And I’d like to be able to do it privately too, that’d be cool.
Things I can do –
- write HTML and CSS
- register a domain and set up hosting
- use Filezilla
Things I don’t know how to do –
- Create databases, I always had someone around to do that for me
- Self-host
- Set up an onion site 🧅
- Set up an eepsite
- Register a .bit domain
I am more of a content gal than a tech gal, but think of all the cool stuff I could create if I could spin up anonymous websites in a few hours.
If you don’t want to figure out hosting (and I don’t blame you), you can use shared hosts for less than a dollar per month, especially for low-tech websites. If you want to deal with databases, there are guides for any programming language you can think of; PHP is traditionally very easy to get started with and supported on just about any shared host, but Python is also becoming available on cheap shared hosting these days. As for creating databases: if you buy shared hosting, you usually get access to a (barebones) management interface where you can set up databases. You’ll still have to write the SQL to set up the tables and store/retrieve data, but creating the database should be relatively straight-forward.
Setting up an onion site is not that hard: you run your website on a computer (any computer that’s turned on all day, whether you rent one online or stuff a Raspberry Pi in your basement, or even an old Android phone!), without even bothering to set up things like TLS or getting a domain. The bare basics of an onion site are: 1. generate a key (there are free tools) that becomes your “domain”, 2. install Tor on the computer, 3. put that key in the right folder on your computer and 4. add a single line in the Tor config file to expose your local server. From that moment on, you can deploy your website like you normally do.
If you want to generate an onion domain that starts with something recognisable, you’ll need to brute-force one; you can’t just register onion names like normal domains. mkp224o works quite fast, but don’t expect to generate readable names longer than six or seven characters unless you have a lot of patience.
I have no experience with I2P eepsites, but they seem to be even easier to configure than Onion sites.
For your own privacy and security: watch out that you don’t expose control panels and such on your web server if you hook up Tor to it. LAMP for Windows does this by default, for instance! If you you can access PHPMyAdmin on localhost:8080/phpmyadmin/, and point your Tor/I2P server to localhost:8080, then anyone on Tor/I2P can also access your PHPMyAdmin! Also make sure you know who you’re protecting yourself from; if you’re trying to hide your website from the police, you’ll need a hell of a lot more precautions than if you just want your website to be available on Tor/I2P.
Learning the basics for all of this will take more than a few hours. However, once you get some experience, setting up a basic website can be done in minutes.
Links you may find interesting:
- How to set up untraceable websites (eepsites) on I2P
- Set up Your Onion Service
- Create your own hidden .onion darknet domain
- Learn PHP8: Using MySQL, JavaScript, CSS3, and HTML5 (an expensive book, but you can probably find cheap copies online)
- Mastering Linux Administration, a book for if you want to learn self-hosting using Linux servers
- Build your own Raspberry Pi Web Server for skipping to the good parts (doesn’t explain many details, so you may get confused if something goes wrong!)
- How to host a static website on your Android phone for if you have an old Android in a drawer somewhere. Note that permanently running a battery-powered device may bloat up the battery (which becomes a fire risk if ignored)
Thank you!
Why do you need a database? If you want a blog or something that’s the same for all the visitors you can use a static site generator
Anonymous from who? None of what you’ve mentioned will keep the police out for long if you’re doing things that catch their attention.
It sounds like you already know how to make Web 1.0 websites.
If you want to get started with databases, the file-based SQLite is awesome!
I guess for a DB. You can use sqlite if the website is going to be small. I’d say learn SQL, but you can also use ORMs.
Have you looked at any static site generators?
If you are more focused on content why not to use something like wordpress? This allows you to write blogs and stuff without coding.
Wordpress needs a database
Yes, but you don’t need to mess with it. Just enter the username and password during installation and you’re set. I think Wordpress is one of the easiest ways to set up a website for people who, like you, aren’t intricately familiar with webdev, but have some knowledge.
There’s thins like jekyll or Hugo too!
Does HTMX count for Web 1.0?
Web 1.0 means no interactivity outside of forms (client to server request<-> response cycle). Web 2.0 was the label used when sites started gaining interactivity, using Javascript.
You can get away without a database (and assuming you don’t need anything too complicated, I recommend not using one). I’ve had a good experience with GetSimple - it’s a content management system (like WordPress) but uses regular files instead of a database. Great for basic content, and still easy to set up and manage.
Self-hosting is a bit complicated if you’re not already comfortable running a Linux server. Not sure about privacy (though I’m not sure how privacy intersects a public-facing website), but there are lots of hosting providers out there. I use DreamHost and have had a great experience there.
