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PC Magazine Reports on Why VPS is Superior to Shared HostingAn article by Larry Seltzer in the July, 2004 issue of PC Magazine warns about the perils of Shared Hosting. He correctly points out the shortcomings of the shared hosting environment in the areas of security, reliability, and eMail blacklisting.Shared hosting describes the basic technical approach where every hosting customer has a separate directory for their programs and data. The file access security mechanism of the operating system is the only means of preventing unauthorized access. Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is an advanced technical approach which partitions a computer into separate virtual servers, which are totally insulated from one another. Security - Regarding security, Seltzer states that it is relatively easy for a hacker to infiltrate the server due to vulnerabilities in the operating environment - "If the attacker gains control of the server or the database, you're all just as vulnerable. And the attacker may not even be an outsider - it can be another customer." Reliability - With respect to the reliability of shared hosting, Seltzer notes that "generic shared hosting accounts, on the other hand - the ones with access to Perl, PHP and (shudder!) shell accounts - are potential disasters. It's very easy for one customer to impact all of the others with a badly written program." eMail Blacklisting - As part of the effort to block spam, blacklists have been developed to help identify the source of the spam. The IP address of known spammers is placed in the blacklist which is checked by mail servers as part of their routine to filter out spam. Unfortunately, most shared hosting hosting services use a common IP address for many customers. As described by Seltzer, "If one of the major RBLs (Realtime Blackhole Lists), such as Mail Abuse Prevention System (http://mail-abuse.org) decides to block e-mail from the mail server you share, because some other domain on the same server had been spamming, it won't be your fault but you'll pay the same price all the same." Seltzer wraps up his article by advising users of shared hosting services to research the hosting company and the services they offer carefully because "it's better to pay a little more up front to be sure you're safe."
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