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Web hosting can come in three common types, but do you know what they mean?
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There’s no shortage of challenges you’re going to face once you decide to create a website. Whether you want to boost your business with a beautiful site or kick off that blog you’ve always wanted to create – one is sure. You’re going to need a solid web hosting service – it’ll be your site’s forever home, hopefully.  

The good news is that there’s a perfect web hosting solution somewhere out there, regardless of your level of technical know-how and available budget. However, finding the right one for you and your business can take some time and careful consideration. 

It’s not all about the cost, you know? A solution fit for a fabulous WordPress blog probably won’t fulfil the needs of an online store with an ever-growing number of visitors. 

Before being able to pick out the perfect solution for your online project, you should make sure that it provides the right amount of resources, as well as an ability to scale up/down. A seemingly small thing like this can set your site for success right at the start.  

So, to make things simpler for you, we’ll go through the three most common types of web hosting and tell you everything you should know before opting for any of them. 

The three common types of web hosting 

Whether you’re starting out or wish to switch your web hosting solution for a superior one, you’ll want to catch wind of the most common web hosting types and tackle their meaning. After that, you can be sure you’ve made the best decision for the future of your website.   

Most people start their journey into cyberspace with shared hosting. It’s not only simple to start with but also considerably cheaper than other solutions out there. Consequently, it’s also the least powerful one. This is because with this type of solution a single server is shared among several users. Thereby, the resources are also shared – storage space, bandwidth, CPUs, and RAM included.   

Once your site begins to grow and outgrow your shared hosting solution, you’ll probably want to upgrade to a virtual private server (VPS) hosting solution. Without breaking the bank, it will let you get rid of the primary drawback of shared hosting – shared resources. So, with a VPS solution, you’ll still share a physical server with other sites, but you will get a set of resources that are dedicated to your site, and your site only. 

If you want to step up your game from a VPS solution and don't mind paying a pretty penny for it – you should consider dedicated server hosting. As the name suggests, you’ll get your dedicated physical server with your dedicated resources and you won’t have to share them with anyone else.  

Apart from these three, other popular web hosting solutions include cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, and colocation hosting.

Why are these three the most common types? 

It’s no secret that shared hosting is popular for its cost-effectiveness and ease of use. It’s the cheapest out of these three options, so if you can spare a mere $ 5 per month – you can afford it. Also, shared hosting is exceedingly easy to use, so even if you’ve never made or managed a site before, you’ll catch up with everything in no time. So, there’s no need for technical know-how – the technical team will walk you through every step of the journey. 

Acting as a bridge between shared hosting and dedicated server hosting, VPS offers powerful performance, high uptime, superb long-term scalability, enhanced security, customizability, and control over your server space. However, the ease of use will vary depending on whether you’re using a managed or unmanaged service. 

While dedicated server hosting will cost you a big buck, it can get you everything a VPS provides plus complete control over your solution. With full root access, you can perform direct server customizations without any restrictions – alter your hardware specifications, add advanced security tools, install applications across your server, and much more. Also, a dedicated solution comes with a dedicated, round-the-clock support staff. 

Web hosting

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Who should use each type of web hosting? 

Being the simplest solution out of the three, shared hosting is the best choice for small sites and blogs that don’t get too many visitors. It’s also a solid solution for young entrepreneurs that lack a big budget and technical know-how but don’t mind starting small. 

A VPS solution offers a fine balance between resources and budget, and it’s aimed at those who have outgrown shared hosting. It’s perfect for those running high-traffic sites for small to mid-sized businesses including ecommerce platforms, SaaS providers, software engineers, and so forth. 

Dedicated servers are “state-of-the-art” web hosting solutions geared towards mid-sized to big businesses that employ over 500 people that are processing massive amounts of data every day. For instance, if you’re running a booming ecommerce store with hundreds of transactions per hour, you’ll want to consider this type of solution.  

The benefits of each type of web hosting 

The three primary advantages of choosing a shared hosting solution are its budget-friendliness (the pricing starts at $ 5 per month), a beginner-friendly approach (simple setup, built-in control panel, and site-building tools), and solid customer support (expect to get live chat support and access to well-supplied knowledgebase). 

In comparison with shared hosting, VPS will get you more powerful performance, higher reliability, and the ability to scale up/down your server with ease. It also gives you more control over your server and a superb level of customizability. 

The main benefit of utilizing a dedicated server solution is having dedicated resources that can keep up and promote the growth of your business. Also, your business site/sites should benefit from increased speed, improved SEO, and superior security. 

While fully managed dedicated servers are pretty popular with large enterprises, you can also opt for a partially managed or unmanaged server and save up some money.  

Things to avoid when choosing a web hosting service 

Since we’ve already shared our tips and trick on how to choose a web hosting service, now we’re going to uncover what mistakes you should avoid making when searching for your solution.

If you want to go with shared hosting, don’t settle for a free hosting service just to save up some money at the start. It will cripple your site with seriously slow speed, unreliable uptime, and non-existent customer support. Before you know it, most of your potential customers will lose trust in your brand and your business will go bust. 

Likewise, don’t purchase a shared or VPS hosting solution before trying it out with a free trial – if one is provided. If not, check whether there is a money-back guarantee. Plus, don’t forget to see what the small print says – this is true for all three types of hosting.  

If you thinking about purchasing a self-managed VPS solution even if you aren’t particularly tech-savvy – don’t do it.  It’s harder than you think and it’ll take plenty of time before you get the hang of it. 

Also, don’t fail to check the company behind the solution including their track record and history of security incidents – if there are any. Take some time to read out reviews about your potential web hosting provider, professional reviews and customer testimonials alike. And if a provider has a bad track record, avoid it like the plague. 

This is particularly important when picking out a dedicated server solution as with this type of hosting one should never make compromises in terms of security. 

On the end note, don’t forget to consider the needs of your online project before picking out a web hosting package for it. What type of site do you wish to create? Will you be creating a single site or more of them? How do you plan to build your site? What amount of traffic do you expect to receive each month? What additional features do you want to receive? And how much money are you willing to give up each month?

Once you’ve answered all these questions, you’ll be a couple of steps closer to choosing the best web hosting solution for your business. 

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6 types of Windows malware to watch out for – and how to remove them
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Windows is the most prevalent desktop operating system in the world, and therefore PCs running Microsoft’s OS are most often targeted by cybercriminals and their various strains of malware.

While desktop users on other platforms shouldn’t be complacent – even though that might be tempting with less commonly used and more locked-down OS alternatives – it’s true enough to say that those running Windows certainly need to consider security as a priority.

With that in mind, in this article we’re going to look at the most common types of malware which could possibly strike a Windows 10 or 11 system, discussing what they are, how they work and what they might do to any PC that’s unfortunate enough to be infected. Then to conclude, we’ll look at the tools you can use to detect and purge these various intruders, like malware removal software and antivirus and how to go about that process.

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1. Viruses/Malware

The term ‘virus’ is quite often employed in a general sense to denote anything malicious which has infected a computer, but really, the umbrella term for that is actually ‘malware’. A virus is a specific type of malware, and in fact it’s the oldest family of malicious software around.

A computer virus, much like a biological one, exists with the aim of spreading itself. It hides in a file (like the EXE for an app, or a Word document), and infects the system when that file is opened, triggering the payload (the nasty things done to your machine, which vary widely).

The key element here is that it then tries to spread itself to other files, and should those files off your machine reach another PC, it then infects that (when the file is run), spreads again, and so the cycle continues.

2. Worms

A worm is much like a virus, and spreads itself in the same way, but with a key and very dangerous difference.

Worms directly attack and infect the system they come into contact with. In other words, you don’t have to open a file to trigger the infection; it happens with no interaction from the user required. In this case, there’s no chance to even, say, get suspicious about a Word document’s title and origin, and decide to leave it well alone – the infection just happens.

Trojan malware

(Image credit: wk1003mike / Shutterstock)

3. Trojans

You’re surely familiar with the myth of the Trojan Horse, and the name of this kind of malware is a direct reference to the fact that it pretends to be a legitimate app or file. Most commonly, it’ll be a fake program that you might download thinking it’s the genuine article – maybe from an authentic-looking website – but when you run it, your machine will become infected (unlike a virus, though, it won’t attempt to spread itself).

There are various ways in which a Trojan can be destructive, for example, opening a backdoor on your system to allow the malware author access to do what they want, or it might sit on your PC and steal your passwords.

4. Adware

Adware is one of the less vicious subcategories of malware, in that it won’t engage in something really nasty like nuking your data. Rather, it just serves up adverts as the name suggests (note that it could, however, track you online and targets ads too).

So, it’s more annoying as opposed to actively destructive, but clearly, it’s still not something you want hanging around on your Windows PC. Particularly not when in some cases it can result in a veritable avalanche of pop-up ads assaulting your desktop – which really isn’t pleasant and could hamper the performance of your Windows laptop or PC.

Spyware gathers data to send to a malicious actor

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

5. Spyware

Again, this is a type of malware named after what it does – namely sit quietly in your system, spying on you, stealthily gathering data. The information harvested is transmitted to the malicious actor behind the spyware, and then bent to whatever dark purpose they have in mind.

It’s similar to adware, and it’s not outright destructive – the whole idea is that you never realize its presence, of course – and adware is generally considered a subcategory of spyware.

However, where spyware is different is that it poses more of a threat than adware, and a potentially major danger to your personal data and security. It could possibly be collecting info such as the passwords for your online accounts, for instance.

6. Ransomware

Ransomware is one of the nastiest kinds of malware, one which effectively takes over your machine.

If it infects a PC – like most malware, it may be hidden in a file perhaps emailed to you, or picked up via a dodgy web link – it systematically goes through your files and encrypts them (or at least some of the more critical ones). It then demands a ransom to be paid for the key to decrypt that data. Essentially, it locks away files so you can’t get to them, and threatens to throw away the key unless you pay up, usually in Bitcoin or an alternative cryptocurrency.

Of course, even if you do pay up, there’s no guarantee that the malicious party behind the scam will free your files from their encrypted chains. You are trusting an inherently untrustworthy third-party that this will actually happen.

Malwarebytes Scan Threat Results Screen

(Image credit: Malwarebytes)

How to remove malware from your Windows PC

Let’s say the unfortunate happens and you get infected by one of the above threats. You may be certain of an infection, or you might just suspect it. In the latter case, perhaps your computer is suddenly behaving oddly, running really slowly, or popping up random messages at you that don't make sense.

The first question to ask is: are you running an antivirus app? Remember, Windows has its own Microsoft Defender built-in, so you don’t have to install a third-party app if you don’t want to. Assuming you are running an antivirus, if you’re not sure – but suspect – that malware is present, run a manual scan (the option to do a ‘full scan’ should be easily accessible from the app’s main menu). This scan should pinpoint anything malicious, and then deal with the offending party automatically.

If you are certain you’ve been infected, and you’re running an antivirus already, this shows that these apps aren’t always totally bulletproof. It’s at this point you may want to ask yourself whether you’re running one of the best Windows antivirus apps, with a more accurate antivirus engine? If not, then switch over to one of these top-rated products to get better protection and run a scan.

Malwarebytes being used to remove malware from Android phone

(Image credit: Malwarebytes)

If your antivirus doesn’t find anything, then you can enlist another line of defense: anti-malware (or, if you don’t have an antivirus, and don’t want to install one at all, you can skip straight to this step). Our recommendation as the top pick in this case is Malwarebytes. Once installed, start the app and click on ‘Scan’ to initiate the scanning process. If the apps finds a threat, it’ll deal with the malware (the software may also flag up potentially suspicious programs that you may or may not wish to get rid of). We have a full tutorial giving step-by-step instructions on how to clean up your Windows PC with an anti-malware tool.

In short, the combination of an antivirus and/or anti-malware should hunt out and destroy any malware present.

As a final note, there may be especially problematic malware, and here we’re mainly thinking of ransomware, which is a particularly thorny type of infection. In some cases, you might be locked out of your PC, or need specialist help, although don’t forget there are ransomware decryption tools out there from major security vendors that could help  – you could check out Kaspersky and Avast’s resources for starters.

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