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.
Good experiences
US
Cox.net(US) is great when it comes to running any sort of server. They only block ports 80, 25 (as far as I know), and they don't monitor bandwidth usage at all. I haven't had any problems with them, and I use dozens of GB of in and out bandwidth per month. -- DavidBendit 2005-06-22 05:54:22
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 servers ok. If you sign up, tell 'em brianwc sent you and I think I get a free month. -- brianwc
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
Speakeasy allows users to run arbitrary servers without port or traffic volume restrictions. Static IP addresses are offered without question or complaint.
Germany
Hetzner are a German hosting provider with a number of Tor servers running on Dedicated Hosts. So far they appear to be tolerant of Tor services although no abuse has been reported to test this. --Steve Crook
- 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".
http://www.keyweb.de/ offers cheap and reliable Virtuals Servers with 2GB HDD-space and liberal policies. The cheapest VPS is around 8 Euros.
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)
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
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
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.
Bad experience
US
Charter: "Bandwidth Sharing", or indeed any type of "Server" is forbidden on Charter. They appear to be imposing an artificial bandwidth limit is well. -- ManaUser
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.
Phobos' research
ISP Name |
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 |
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
The german ISP EuServ / ISPro -- they just broke the contract, switching our Server off. -- padeluun
Manitu forbids any anonymisation techniques in their AGBs --qbi
OVH (German ISP) offers root server with a high bandwith (up to 5.000 kB/s). They changed their AGB and cancel "problematic" contracts very fast.--qbi
The german ISP Plusserver.de shut down h07onion due to gross incompetence. Look at http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Mar-2005/msg00120.html for more details.
The german ISP Xantron ended up killing the tor server process on my vServer. --SvenNeuhaus