I’m with ICDsoft. https://www.icdsoft.com/
8 USD per month, unlimited email accounts (webmail, IMAP, POP3) , 10 GB storage (100 GB: +$2), MySql, PHP, Python, Ruby). US, Europe or Hong Kong (HK costs more).
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Except for a few bits on Oracle Cloud Free Tier VMs, I host everything with Opalstack (the spiritual successor to Webfaction). Maybe not the cheapest, but it’s solid, with no arbitrary restrictions and good support. Servers in Germany, US and Singapore. Custom control panel with API access.
Admittedly Opalstack is US-based, but if you’re technical they’re a better choice, judging by what Hosting UK says about their LX Dev Gold package.
As an additional tidbit, simple static websites are free to host on GitHub. You can even attach them to a domain if you want to.
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That is a good option. I find it kind of funny to host from my apartment. But you are right this would be the logical choice.
I will have to take your word on that
As you say though because it would take longer for images to load on a server a long way off I think geography is important
Question: Is Microsoft (owner of github) allowed to use your website content for “evil” / AI related stuff?
Generally yes. They may not scrape your repos if you pay for private repos (I am not sure), but I don’t know anyone who even pays for private repos.
that would mean paying for hosting which is not my intention. i was thinking about moving the website to github pages but then i thought: wait, a non-paid service - there must be a downside to this. i guess everyone of the big tech companies are search all of the public internet for interesting stuff. the question is more: do my pictures belong to microsoft when i upload them to github pages?
I think technically public repos are supposed to be under “free” licenses.
You retain your copyright. GitHub gets a limited license to use your repo content for the purposes of hosting them.
Their wording:
Short version: We own the service and all of our content. In order for you to use our content, we give you certain rights to it, but you may only use our content in the way we have allowed.
You can set the license too.
But they seem to be very focused on software … which is to be expected.
… but AI scrapers do not care about who owns the content, as has been demonstrated many times (and even admitted a few times, even though now they are more careful and do not reveal their source of training material).
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Correct. That is why one has to decide if you want to put your image on the internet at all. If yes, you have to life with the consequence that your images will be scraped. github at least does not take away your copyright per default as some other platforms might do (instagram?).
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Privacy of publicly shared data is a fundamental challenge. For my public blogs and BSD open source projects, I’m fine with scrapers scraping everything. This stuff is meant to be public, after all.
I’m not particularly happy about my GPL FOSS projects being used for AI training, but that’s for now unavoidable. After all, humans should be allowed to learn from my code even if they’re not allowed to quote it verbatim. And for now, the same rules apply to humans and AI alike.
My private blog I keep from prying neurons by not hosting them on GitHub. And I trust that my non-FOSS software is kept private in private GitHub repos.
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I wonder what your private blog might be like … 
and how you are sharing it? The general idea of having a notebook of ones life is interesting but also scary if it is not a handwritten book. Even than.
Just a Family blog where we share photos and stories with friends and family. It’s much loved, especially by faraway relatives who we can’t meet often. Password-protected, obviously. Just a static Publii site with some .htaccess rules.
Not that there’s any sensitive information on there. But on principle, I don’t share what’s not mine. Journaling is such a powerful tool, though. Both at work, and for play.
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Agree. At work I am using Joplin to do this job and it works great with all the search and tagging functions. But some kind of automated journal of ones private live seems interesting - I guess Apple has something like this.
My family shares - whatever they share - via whatsApp. I cannot go that route but whenever I propose some other solutions nobody listens or it is not used because it is not as convenient.
An idea, self host Nextcloud. You can then create and manage just about anything with links to share content with family. I created accounts in my Nextcloud for my parents and sisters.