Is Donhost down at the moment? I can't access their site (http://www.donhost.co.uk/), looking for a second opinion as my connection is quite bad, and it may just be acting up again.

The site is alive and well, from Au anyways.


Lats...

Thanks for your reply, yes, seems to be up here now too. :blush:

Donhost is a bad name cause it sounds like 'Downhost' and 'Dont Host' :D

Yea, it kind of does sound like that.. but I've heard some good things about them.

Not me... :)

Never heard DonHost as "GoodHost"

Always sounds "DownHost" and "Don't Host"

That's what I heard. :)

their site is fine here in the UK do a search on here before going with them tho

I've never had any problems with donhost. They did go down about 3 times within 1 week, but every host has it's problems sometimes - thats just part of the business.

No server is 100% crash proof, lets remember that.

I haven't had reason to complain, and I wonder if a lot of resellers here are slagging them off because they don't always get their own way with donhost (EG when donhost delete an account with illegal MP3's or something).

I've spoken to donhost about copyright issues, and they've told me that as long as you clearly state on your pages that the MP3's and/or software are under your copyright, then you will be ok.

(I'd also recommend leaving a text file on the server for donhost to read like copyright-info.txt ).

I've never pushed donhost to the extent that I regret it, and I suggest that people try to treat them with a little more respect.

It cannot be easy running that company - remember they offer their resellers unlimited space, which potentially means that we can fill one hard drive after another - That must cost them a hell of a lot and put a lot of financial pressure on them.

Why not try supporting them?

-Turboz

P.S: In no way am I connected with donhost. My supporting post is supporting because of the lack of trouble I've had with them. I am one of their resellers, and have no reason to complain.

Ive been using them for half a year and have had no serious issues with them. Ye they have had a few little problems. Most of it they fixed before I ever knew there was a problem in the first place.

The biggest complaint that comes up against Donhost (because nobody can poke fingers at their uptime) is the instant closure of accounts. We've seen resellers who have not even posted an AUP to their own clients, so that's hardly Donhost's fault. We've seen resellers offering illegal copies of software on their accounts, so that's hardly Donhost's fault. Also bear in mind, Donhost are *not* the only reseller provider who shut down accounts at their own discretion (read: to protect their own network). Others are starting to do it, and those that aren't soon will.

Donhost have been doing this longer and better than anyone else. I made the comment here in July last year that "Donhost is clearly leading the race in Reseller web hosting" and prior to that I once asked somewhere why the "Donhost" hosting model was so scarce in the US. Early last year, when we started up with Centralinfo there was just nothing like Donhost around.

I have spoken to Daniel at length about his philosophy on many things, and he is nothing short of inspirational. We've not had a word of complaint from any of our clients on Donhost in a very long time.

Cheers

Gary

I have had some dealings with Donhost and lets say I would never want to put paying clients on their server.

They might be fine to put some free accounts on, or for your own personal space - but when people are reliant on you to provide a good service, I don't feel Donhost are the best company to do that with.

As for the instant closures - most reputable hosts will at least suspend problem accounts and contact the reseller immediately to find out what the problem is. Donhost though seem to shoot first and not ask questions later.

Last experience I had with them you couldn't even run an .htaccess file, because it "effectively doubled the server load for every page loaded". Practically any use of cgi scripts seems to be frowned upon, if not deleted, again because of "server load".

Could this perhaps be because they stack their servers so full of "unlimited" customers? Oh yeah, there's that word again.. "Unlimited". I'd really like to see how they manage to get unlimited space on a hard drive. I could use one of them! :D

I heard their customer support people weren't available over christmas too?!?

Originally posted by HostIt
I have had some dealings with Donhost and lets say I would never want to put paying clients on their server.

Whereas we've got paying clients who insist we remain there. It's not all about Donhost mate.

They might be fine to put some free accounts on, or for your own personal space - but when people are reliant on you to provide a good service, I don't feel Donhost are the best company to do that with.

As for the instant closures - most reputable hosts will at least suspend problem accounts and contact the reseller immediately to find out what the problem is. Donhost though seem to shoot first and not ask questions later.

As I mentioned above, they're not the first, nor the only one doing this today.

Last experience I had with them you couldn't even run an .htaccess file, because it "effectively doubled the server load for every page loaded". Practically any use of cgi scripts seems to be frowned upon, if not deleted, again because of "server load".

That's not true either. We have just recently been *asked* to move a domain, which now that we can see what it is doing behind the scenes on one of our own servers, confirms my belief that they are more than reasonable for the price they charge.

They don't blanket ban a list of scripts. They play it domain by domain. Too abruptly? Possibly. Leaving value for money? Definitely.

Could this perhaps be because they stack their servers so full of "unlimited" customers? Oh yeah, there's that word again.. "Unlimited". I'd really like to see how they manage to get unlimited space on a hard drive. I could use one of them! :D

I heard their customer support people weren't available over christmas too?!?

They notified clients well in advance that the control panel and ftp would be unavailable on Christmas Day and New Years Day (I'm pretty sure they were the only two days...I'd have to check our old forum for the message we passed on). Did value for money disappear? Not at all.

Cheers

Gary

I did not intend this to turn into another "Let's all bash Donhost" topic (again). The topic at hand is that I was experiancing a few minutes of downtime and was getting worried. Maybe it was just me.

But while we're at it. I'm very happy with the service that Donhost offer and will stay with their value for money hosting until I advance on to dedicated hosting. 0.02

Originally posted by Editor


Whereas we've got paying clients who insist we remain there. It's not all about Donhost mate.



Well I did have paying clients there, who did everything they could to encourage me to get out... especially after their email was frequently unavailable, the control panel locked them out and .htaccess files were suddenly unusable, which made some of their sites unavailable.

Anyway I didn't intend this to be a Donhost bash either. I just figured I'd add my perspective, as some of the comments seemed to be rubbishing much of the negative talk. I was trying to explain that there is actually some substance to a lot of the claims and people aren't just making them up, as Editor seemed to be suggesting. This isn't just people "poking fingers", these are genuine complaints - I'm sure as genuine as what you're saying.

I'm glad all you guys are having a good experience with them, perhaps they've improved since I was there. Great to hear if that's the case, we all need to keep improving to stay in the game!

No, I'm not suggesting that people are making anything up. The complaints aren't about uptime (for the last 9 months), price, the control panel or network speeds...how can they be? I do however believe alot of people shouldn't be resellers. I've seen clients of Donhost resellers' clients posting complaints to Forums about never having seen an AUP. So if the end-user is not getting supported properly, of course problems are going to arise.

Cheers

Gary

I'm not sure how that applies to what I just said, as my customers have always been very well supported and the points I raised have nothing to do with an AUP.. i.e. "their email was frequently unavailable, the control panel locked them out and .htaccess files were suddenly unusable, which made some of their sites unavailable."

I got tired of having to constantly ask for the control panel to be unlocked (theres a complaint about the control panel for you) and as an aside, I'm amazed that they cut off FTP and control panel access over Xmas! I know I was providing support right through Christmas day, like most hosts.

Something else that bugged me big time was the one-liner I got as a support response from Daniel once "I have no explaination for that" when some of my sites were down. Where exactly did that leave me?

As for the .htaccess thing, I only discovered they'd disabled them after I noticed some sites were inaccessible. Donhosts response was "It had a .htaccess file in there messing it up. I have deleted it so it should work now." Lucky I had a copy of that file then, huh and no it doesn't work, because it relied on the .htaccess file.

I don't think I've seen many unfounded claims about them at all - like I said most of the complaints seem to me to have been as genuine as you are happy with them...

Originally posted by HostIt
I'm not sure how that applies to what I just said

:rolleyes: I was making a play on your words in the same way as you did mine.

I've never said anybody makes these complaints up. I'm simply offering a well established "alternative" opinion.

Did you look into why that control panel can lock someone out? I know we did, and discovered that 99% of the time it was due to not navigating the panel properly. E.g., deleting something (say a domain in our case, or a mailbox in the case of a client), and then hittnig the back button to go back to a list and trying to delete something else. Instant lockout. Why? Security. You've refreshed a list with a missing record and are trying to perform another process on top of that. No problem...we've only done it a few times ourself and I guess about a dozen clients have come unstuck with it. Problem solved. It could be a better documented "feature", but we're over that.

And this bit about Christmas/New Year Day...there's someone else around these parts that do that. I'll get back to you if I find it again. Yes, I know "the Internet never sleeps", but we were given ample warning, and all it meant was that instead of updating your website or adding mailboxes, you got to spend those days with your families. It really wasn't a big deal. They didn't turn the network off...

There are very few unfounded claims about any hosts, here or on other Forums. It would be pointless to make one these days, as it would get blown out the water every time. But for every unfavourable claim there will be a favourable one, and vice versa. Only a very short sighted person would refuse to accept both.

Cheers

Gary

Originally posted by Editor

But for every unfavourable claim there will be a favourable one, and vice versa. Only a very short sighted person would refuse to accept both.


My point exactly. As I said, I'm glad it's going well for you all. I hope they keep up the good service that you've experienced thus far.

We've used them for over a year, and barring the xmas cockup, due to understaffing i guess, have had ZERO problems....

trouble is Daniel has a model that works excellently - a lot of the knocking comes from fellows hosts/competitors and bandwagon jumpers....the rest is from those who have no idea of what an AUP is, and how to keep their customers to it! a la warez, mp3's etc - when an account is closed for this they go screaming to the newsgroups

grow up and get a life! :angry:

I use Donhost and MCHost and love them both for different reasons.... the new restriction to 20gb/month will only affect those who hammer the servers, and they should have a business plan that indicates its time to get a dedicated anyway!

*end of rant*

I HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH DONHOST - funny how if you praise Donhost, you have to put this disclaimer!

Can i just point out *again* that there have been genuine complaints as well.. I am still not trying to knock Donhost, but your post seems to imply that none of the complaints had any foundation (i.e. "a lot of the knocking comes from fellow hosts/competitors... and the rest is from those who have know [sic] idea...")

All I did in this thread was list the problems I personally had with them. Where do I fit in? Am I a bandwagon jumper, or do I not have any idea of what an AUP is?

Can you try and remember that you may have personally had no problem with them, but some people have and it's their right to say what happened to them as much as it's your right to say how good a run you've had with them. It's not all just coming from people who need to "grow up and get a life".

I HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH DONHOST - funny how if you praise Donhost, you have to put this disclaimer!
ditto.

I too recieved their newletter today, and although they are now limiting us to 20GB, on the plus plus side, they are improoving the network overall and their new abuse rating system will benefit me greatly as I have always been very responsive to accounts being shut down :D and as stated, this is probably one of the only flaws with the reseller plan!

Originally posted by HostIt
Can i just point out *again* that there have been genuine complaints as well.. I am still not trying to knock Donhost, but your post seems to imply that none of the complaints had any foundation (i.e. "a lot of the knocking comes from fellow hosts/competitors... and the rest is from those who have know [sic] idea...")

All I did in this thread was list the problems I personally had with them. Where do I fit in? Am I a bandwagon jumper, or do I not have any idea of what an AUP is?

Can you try and remember that you may have personally had no problem with them, but some people have and it's their right to say what happened to them as much as it's your right to say how good a run you've had with them. It's not all just coming from people who need to "grow up and get a life".

I think I have some genuine complaints. Some of my accounts were closed without me knowing it (I am not saying WITHOUT REASON), and it's difficult to keep your customers that way. Sometimes, *bad* content was there, but I could not address the issue myself, the account was already out - not even suspended, just CLOSED -, and some of my users where not even AWARE it was unauthorized content. So I could not even adrress the issue, although I am really sensitive to that. Since one month and I half, I didn't had a problem, but I would not say it's a fair way of dealing with resellers.

Originally posted by Vex
Yea, it kind of does sound like that.. but I've heard some good things about them.

:eek: :eek: ?? Really? Is that so? Hmm... Do a search and you'll have to admit that the majority of WHT thinks they suck... BIGTIME. :D

and some of my users where not even AWARE it was unauthorized content
Two sides to this...

Side A:

Then this is not donhost's problem - it is yours. The only way your users could not know what scripts are banned is if Donhost makes up random lists of illegal scripts, changes them on a weekly basis, and never inform you of what they are. The onus is on YOU, not donhost, to inform your customers of what scripts (or programs or content or whatever) are unauthorized. Further, the onus is on YOU to monitor the content of your customers' sites.

Donhost is not a babysitting service.

Side B:

On the other hand, if they have not informed you what the banned scripts are, then they are in the wrong. I've never been a donhost customer so I don't know exactly how they operate, but if that is the case, then as a customer you are fully within your rights to ask for a list of banned scripts. They are (morally, not legally so much) obligated to tell you.

Originally posted by stormtrooper


Donhost is not a babysitting service.



Thanks and I am not a baby either. My AUP (similar to their's of course) IS clearly published, not only on the site, but also on the activation mail and we reinforce that constantly in our support forum. So I KNOW it is my problem and I am doing my best in terms of information.

What I meant earlier is that as reseller, you don't have the proper tools to address the issue yourself. And just deleting an account does not help. I would gladly have gone to the account and deleted the "wrong" files myself, but at least I would have known who has done it and why.