I was just wondering how widely used FrontPage extensions are, and whether it's something that should be heavily advertised to prospective customers..

Too many use it :stickout: I hate frontpage.

Why advertise it more than any other feature you provide. Just mention it in the features list. I think most customers use FTP by far... or at least mine do.

Around 2% of support tickets are concerning frontpage

I do not know how many actually use it. By default all of our accounts have the extensions installed

I would say 10% of my customers use FrontPage.

If you want to be a FP friendly host, I think there is definitely a market there. Most of the people using FP are beginners and if you can present yourself as a host friendly to beginners they're probably more likely to go with you as opposed to someone that just lists FP among the hundred other features (most of which an FP user won't know how to use).

Of course... if you go that route, expect to pay $$$ in support. FP extensions are a bitch, it has too many problems.

I think all webhosts supporting FP should post a warning to users on it. I know it messes with the .htaccess files but I enabled it on my account once with a php forum already running and well...it was ruined, nothing was accessible. What are all the extra folders it adds for? It looks like folders with just a buunhca of copies of other files in it. I only use it so I could upload directly through frontpage without doing it with ftp.

0%, I don't support it :)

About 5% of my customers use it. and yes, I advertise it as one of the features that are supported.

You could heavily advertise it to new-comers. I mean, there's a market anything.

About 20% of our customers use FrontPage to publish their web sites. Of course, we advertise it though.

We list it as a feature, but refer issues regarding it to the Microsoft FP site. I've used it, but didn't like it and no one else likes it either that I work with. I'd say less than 5%, but I don't have any hard data. It is only enabled on accounts if they specify it during signup or request it later on. It's not something I keep records of though.

The feature is listed in the hosting plan but not activated by default, since way many customers are complaing running out of disk space.

Only one customer who emails me saying he needs FP to do his work, and yeah, i believe that's the onle actually is using it. Maybe there are some resellers' clients using it, but very seldom seeing *.exe coming up from ps or top.

28% have requested it, less than half that number *actually* need the extensions beyond the "publish" feature

Based on what I've heard Frontpage extensions will be gone starting in FP 2003. Sharepoint instead is being introduced. Either way, extensions seems like something MS is trying to distant itself from.

Originally posted by GeorgeC
Based on what I've heard Frontpage extensions will be gone starting in FP 2003. Sharepoint instead is being introduced. Either way, extensions seems like something MS is trying to distant itself from.

Smartest thing MS can do :D And best thing for us :D

yep, Frontpage extension are a waste of space on your features list.

Probably around 40% of ours use it for uploading from within FP and they love it. We get praise on how easy to use it is all the time. We've got a fairly high percentage of beginners, which is reflected in the high usage. l33t h@x0r types would not be caught dead with it enabled in their account ;)

2% use FP extensions. We don't actively seek FP users.

Even though I am just starting out, about %50 of my users are using it.. Hopefully tht number will drop soon :) But I do advertise it :)

Ugh Frontpage . . .

We're a Windows host and I don't offer FP support at all - way too much hassle, scary security problems and only ordered by idiots that need 10x the support of anyone else.

With .NET in place there's absolutely no need for FP extensions and MS should do the decent thing and kill them off in 2003, replacing them with some properly written .NET code.

/me spits at FP . . . kaphlooeeee !

There are advantages and disadvantages to those using FrontPage extensions. It's one of these easiest drag and drop utilities available to the web community and makes it very easy for the novice, but when that same novice FTP's into their site and sees all of those hidden files and folders, they can screw up their entire website by messing with them. FrontPage webs also tend to use a significant amount of additional space possibly 10-30% additional. Although it doesn't store the entire site in the FrontPage-specific folders, it does tend to retain a fragment of each file. Basically, for the novice FrontPage is a good tool as long as they stick to FrontPage and not FTP or visa versa. An yes, it does tend to cause problems with .htaccess if a particular script requires it since FrontPage also utilizes these files. As time goes by, I depend less on FrontPage extension as they tend to conflict with some of the many scripts I test on my sites.

As for percentage, I'm not sure what the average is, but I'd assume that would depend on the target market. Some hosts target that community whereas others would prefer not to host them because of the issues.

About 10% of Unix customers do. 100% of my Windows customers either use Frontpage or Sharepoint.

I hate them both.

Aaron

We currently offer them and install by default.

However I get a few asking for me to remove all the extra junk files/folders.

I believe less than 5% use front-page.
I have been thinking of removing support for it completely, or at lest only install it when asked.

We have about 5% of our customers using it.

About 10% of our clients use it. FP support has created more support tickets and headaches than any other issue.

I'd guess about 75% of our clients use it. We advertise it like any other feature that's included with web hosting. We're an official FrontPage WPP so a few clients come directly from Microsoft's site though.
Of course... if you go that route, expect to pay $$$ in support. FP extensions are a bitch, it has too many problems.I don't know why everyone says that. If they're setup properly to begin with there are absolutely no issues with them, security-wise or anything else. I've been running them for at least 5 years and have had to call Microsoft 3 times. Ya just gotta RTFM to set the extensions up right. :)

Originally posted by NxTek
I don't know why everyone says that. If they're setup properly to begin with there are absolutely no issues with them, security-wise or anything else. I've been running them for at least 5 years and have had to call Microsoft 3 times. Ya just gotta RTFM to set the extensions up right. :)

Agreed. Been using them for over 5 years with no problems and have had to call microsoft 0 (zero) times.

Yep, the only reason I had to call was because I gave someone FTP access and they deleted some vti directories ;)