Thanks to cloud hosting providers, you can sign up for a virtual private server for as little as 10 dollars a month. For the cost of as little as two cups of coffee a month, you can have your very own Linux server on the cloud, ready to work for you. The question is, what can you do with this computing power at your disposal? The answer? A lot. Here are a few examples.
DNS
A simple example we can use is to run your own DNS server in the cloud. Everyone is starting to take their privacy online more seriously and one of the more common ways of tracking people online is by tracking websites that load whenever you visit another website. When you run your own DNS server, you can use a server like Pi-Hole which blocks any trackers, ads, and other insidious services online. The software is free and open-source. Users online say it blocks as much as 45% of their DNS requests.
VPN
If you want to go even further and mask your online traffic, you can setup your own VPN server. The advantage over commercial VPN services is that you have more control over your data and its storage. Often, we have no idea if these providers discard logs when they say they do.
Blog
Looking for something simpler to do? Install a web server like Apache, and setup your own blog. There are guides online which will have you up and running in about 20 minutes.
Article by Rack Alley. Get started with your own website with ultra-fast LA web hosting with the tier 1 infrastructure at Rack Alley.