Hub Hosting Review

On our quest to find the best Anonymous Offshore Hosting companies, today we bring to you this Hub Hosting Review. Lately a number of hosting reviews we had done were lacking in one or the other aspect.

Fortunately, this Hub Hosting Review seems to show a lot more promise. It largely ticks all the right boxes, and leaves only little unchecked. Sure it’s not the perfect picture, but we believe it sure qualifies as an offshore host.

Note that we are not endorsing the company, rather we’re trying to get you as honest, unbiased and transparent a picture as possible. Parallel to the same, we will conduct a number of tests, and let you verify the results independently.

As always, the primary questions we’re answering today are:

Disclaimer: This Hub Hosting Review is subject to our Disclaimer.

Hub Hosting Overview

A sum-up of this Hub Hosting Review. Get an idea of the company before getting into the nitty-gritty details:

  • Primary URL: https://www.hub.org/
  • Server Location: UK/ Canada
  • Company Jurisdiction: Panama
  • Payment methods: BTC+ PayPal.
  • Cheapest Plan: USD $19.00/month.
  • Servers: VPS Only.
  • Warez & Adult Content: Yes
  • Content not allowed: Listed in the AUP section.

Is Hub Hosting Offshore?

It has to be, why else would it be here being counted as one of the best offshore hosting companies, right?

Hub Hosting is offshore not just on one, but two fronts. First, it offers servers from two locations, which are:

  • United Kingdom – London.
  • Canada – Montreal.

While this clearly means the company is offshore, there’s more. Despite servers in the above two countries, the Hosting company is actually based in Panama. Hence, Panamanian laws and regulations apply.

Panama, if you’ve put in research into Digital Laws would come out as one of the most favourable offshore hosting locations on the planet.

Does it provide the Privacy and freedom of content which generally are associated with Panama? That’s what we dissect in the following sections.

Is Hub Hosting Anonymous and Privacy-Friendly?

We look at certain factors to establish that. For e.g. the Registration form is a good start. What information does it ask for? And whatever is asked, does it have to be true or can it be random and untrue?

Well, here’s the registration form which needs to be filled at Hub Hosting:

For starters, it doesn’t ask for a lot of details such as the Address, Mobile number, Zip Code etc. which a number of other companies do. If you scroll through our ProManaged Review or Warez Host Review, you’d realize the minimalistic form above is a bliss.

As for the accuracy of the data, the site lacks a T&C page, or any statement demanding the same. So it can be assumed that the data probably can be random and doesn’t have to be true.

Even though it has to be, or you do enter real data Panamanian laws come to the rescue. Its Privacy Policy clearly mentions that the company doesn’t rent/sell or share data with any third-party, it actually is illegal under the laws.

Although note that it still responds to and co-operates with legal notices sent via the Panamanian courts. Bottomline, it’s as liberal as it can be without damaging its own existence or overstepping Panamanian legal boundaries.

What Content Isn’t Allowed on Hub Hosting? (AUP)

Down to the most important question with any offshore hosting company, its AUP (Acceptable Use Policy). Any benefits of the offshore location will come into effect only if the company allows content which can’t be uploaded while in your own jurisdiction.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the company doesn’t have an AUP page. So there’s no list as such which would let the users know of the content-allowances.

But, it does allow:

  • Adult content
  • And Warez (Pirated Software).

This hints at the fact that most other commonly restricted content may be allowed as well. I mean if Pirated software is allowed, Copyrighted content isn’t far off, is it?

And then again, the company mentions how Panamanian laws do not inflict “high regulatory constraints” on their content and online businesses. The freedom of speech and opinion too has been mentioned as one of its USPs.

Additionally, the company also mentions that according to Panamanian laws, agencies and bodies outside Panama can not freeze, remove or exercise any control over Panamanian assets.

This in simpler terms translates to the fact that DMCA and other such laws aren’t applicable and foreign bodies can’t make decisions about your site.

Taking all of the facts and statements presented on the company’s website, it does seem like a pretty liberal solution.

Which Payment Modes are Accepted on Hub Hosting?

This isn’t just about the “ease” of payments, but also the level of anonymity each mode offers. Naturally, we prefer or prioritize companies which allow and support payments via Cryptocurrencies.

Fortunately, Hub does.  It accepts payments via Bitcoin (Can buy on paxful). In addition, PayPal can be used to make payments using Cards (Visa/Mastercards) and Bank accounts.

How Good are Hub Hosting Servers?

As mentioned in the initial sections of this Hub Hosting Review, we’d put the company through some tests. All the results are 100% transparent, and can be verified by you for legitimacy as  well.

We did verify that the website we’re testing – https://www.hub.org/ is indeed hosted on Hub servers. You totally can test another website, for e.g. ruralcatholicradio.com which too is hosted on Hub as well.

The tests we’d be conducting:

  • Load -Time Test
  • Server Response Time Test (SRT).
  • SRT with Traffic – Spike.

Load-Time Test

In this test, we’d monitor how long the webpage takes to load from various locations on the planet. While heavily dominated by each site’s codes, scripts, and overall size it still is pretty useful to form a basic idea.

The fastest speed we got was from Germany, and the page loaded in 1.25 seconds (Verify). For a page weighing 2Mb the speed sure is acceptable.

Even for North America the time-requirement was only 1.95Seconds.

While  Australia and South America did require above 3 seconds of load-time, that’s accepted considering the geographical and other factors influencing the speed.

Even Asia, generally one of the slowest results in most of our tests performed well with a load-time of only 3.52 seconds.

Server Response Time

Are the above results only because the site was well-coded? Or is the server equipped for a fast response time in general? If the latter is the case, these results would be true for majority of the sites hosted on the platform under similar conditions.

Here are the Server-Response Time results we got for the site (Verify):

While it’s acceptable for London, Canada, Germany with the SRT requirement being less than 100ms, for most other locations it’s 100ms+.

Sure we’ve seen much better results in our UANode Review among others. But then again, we can’t deny that these numbers are still in line with our Delta Host Review. Infact, there have been worse results, such as the ones seen in our ZGH Hosting Review.

SRT with Traffic-Spike

While the result above is acceptable, does it remain so when there’s a crowd on your site? We’ll test the same by sending 25 Bots to the website. They technically act as real humans and hence help us monitor the server’s response (and changes in them).

Here are the results (Verify)

The response time I’d say remains static and the line doesn’t get “hilly”. It starts with 153ms for 2 VUs, and ends requiring 161 ms for 25 VUs.

This proves that the server doesn’t panic under load and remains stable.

How to Contact Hub Hosting?

The company “technically” has a live-chat box on its homepage. But we monitored it for over 18 hours on a Friday, and it didn’t change its status to online even once.

So it’s possible the live-chat isn’t “live”. Rather, it can be used as a contact form to get in touch with the company. No other Contact links have been provided. Naturally this makes Hub Hosting drop down the list as far as “support” goes for non-registered customers. However, registered customers (clients) do get prioritized support in English.

What do the Hub Hosting Servers Cost?

Hub Hosting doesn’t sell Shared Servers, neither does it entertain Dedicated servers. This means the pricing won’t be the cheapest, neither the most expensive. Considering how VPS servers are the middle-road.

It offers 3 primary pricing plans for its VPS servers:

  • Personal: USD $19.00/month.
  • Professional: USD $29.00/month.
  • Enterprise: USD $49.00/month.

Final Verdict on

Let’s sum things up for this Hub Hosting Review then? Starting with the anonymity, I’d say it’s okay and acceptable. Sure it’s not as anonymous as CyberBunker and Shinjiru or Mivocloud but is still acceptable.

The Content Policy too is liberal and allowed some commonly restricted content as well. Overall, Panamanian laws seem like a good fit for a privacy-friendly offshore hosting company.

But hey, why don’t you drop your two cents on this Hub Hosting Review and the company? At the end, it’s “You” we’ve been doing this for, right?

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