Preprint services now play a key role in disseminating research across a wide range of domains. In this paper we examine where a set of 64 preprint services, collated by ASAPbio, are being physically hosted and the type of Internet Service Provider (ISP) they are using. In addition to this access to these services from 106 territories was simulated using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). We find that the majority of services (47/64) are physically based in the USA, despite instances where the Top Level Domain (TLD) indicates a different country. In addition to this 56/64 of the services are being hosted by commercial ISPs with 43/64 being hosted by Cloudflare, Google LLC or Amazon. Poorer countries are more likely to encounter an error when attempting a URL corresponding to the landing page of one of the preprint services collated by ASAPbio than more wealthy countries. Sites that are physically located in Low or Middle Income Countries have similar accessibilities and may be better. We draw some overall conclusions about the potential frailty of these services with respect to the technical decisions made here.
Quick et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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