Web hosting in Taiwan?

Life Technology
1

So I want to register some .tw domain names and have the websites hosted on servers in Taiwan.
I am happy just to have some gigs of space on a shared server at a fair price, and please no daily rationed bandwidth bullshit.
I dont need my own server, unless the prices are just so damn good its a valid choice to do whatever else I want with the computer. ( game server, ftp sites, NAS, etc.)

Can anyone recommend some companies for this?
Hopefully they have admin pages in English if its a web hosting company. Windows or Linux servers is fine.
Must have a great record for uptime and speed. No rookies.

Thanks in advance.

2

[quote=“downtownandrew”]So I want to register some .tw domain names and have the websites hosted on servers in Taiwan.
I am happy just to have some gigs of space on a shared server at a fair price, and please no daily rationed bandwidth bullshit.
I don’t need my own server, unless the prices are just so damn good its a valid choice to do whatever else I want with the computer. ( game server, ftp sites, NAS, etc.)

Can anyone recommend some companies for this?
Hopefully they have admin pages in English if its a web hosting company. Windows or Linux servers is fine.
Must have a great record for uptime and speed. No rookies.

Thanks in advance.[/quote]

A couple of years ago I wanted to do this, but ran into a brick wall registering a .tw domain name (from a Taiwan-based registrar) because they required a tongyi bianhao 統一編號 which I didn’t have. Not sure if things have changed. Assuming you’ve got the requisite number, then Hinet is good enough for registration:

domain.hinet.net/

Hosting is a bit easier. The following service has been in business a long time, runs Linux servers, and is cheap:

twnoc.com/

Google translate says: per month as low as NT 200 yuan from, you can have a separate dedicated IP address , at least 60GB (60000MB) hard disk space, 120GB (120000MB) basic monthly traffic, 1000 an e-mail account, 1000 FTP accounts

Windows-based hosting will cost you at least double. Microsoft wants their licensing fees.

English interface? If only. Considering that Taiwan has been aspiring for years to be an international high-tech center, it’s pretty funny (or rather sad) that nobody in the tech industry has figured out that they need an English interface on their sites for registration/hosting if they want to attract international business. Right now, the best you can do is run Google Chrome and turn on automatic translation.

What I finally wound up doing was registering and hosting with a service based in Malaysia:

exabytes.com.my/

They do allow you to register a .com.tw site, though I wound up with just a .com which suited me better. Linux hosting for dirt cheap, English interface. No complaints. Speed is good even from Taiwan, though I suppose that a Taiwan-based hosting service would be faster. I might consider in the future switching to a twnoc.com for hosting while keeping registration in Malaysia, but really I’m very satisfied with what I’ve got now.

3

Thank you for your details.

4

[quote=“Dog’s_Breakfast”]The following service has been in business a long time, runs Linux servers, and is cheap:
twnoc.com/[/quote]
There are cheaper services in TW, but i’d second the recommendation since TWNOC has good support (never tried communicating in English, though), and their packages offer a lot (storage space, bandwidth, etc.) to start with.
The server management interface (cPanel) can be set to any of the common languages you might encounter in an IT context (and a few more). :wink:

5

Not sure where you host your website is important? Taiwan, US, Australia, etc…?

I have .com, .net, .co.UK, .Asia domains and they’re all hosted with a British company. They’re the best host’s I’ve ever had. They’re cheap and their customer support is second to none.

Google them and search for reviews.

5quidhost.co.uk/

Domainmonster.com is the best domain name registration company I’ve ever used. Don’t think you can register a .tw through them though…

6

[quote=“Nanshijiao”]Not sure where you host your website is important? Taiwan, US, Australia, etc…?

I have .com, .net, .co.UK, .Asia domains and they’re all hosted with a British company. They’re the best host’s I’ve ever had. They’re cheap and their customer support is second to none.

Google them and search for reviews.

5quidhost.co.uk/

Domainmonster.com is the best domain name registration company I’ve ever used. Don’t think you can register a .tw through them though…[/quote]

Thanks for those good UK-based recommendations, Nanshijiao. How do you find the speed when accessing from Taiwan?

One thing I like to stress to anyone looking for domain name registration and hosting is that it’s probably best to avoid both registration and (especially) hosting in the USA. The UK should be alright. The reason I’m saying this is because some of the recent Snowden revelations have shown that US-based hosting services have had to consent to putting spyware on web sites, turning over encryption keys, etc - and the hosting companies have no legal recourse to refuse. Nor can they even inform the customer of the spying, lest they fall afoul of the Patriot Act. That includes even Snowden’s email provider, Lavabit, which tried to resist but failed:

wired.com/2014/04/lavabit-ruling/

All this has caused a fair bit of outrage in Silicon Valley, resulting in even some US-based tech companies moving their servers outside the USA.

7

Speed and reliability of access: if your clients are in Taiwan, providing them with a website hosted in Taiwan means they get, on average, the fastest and most reliable access to the site. :sunglasses:
The domain name, especially, the country designator, may seem irrelevant to many people, but to some it makes a difference. In terms of marketing, you can’t go wrong having a site with .tw if your clients are Taiwanese. :wink: (Also, .tw domains are not expensive…)

8

2Y ago I’ve purchased a .tw on ovh.net
Meaning you can purhase a .tw outside taiwan too.

But for the hosting, well indeed, better to be in TW for the ping/local speed.

9

You should try eHDF hosting, I am kind of sure they deal out side Gulf as well and in Taiwan as well.

10

Well, there is nothing wrong with using a data center in Dubai, but there is no particular advantage, either, if one’s target audience is in Taiwan. :slight_smile: If someone like that was looking for hosting services outside of Taiwan (for example, in order to get around a language barrier), Singapore and Malaysia would be good choices, given the way the backbone cables run.
Here is, for example, an affordable SG provider that i’ve had good experience with: regolithmedia.com/

11

Well, there is nothing wrong with using a data center in Dubai, but there is no particular advantage, either, if one’s target audience is in Taiwan. :slight_smile: If someone like that was looking for hosting services outside of Taiwan (for example, in order to get around a language barrier), Singapore and Malaysia would be good choices, given the way the backbone cables run.
Here is, for example, an affordable SG provider that I’ve had good experience with: regolithmedia.com/[/quote]

Actually, I have been using eHDF for long that is why I recommend them. They do have global customers as well that is why I have shared them on this thread.

12

Digital Ocean will give you a (virtual) dedicated server for $5/month, have a datacenter in Singapore, and a variety of pre-built system images for common things like Wordpress, Drupal, Magento, etc. And of course you can put anything else you like on them. Traditional shared hosting doesn’t make much sense to me these days.

13

Well, “traditional” web hosting is still a sensible option for people who are not really into setting up and managing their own server. :wink:
(Says i, whose Asian mail server is on a DigitalOcean VPS.) :2cents:

14

[quote=“yuli”]Well, “traditional” web hosting is still a sensible option for people who are not really into setting up and managing their own server. :wink:
(Says i, whose Asian mail server is on a DigitalOcean VPS.) :2cents:[/quote]

Perhaps? I mean, I feel like people who would previously have put a site up on shared hosting are better served by specific services these days – blog platforms, e-commerce platforms, site builders, and so on. Wanting to manage your own HTML content but not your own server is a weird middle ground that isn’t great for anyone.

15

Hmmm…but that’s what I do. Actually, that’s what many people do.

I like managing my own html code. Not sure if I’d like having to maintain a server. Or maybe I would - does Digital Ocean allow you to choose your own operating system? I’d be interested in Slackware.

16

Hmmm…but that’s what I do. Actually, that’s what many people do.

I like managing my own html code. Not sure if I’d like having to maintain a server. Or maybe I would - does Digital Ocean allow you to choose your own operating system? I’d be interested in Slackware.[/quote]

Doesn’t look like they have Slack. Their options are Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Fedora, Debian, CoreOS, and CentOS.

Linode do Slackware VMs. Rackspace don’t. It seems to be possible on AWS but it doesn’t look like much fun.

I’m a CentOS proponent for production services, although I keep meaning to get into FreeBSD.