I am facing a problem which seems to have few, and especially simple solutions. To get to the point; I have written a client application on Windows using C++. This client application takes input from the user, and is supposed to send this information to a server, which find users who's inputs match each other - like matchmaking.
How can I (an indie developer) with most ease solve this problem, IF and only if I cannot host the server application myself, and do not want to spend money on renting a whole virtual private server?
Most preferred, I want to write this server using sockets in PHP and just rent a web-server with unlimited bandwidth, but it seems to have far too many restrictions, related to timeouts (PHP's set_time_limit, Apache's timeout value and the internal OS timeout value).
So to sum up the question, and in a generic form; How can I as an indie developer create a server application which do not require using my own bandwidth and without expensive purchases for items such as a virtual private server.
