We always like talking about what you can do with our web hosting. We want to inspire people to make new and exciting things online, whether it’s starting a business, creating a portfolio, or just putting up excellent cat photos.
But we’re not going to lie to you — there are things you can’t do with our hosting. We have our Fair Use Policy, but we thought we’d explain some of the things that we don’t allow and why.
Things you can’t do on our web hosting but could do on a VPS
Run game or chat servers
If you’ve ever tried to play an online game, especially one with a lot of people on the server, you’ll know how much processing power it can take up, and that’s not even getting into rendering those graphics.
The same goes for most chat platforms as well. Anything that involves a lot of people connecting and responding to each other is going to eat up a lot of the server, and that’s just going to slow everything down even more.
Run scripts that eat up everything
This is like the game and chat server issue but can cover any software you’re running on your website. Whether it’s a home-grown all-bells-and-whistles e-commerce solution, a huge database that goes back decades, or, god forbid, mining cryptocurrency, if it takes up more than 5% of the server’s processing capacity, it’s getting shut down.
To put it another way, your website hosting is like a flat in a large block of flats. And everyone’s on the same broadband connection. Everyone gets along really well, nobody’s causing any problems, and then there’s That One Flat that’s streaming like 50 different channels at the same time and tying up the entire Internet.
Don’t be that flat. If you think something’s slowing everything down, talk to us, and we can give you some advice.
Treat it like your personal backup server
You know backups are important, so why not just use that web space you have as an extra backup? It’ll be fine, they’re a good company, it won’t cause any problems!
Yeah, no, it’s going to cause problems. Our servers are built for hosting websites that are available to the public, out there for people to see. Turning our hosting into a backup server isn’t just a misuse of our systems, it’s also a bad idea in general.
We’re not going to back up your backups for you. In fact, we’re more likely to delete files if it looks like they’re backups. We’re like a shopping centre, filled with amazing things to look at, not a self-storage warehouse, all locked up and inaccessible.
This includes online office software as well. We’re not your Google Drive. We’re not Microsoft Office 360. We’re here just for your website.
Did you know that if you have one of our Virtual Private Servers, you could do everything above? Sure, you’d have to take care of everything yourself, and you’d have to make sure it was all secure, but whether you want to run Valheim, build your perfect office management system, or create a dedicated file server, they’re absolutely there for you.
Things you can’t do on any of our packages
Send out massive amounts of email
Sending out emails are important to any business, and we expect people to be sending out emails, whether it’s replies from your personal email account or automatically-sent emails for your online store. And we also know that newsletters are a great way to connect with your audience — we even have our own.
But you can’t spam people. No mailing people who haven’t opted in to receive your emails, no buying bulk mailing lists, none of that. (And if you are going to send out a lot of emails, please consider spreading them out over a period of time, because otherwise, you’re just clogging everyone’s network.)
Host anything that breaks UK law
Because we’re based in the UK, we’re held to UK law. This means that anything that could cause us legal issues in the UK, we’re going to be taking it down. This can be fraud sites, illicit material, libel, breaking injunctions, whatever. If we get told about it, and it’s a choice between keeping a customer or not getting in trouble, we’re never going to choose the customer.
“Freedom of speech” only applies to the US federal government not being able to stop you from saying things. It has nothing to do with other countries and even less to do with businesses.
Host pirated content
Did you make it yourself? Great, awesome, put that up and have a great time with it. Did you rip it or download it from somewhere else and you’re putting it up on your account? No.
You’re not doing that here. No streaming sites, no file sharing sites, no BitTorrent trackers, nothing like that. If we’re told about it, we’re taking it down. If we find it randomly, we’re taking it down. And if you’re stupid enough to ask us for help to fix it? Oh, it’s so getting taken down.
When it comes down to it, there’s so much you can do with our web hosting. So do us a favour, read the Fair Use Policy, and make sure you’re keeping everything within the guidelines, okay?
