." The moving goal-posts of legality are the only concern here.
Hungary ServerAstra allows Tor exits. They only say you should answer abuse requests in 24h, so it seems Tor exit is ok for them as long as they don't get in trouble themselves. Same goes for Mixmaster nodes. ServerAstra has unmetered 100Mbit traffic for about EUR 20 per month. You can use the 100Mbit 24/7 and they won't complain or reduce the bandwidth. They have some security issues including plaintext-only admin panel and web console, and sometimes shut down servers that generate abuse complaints, even when they know that the host is a Tor exit.
Czech Republic https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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Wedos.CZ has no problems with tor exits. Several high bandwidth are hosted there. T-Systems has no problem with tor relays (don't know about exits).
Poland Hitme.net.pl has no problems with tor exits. (PayPal)(27/08/2013) Hostowisko.pl has no problems with Tor. (27/08/2013) Exone Allows Tor-servers. Very cheap "mini" accounts, perfect for tor-bridges.(28/08/2013) e24cloud Allows Tor-relays (fast!)(don't know about exits). (PayPal)(01/10/2013) hostinger.pl has no problems with tor exits. (PayPal)(02/10/2013) statnet.pl Allows Tor-relays, servers in Poland and in Germany. (DotPay)(02/10/2013)
Bad experience US AzzaVPS Ran an exit node July-Nov. 2013. No DMCA Takedown notices or abuse tickets received. Changed the TOS to exclude Tor [sic] without notification and then suspended my account (also without notification). Their gimmick was unlimited bandwidth on a 512MB RAM OpenVZ slice, but my 10-15Mbit up/down was apparently too much. Of the half dozen or so companies I've used for exit nodes over the years, AzzaVPS was the least professional and had the worst support. The deal was cheap @ $7.00/mo. but at that rate they cannot be bothered to communicate effectively. www.vpscheap.net/ Ran a bridge for 6+ months they sent multiple tickets on their website but never contacted me via email so I could not respond. They changed the terms of service agreement without notifying me. Very poor experience. They do not understand how Tor works and just blanket ban it. Ezzi.net. Running Tor was fine until Undernet mailed Ezzi.net a complaint which falsely claimed Tor was somehow a "botnet". This made a very rude person at Ezzi send a mail which falsely claimed the Tor servers were hacked and "It appears whoever caused this hacked the servers by brute forcing SSH logins and uploading a fake httpd binary and launching it.". This person kept on insisting the servers were hacked after being politely informed that Undernet had confused Tor traffic with a "botnet" and that the servers where not compromised in any way, so it's kind of hard to tell if the person was troublesome because the person did not understand what Tor is or if this person at Ezzi generally just imagines things and think they are part of reality. But it is clear that most ezzi customers become ex-customers after meeting this known-to-be-rude tech. LayeredTech are a server hosting company located in Texas. I ran a server for six months without any issues, but then someone used the Tor server to exploit a PHP vulnerability. Explaining the goals of Tor to LayeredTech resulted in it being made clear that I was responsible for any and all abuse through my IP address. Shortly after this they ordered me to shutdown Tor. -- Steve_Crook SONIC.NET of Santa Rosa, CA have terms of service that would apparently be Tor-friendly; but this thread http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15272743 includes comments by SONIC.NET's CEO that don't sound particularly friendly or open to the idea of running an exit node. Linode will require you to shut down an exit node if it receives repeated abuse complaints. Non-exit relays are allowed. Refused to allocate a second IP address for Tor traffic to shield other services on server from being blocked in China. Tektonic will suspend your VPS with no prior notice if you run "any proxy". They used to tolerate Tor if you didn't run an exit node but they are now apparently auditing the VPSs for processes named Tor. They did however restore the VPS https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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very promptly after I promised to uninstall Tor and Privoxy. Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy for residential customers says no servers or proxies under "Technical Restrictions" (2009-08-10 tip from Scott Bennett). 100tb.com (Softlayer) allows Tor exits, abuse needs to be addressed within 24 hours. Despite this "policy", my experience was bad. They were very understanding at first when the exit was just made and got about 5 DMCA notices, and replied explaining Tor. A few days later, I got forwarded about 30 DMCAs, and few from Spamcop (even though common mail ports were blocked); as usual, I replied that it's entirely because of Tor, and that I have no pirated content or viruses on my box. Apparently they got fed up with the constant DMCAs, and replied with "More will need to be done to block this. We will not tolerate open abuse of our network (DMCAs and SPAM via a "Tor Exit Node"). This type of service is prone to abuse and tarnishes not only our reputation but your reputation with us. If action is not taken to help prevent this going forward we will be forced to block access to the server". At this point, I set it as a "middleman" instead of an exit, in hopes that it would stop the flow of DMCA notices. Nope, they disabled the interface. I have at this point stopped Tor on the 100tb box, and do not know what to do now. There is no way at all to block all P2P, and 100tb refuses to acknowledge this. They make claims "Tor is ALL RIGHT on 100tb boxes!", but then go and screw you over when you get DMCA notices (it's a when, not an if. Running a Tor exit WILL produce DMCA notices). I highly suggest avoiding these people at 100tb/Hosting Services, Inc./midphase if you are seriously considering running a stable Tor exit. We had a server there for 6 months, but then they told us Softlayer as DC doesn't allow it any longer. (torservers.net) M5 Hosting does not explicitly forbid Tor in their AUP but after operating an exit node for 3 weeks and receiving three DMCA complaints, their abuse department communicated, "Whereas Tor exit nodes facilitate unaccountable actions by anonymous users and those actions regularly expose [M5] to undue risk as well as oversight costs and unknowable legal expenses, Tor exit nodes will not be permitted on M5's network" because "just responding to the abuse complaints costs [them] money and it costs money to [their] upstream providers and increase[s] [their] risks of incurring legal defense expenses" and ordered the Tor exit node to be shut down. FDCservers allows Tor, and customers to react to abuse within 24 hours before taking further steps. Be cautious if operating an exit node, for the boilerplate abuse responses are "not acceptable" per their Network Security Administrator. He sited the AUP/TOS and stated I have "the full responsibility for the content hosted and passing through the server. So if you cannot track or take actions against reported abuse issues you should terminate or restrict specific service" (which was a single exploitable php script probe). Santrex (1) Santrex gave me a poor experience, no abuse was forwarded, and my server was suspended without prior notice. (2) Santrex suspended the vps running an exit Tor node after 1 day telling me that torrenting was not allowed and I was abusing the service. No warning was given. They kept billing my credit card even after having the vps service suspended. (July 2011) (3) Santrex threatened to disconnect my dedicated machine after the second abuse complaint from an exit node. (In their Denver colo, at least, they appear to be subletting from FDCServers.net, mentioned above.) (Nov 2011) dreamhost.com Abuse department says Tor violates AUP and should not be run. Also said they had had Tor nodes run before on VPSes and it had caused performance degradation for other VPSes. 6/27/2011 Mediacom Within one week of running an exit node on their residential service, my account was suspended due to DMCA requests. No requests were forwarded to me. No amount of reasoning/explaination/screaming at them would get them to restore service. rethinkvps.com Altough they weren't against Tor exit nodes themselves at first, they run a three strikes policy about abuse complaints from "their datacenter", meaning they themselves could get their machines kicked off. Running a nonexit relay should be fine. Chicago VPS First claimed I could host a node as long as I dealt with abuse reports. Then I got an automated abuse mail https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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and I handled it with a proper reply. Then I got a rude threat they would terminate my VPS if this happened again. Not recommended unless you want a host that runs its hands up screaming on every abuse report they get. This abuse mail did not even state the web address this supposed spam/abuse happened but they fully bought it. VPSCheap.net Tor not allowed. 5ITE Hosting Solutions Tor not allowed. Supposedly forbidden by TOS/AUP even though not directly mentioned DigitalOcean Tor was allowed, then they stealth changed the ToS after their KVM network stack was failing. Tor will get grandfathered status (Unlimited Bandwidth) removed, and they weren't exactly keen to warn. Note added 2013-06-16: Also, currently, VPS CPUs do not appear to have support for AES instruction set. CPU usage maxed for me at 100% when bandwidth reached about 2 Mbps. Exits: Initially, DigitalOcean seems like a great place to run an exit. Their servers are cheap, and they forward abuse complaints to you so that you can take further action. I had been blocking IPs as complaints came in. I received 10 abuse complaints and handled them to DigitalOcean's satisfaction, however after receiving the 11th abuse complaint my account was locked. They said that my account had received "too many abusive complaints" and would not be unlocked; if you have any other VPS instances I suspect you would permanently lose access to those as well, as I had 3 other VPSes that had not received any abuse complaints that I no longer have access to as well. VPSWebServer.com I've ordered their service, but they sent me my password only after 4 days, after I ordered another service already. I asked them to cancel my order and refund - but they just deleted my account, gave me no refund and they do not reply to my mails. owned by http://www.cirtexhosting.com/ Tor not allowed. Even middle nodes violate their TOS/AUP. ServerAxis Low-cost VPS provider. (2013-07-13) Began talking to this provider when my current provider wouldn't allocate me a second IP address to separate tor traffic from other server traffic. Their response: "Sorry we consider tor to be an unauthenticated proxy which we do not allow in our acceptable usage policies." www.sitevalley.com/ (aka TwinServers) used to allow Tor nodes (early 2012), including Exits, but in July 2013 shut down a non-Exit node and stated that Tor in any form was against their TOS. Psychz.net PhotonVPS.com and Yardvps.com are also their affiliated brands. They're just not smart guys and don't speak English properly at all. Although they don't treat Tor differently but they're just mean about all kinds of abuses. And once your VPS get suspended, it requires a lot of work to get it back to normal.
Phobos' research ISP Name CI Host Iweb.ca Host Voice Super Servers Vericenter Dedicated Now] Soft Layer Tek Tonic Unixshell Verizon FiOS
Allowed IRC? Allowed Proxies? Allowed Tor? N Y Y N Y Y N N N N N N N Y Y N Y Y Y Y Y N N N N N N N N N
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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Notes: Unixshell/Tektonic are the same company. They nullroute you on the first abuse complaint. Middleman nodes are ok, but the abuse dept requests "SafeLogging 0" set in your torrc and wants full access to your logs on demand. Verizon FiOS officially does not allow any incoming traffic, they reserve the right to disconnect you at any time for violation of this policy. Users have run middleman nodes without any incidents from VZ. Exit nodes with abuse problems have resulted in legal threats and disconnection threats, but no disconnection as of yet.
Germany The german ISP dogado ended up killing the Tor server process and blocking the OR-port on my vServer. -- d00b comsitec.de 2/2014 Unlimited data paid a year in advance but frequently off and slow. Ticket responses very poor. AVOID THEM The german ISP EuServ / ISPro -- they just broke the contract, switching our Server off. -- padeluun EUServ VPS: They have a numtcpsock setting of max 600, not able to run Tor properly. They also exclude it from their TOS. -- August 2013, Torpids Manitu forbids any anonymisation techniques in their AGBs --qbi (gamambel: I have asked and they made me an offer for 100mbit dedi at 1500 euro) OVH (German ISP) offers root server with a high bandwidth (up to 5.000 kB/s). They changed their AGB and cancel "problematic" contracts very fast. -- qbi plusserver.de shut down h07onion due to gross incompetence. Look at http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Mar2005/msg00120.html for more details. "I have recently checked manitu because they advertise with internet without censorship and data retention. Unfortunately they explicitly forbid providing anonymization services in their general terms and conditions. On inquiry they have justified this restriction with the enormous bandwidth consumption and the impossibility to achieve fair combined costing in this case. For the same reason they forbid running mirrors of public data such as open source software. So I believe their argument is no pretense." -- Alex, Dec 01 2009 via email. netcup.de suspended one vserver running a Tor exit node, analyzed stuff, and charged 192€ for processing _one_ dmcanotice. - ari netdirekt.de "Leider unterstützen wir keine Tor Exits. Sofern diese in unserem Netzwerk sind gab es vermutlich noch keine Vorfälle." Strato writes in their AGB "Abschnitt III: Sonderregeln für dedizierte und virtuelle Server ... 1.1 Eine Nutzung der Server zur Bereitstellung folgender Dienste ist ausgeschlossen: ... Anonymisierungsdienste, z.B. Tor, JAP, Proxyserver" netcup.de Running a tor relay node with 256 kB/s bandwidth and 600gb traffic limit configured in tor I was moved to a high traffic node after about 8 days or 400 GB traffic usage, at which point the average bandwidth dropped to less than 50 kB/s. I was not notified of this changed but its clearly noticable via vnstat -d and a different cpu usage pattern on the new server (as in 100% _all_ the time). Server4You I asked support about Tor and they stated "Tor Dienste sind bei uns ebenfalls aufgrund der rechtlichen Graulage nicht gerne gesehen und werden bei Abuse Aufkommen direkt gekündigt." (March 2011). In April 2012 they turned off my server because "Tor ist illegal in Deutschland" ("Tor is illegal in Germany", according to their support). Hetzner has some Tor Exits, but they send an abuse request for each BayTSP request, and you have to respond each. Now (today, 05.09.2011) they disconnected my Tor IP, because someone did a netscan on a /23 via Tor. They requested a statement via mail / fax now, which I sent, but didn't get a response yet. --morphium https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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Same thing (disconnect b/c of netscan) happened to me sometime around March 2011 . Connection restored after a few hours (Fax & Phone call "plz look at it right away"). Stopped me from having an exit there. :/ -- Fusselwurm Alvotech doesn't allow Tor exit nodes: "unfortunately we had several problems in the past with tor exit nodes (police stuff, ddos, lawyers etc.), so we don't wish it in our network". -- Nyr Netsys-online appears to offer unlimited 100MBit/s but disables the VPS even if you use only 20MBit/s (middle node) because of too much resource usage. Unmetered.com does not allow Tor exits nodes. -- enn.lu Colo-Bunker.de / Bonntel does not allow Tor nodes at all (not even non-exit and/or -relay nodes). One would need to buy a dedicated server from them to be allowed to host tor nodes there. (I can provide E-Mail history if you drop me a mail: root AT sigqu.it) (fusl, 2014-01-14)
France The french hosting company http://www.online.net/fr (member of iliad) suspended without warning a bunch a machines that were running Tor after the police came down about creditcard fraud. (Also, any kind of relay is explicitely forbidden in their term of service.) online.net sends automated daily "abuse" mails and disables your server even if you are only running a middle node. -August 2013, Torpids OVH / Kimsufi suspended and restarted into FTP only mode claiming "hack" even when running as relay, Contacted OVH to explain Tor got the following reply: Actually we don't like Tor on our network, as either a relay or an exit node. You can check our T&C. (Indeed, any kind of relay is explicitely forbidden in their term of service, however, I have a few servers there which are relays on non-standard port, never had a complain.)
Finland Tenue now seems to disallow Tor exits on their network. See http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Apr-2010/msg00158.html
Canada Rogers has a no-servers clause in the TOS for their home internet service. If you are running an exit node and receive DMCA notices, you will have no legal recourse except to cancel service. (2008-03)
Sweden Perspektiv bredband supposedly allows for running Tor nodes, but will disable your account due to spam.
United Kingdom I have asked and Swiftway doesn't want Tor exits on their network. Memset do not allow Tor servers under their (rather vague) AUP. UK Dedicated aka Colo.net informed me that I couldn't continue to run my Tor relay or in anyway effect, conduct or facilitate any activity involving: IRC or anonymous proxy services. I asked OVH/Kimsufi about their policies regarding Tor exit nodes and was told that an exit node is classed as an open https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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proxy which is against the TOS. I replied that I'll be running it in bridge mode then. No feedback on that so far. -Maquis196 123-reg found out I was running an Exit Node (received a notice regarding filesharing, someone downloading torrents using my Exit). I was asked to shut it down. I complied and asked if i could run a Relay node. They said no as that would violate their AUP. -- September 2012, vandal2
Italy avoid SEFLOW.it! they say it's against Italian law to have a Tor relay, asked which law, they said to contact a lawyer. (atrent: do you need a more articulate explanation? I'm the one who had the bad experience, I have all the emails exchanged and I can translate them) GARR.it: well... it's not an ISP but nonetheless since it's the connectivity provider of italian universities we should mention that they do NOT allow exit nodes on their net (I had one, they obliged me to tear it down)
Slovenia Domenca has crazy prices (10 EUR/Mbit/s + 300 EUR/U for dedicated server per month) and they require not just to respond to all complaints in one working day, but also to prevent them in the future. Just replying with explanation that it is an anonymous service and there is no way to prevent this, is not enough for them. So it seems impossible to really host Tor exit node there. Mitar (mitar@‌)
Netherlands PCextreme does not allow hosting of a Tor relay node on their VPS. (Tue, 31 Jan 2012) Seedmonster does not list Tor as being against their TOS, but they suspended a major tor node because of 4 web forum spam reports on a 1gbps exit. They will try to work with you, but their upstream provider is zero tolerance, so when it comes down to it, they will not back Tor exits. (Update:) They agreed to let it keep running after the exit policy was modified, but then came back a week later and said Tor had to be disabled completely. Three complaints were received out of approx. 10TB of traffic.
Malaysia Shinjiru is not allowing Tor since their new policy (feb 2012), Even if all the exit ports are blocked, and even as relay : they are u-turning completely . (In the past they even donated a server to the Tor project); traffic is expensive though
Romania Voxility doesn't allow the hosting of "Anything than can result in Spamhaus listing". They wouldn't say if they allowed Tor exit node hosting explicitly. I didn't want to risk it. Placed in the "Romania" category as I was looking at hosting in Romania. -- December 2013
Russia Smile blocks any traffic, by redirecting to statis web page with message about that user is possibly providing access to https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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third party. It does not like many simultaneous outbound HTTP-connections.
Switzerland ¶ Private Layer, Inc. does not allow hosting of a Tor relay node on their VPS (Thu, 02 Feb 2012) "Tor is not allowed to be ran on our containers. This is the reason why the process gets killer every minute. The reason why we do not allow Tor, is because over time we have seen that it consumes way too much CPU time, so we have decided not to allow it on our VPS. " SolNet does not list Tor as being against their TOS, but they will ask you to shut it down if they receive complains via abuse (Fri, 15 Feb 2013). HostEurope Switzerland: Cant install Tor on Ubunut 10.04 LTS, but they wont give me an other OS-Template.
Czech Republic NQhost They don't allow running relays of any kind: "We don't allow to use our servers for tor exit nodes and/or relays"
Ukraine 0x2A Refuses Tor traffic.
Poland vipower They don't allow running relays of any kind: "niestety nie ma takiej możliwości." IQ PL They don't allow running relays of any kind: "niestety nie ma takiej możliwości." Last modified on May 20, 2014 12:13:35 PM
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoodBadISPs
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