Does anybody know of a worse web host in the world than Crosswinds?

They used to be an ad-free webhost, with the rock-solid promise placed in bold lettering on their site that "we will never place adverts on any of our sites". Tricked us like many thousands of other people into hosting our site with them.

Two years ago they went back on that promise and said they were going to place ads on Crosswinds sites temporarily. Of course, the enormous ads (far longer than Tripod/Geocities) and pop-ups/unders are still on their sites.

We paid to have the ads removed. But...

Crosswinds have lost our entire site THREE times (along with the sites of thousands of other people). Their service has become so ridiculous that they took down their member forum because of the complaints.

I went to my site again today and it had disappeared, replaced with a page full of ads for Crosswinds. Their member section says "a drive on the web server overheated and died. Looks like a fan blew. But, in doing so, it did some major damage do the system and the drives around it. As a result sites were lost."

I am careful to back up my site every couple of weeks, with Crosswinds appalling track record (the first couple of times I didn't have recent back-ups and their server crashes cost me days of work). However, restoring my site will still waste another couple of days of my time, as the updates in the last couple of days were not saved.

How can Crosswinds get away with this? Entire site lost three times in two years. We paid to be hosted with them...

We paid to be hosted with them...

This would be a case where the quote "You get what you paid for" applies. Your situation really sucked, but I guess you learned the hard way that a host providing unlimited bandwidth or diskspace simply won't be able to handle every client the way they should be handled.....

You can imagine how distressed I am, sitting here at 6AM working frantically to restore my site which has been lost numerous times by Crosswinds and it doesn't really help if you criticise me for saying "you get what you paid for".

I trusted Crosswinds; I believed their promises. I believed their words when they reassured me there would be no more site crashes and continued to pay our hosting fees. Is that my fault?

I have a non-commercial site packed full of useful content and can't afford to pay even $10 a month for hosting it, when I'm losing money on it as it is.

Instead of criticising Crosswinds for lies, deception and total useless service, I knew people would reply by somehow trying to shift the 'blame' on to me.

That's the American way isn't it? Nobody gets the flack for lieing in the good old USA (see ref. to Crosswinds promise never to place ads). In the absence of moral standards in this society, the most ruthless and least moral tend to rise to the top.

Nobody gives a damn about me.

That X$%Y£Z! who owns Crosswinds will still be taking home his $100,000 per annum salary, despite the unscrupulous way his company operates and the way it makes peoples' lives a misery.

"In God we trust"? More like in money.

I'm moving to Afghanistan. Damn, I forgot the Yankees have taken over than last bastion of resistance to the 'American Way' as well now...

(P. S. Sorry, I can't afford a therapist to help me out at times like this, so I have to use this messageboard)

See Ya!

umm ok....

I wasn't trying to pin the blame on you....the other side of the quote "You get what you pay for" is that the company is **** and isn't even worth what you paid for (or at least I think so)

Nor was i trying to criticize you. I posted exactly what i thought: you learned the heard way that an "unlimited" host may not be what it appears to be. It's not your fault that you purchased a plan from them, it's their fault for attempting to provide it. I was in your boat at one time too (which is why I got in the business).

Kinda like a con artist or those MLM scams. With the MLM scams, you pay "a low entry fee" only to expect big returns, so long as you follow the "salesperson's" format to the t. You wind up forgetting to dot the 1 "i" and you don't get the returns you expected.


side note: seems as if all my recent posts are coming off too strong...I apologize (again) if they are....:rolleyes:

I try to find a middle ground on most things but there is a certain amount of blame to be placed in your hands. 2 years ago they break a promise to you regarding ads (though that's understandable with the ad market going belly up and floating to the top of the tank). To have your site lost 3 times, along with an alleged thousands of others should have told you something.

Back in 1995-7 when I used to look for free hosting (WBS, Geocities, Xoom etc), Crosswinds was one to be avoided, even back then. They've had close to a decade to pull their act together, but never have.

They've always been known to run their business like a hobby, at best. I think you'd be very suprised after moving to a more reputable host. I don't know what you're paying over there, but there's some bargain hosts on this forum that seem to be weathering their pricing structure quite well so far.

Now having said that, I am sorry for your site going down. While never having that experience myself I can imagine what condition I'd be if any of my domains went down and got toasted - it's a trully sickening thought, especially as my income is built from them.

Greg Moore

It was after Crosswinds ate all my files that I decided to get a domain.

Man, I need to get myself one of those "unlimited hard drives" so that I too, can offer unlimited space. ;)

I once hosted a fansite on Crosswinds too, but they were so slow, and the entire user interface was so tacky that I gave up after uploading the site once.

Don't even know what has happened to it since, but I bet it got deleted accidentally by them :D

For free hosts, I can't really name any good or reliable ones, save for old Geocities. But they've been stepping up on shutting down site that hot-link and the likes. Can get frustrating for eBayers who use their accounts to store images...

Free hosts that are good are pretty rare - you might want to try fortunecity. Not the fastest or the best, but good enough if you are not doing any mission-critical stuff.

My 2 cents worth ;)

I can totally sympathize with your situation with crosswinds. I used to host a fan site with them as well, and since I was with them near the beginning, service was pretty good. The site rarely went down, speed was commendable and the fact that they didn't place any ads was a very nice bonus. I didn't think that they'd be able to keep that promise for long, but I never counted on them adding such obtrusively large pop-ups on my site. It was just ridiculous!

I can understand why you wouldn't want to pay big money to host your site, considering it's not for profit, and you have my sympathies. Luckily for me, I moved my site just before they "lost" my site. There were some files that were still missing, but I salvaged most of them. From what I hear, service only got worse afterwards, even for the paid customers.

I hope you have better luck searching for hosts on this forum. People here are usually helpful with their advice and they can help you steer clear of the horrible hosts, free or paid. I personally have gotten lots of good advice, and as soon as I turn 18 and can get my own credit card, I plan on going with paid host for my site. :D

Once again, Good luck with your site! :)

Originally posted by avium

For free hosts, I can't really name any good or reliable ones, save for old Geocities. But they've been stepping up on shutting down site that hot-link and the likes. Can get frustrating for eBayers who use their accounts to store images...



lol,but then there's the good old avoiding trick on Geocities,which means renaming your *.jpg to *.txt after uploading and you still can view your image outside of them using this technique.

I'm telling this because some members on my board use it for their images.

(Comments are interspersed.)

Originally posted by 1Lit.com
You can imagine how distressed I am, sitting here at 6AM working frantically to restore my site which has been lost numerous times by Crosswinds and it doesn't really help if you criticise me for saying "you get what you paid for".) It might have helped if you were capable of understanding the concept.



I trusted Crosswinds; I believed their promises. I believed their words when they reassured me there would be no more site crashes and continued to pay our hosting fees. Is that my fault? No, but it certainly isn't the fault of anyone else on this list (i.e., the innocents at whom you're bitching and moaning)



I have a non-commercial site packed full of useful content Hmmmm...let us be the judge of that. Is it 1Lit.com? :sickface:



...and can't afford to pay even $10 a month for hosting it, when I'm losing money on it as it is.Seems to me you're losing British Pounds. That's not REAL money, is it? :stickout



Instead of criticising Crosswinds for lies, deception and total useless service, I knew people would reply by somehow trying to shift the 'blame' on to me.That's a pretty impressive persecution complex you've got going there. Maybe you should start a new website on that theme. You'd probably get more hits than you knew what to do with. :crap:



That's the American way isn't it? Nobody gets the flack for lieing in the good old USA (see ref. to Crosswinds promise never to place ads). In the absence of moral standards in this society, the most ruthless and least moral tend to rise to the top. Wow! Which popular televsion show from the 70's did you watch to develop this trite outlook? Oh boo-hoo-hoo, please save me from from the big bad Americans! :bawling:



Nobody gives a damn about me.Ahhh, on this point we agree. Can this thread end now?



I'm moving to Afghanistan. Damn, I forgot the Yankees have taken over than last bastion of resistance to the 'American Way' as well now...For the record, it was this idiotic piece of drivel that made me bother to respond in the first place. I should also state for the record that you'd be making these mewling posts in German if it wasn't for the Yanks and their big, bad, Darwinistic 'American Way'. :smash:



(P. S. Sorry, I can't afford a therapist to help me out at times like this, so I have to use this messageboard) Cheers, mate. Before you run off to the pub to cry into your warm beer, however, you might want to do a little more work on your website. Were you aware that your home page doesn't display correctly in Netscape 4.x Browsers? Brilliant, that. :scatter:

But then again, even if you can't fix it, you can always blame it on the Americans. After all, when that Yank outfit Netscape, Inc. gave away those browsers for free, they PROMISED everyone they would work, didn't they?

xoxo,

George W. Bush :pimp:

Thank you 'YokoOno' for your comments. Yes, 1Lit.com (http://www.1Lit.com) is my site, but I've been working on other, more profitable projects and have had to neglect 1Lit.com for a while. I accept it looks amateurish and your criticisms are valid.

The site in question is not 1Lit.com. I'd show you the site I was talking about, but errr... Crosswinds lost it.

I pay huge amounts for webhosting and the domain names I possess. I go with quality webhosts for my commercial sites and don't mind paying substantial amounts of money for the hosting of them.

However, I didn't want to really spend more than $5 a month for the site I had at Crosswinds, considering it wasn't making any money and I didn't need any advanced features. That's why I stuck with Crosswinds. I think they should be able to provide a reasonable basic hosting service for $5 a month.

FYI 'YokoOno' the sites that I DO maintain include the likes of UKHotMovies.com (http://www.UKHotMovies.com) which I've constructed entirely myself. No doubt you'll criticise that too, even though I didn't waste any money on fancy software and used only notepad. The site draws tens of thousands of unique visitors a month and is profitable, which is more than can be said for most entertainment sites out there.

I'm also a search engine expert and the mini-sites I have constructed to promote various affiliate programs often have six or seven listings out of the top ten search results at Google. Rival webmasters here in the UK get very annoyed at my dominance of the search engines.

If I showed you how much profit I have generated via affiliate programs in the last three years, you'd weep 'YokoOno'. Suffice to say, my earnings have been able to pay for a luxury apartment in the heart of London, the fourth most expensive city on the planet according to a recent survey.

All people hear about are the dot com failures these days. But there are thousands of other 'quiet earners' like me. We don't advertise our successes (this is the first time I have ever mentioned my income after four years working on the net), and we might not have fancy offices or be able to hold champagne receptions, but the $$$s are rolling in for some affiliates. Takes a lot of hard work though.

I apologise to the others for the outburst, if that's what it appeared to be. Try to understand what it's like for me to lose an entire site for the third time in a relatively short period of time :)

Best of luck to you all, and if you need to borrow a few dollars 'YokoOno' don't hesitate to ask.

Originally posted by 1Lit.com
...I've been working on other, more profitable projects...

...I pay huge amounts for webhosting and the domain names I possess...

...I...don't mind paying substantial amounts of money for the hosting of them...

...the sites that I DO maintain include the likes of UKHotMovies.com (http://www.UKHotMovies.com) which...draws tens of thousands of unique visitors a month and is profitable...

...I'm also a search engine expert...

...Rival webmasters here in the UK get very annoyed at my dominance of the search engines...

...If I showed you how much profit I have generated via affiliate programs in the last three years, you'd weep...

...Suffice to say, my earnings have been able to pay for a luxury apartment in the heart of London...

...(this is the first time I have ever mentioned my income after four years working on the net)...

...the $$$s are rolling in for some affiliates...

...if you need to borrow a few dollars...don't hesitate to ask...Gee, what point would you be trying to make?

Thank you for the generous offer but, no, I don't need a loan. However, with all of your extra money, you might want to hire an actual employee so you don't have to get up at 6am to recover the handcrafted files from another of your extremely profitable websites. You must understand that it's painful for all of us to think that a profit-spewing tycoon/expert such as yourself is "distressed".

The only reason I responded to your original, whining post, Nadeem, was due to the gratuitous swipe you took at America and Americans. Was your nationalistic "outburst" really called for? Did you go off screaming like a stuck pig simply because someone pointed out that "you get what you pay for"?

Following your last post, I was pleased to note that virtually 100% of the movies featured on your UKHotMovies.com (http://www.UKHotMovies.com) website were made in America. It would seem as though you've made at least one exception to your "resistance to the 'American Way'".

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go home to my classic American double-wide trailer, eat some fatty red meat, watch some imperialistic, gun-glorifying American movies, and dream of the day that I can be rolling in euros like you.

YokoOno

P.S. Does your "luxury apartment" have hot water? :uhh:

Well see, you know a company that offers hosting with NO ADS is eventually going to fall because almost every single one does.

You get what you pay for so if you don't pay you don't get anything. :D

Can't really complain about a host that you probally paid only a few dollars a month to be with.

And honestly if I were you and they went back on their word ONCE, I wouldn't trust them again.

Thanks

After years of extensive experience in this particular area of the Internet, I would have to concur with 1lit's attestation to the poor performance of Crosswinds. I had very little to report other than glitches, and switched my operation to another hosting service at the first possible opportunity.

From what I have seen of the postings here, I think what has been lost on most people is that 1lit was trying to make a very sophisticated point: poor web hosting is not just bad for both parties involved, but it is bad for the Internet as a whole. Of course, the host should suffer through lack of business, but the client also suffers through not being able to concentrate his or her energies on providing an optimal service to the consumer.

I found it deeply ironic that certain postings here which refer to the superiority of America do not appear cognizant that this is the principle on which all market paradigms - including American capitalism - is dependent.

Then again, such hubris has created a climate of opinion where in one recent post-9/11 poll, 'two-thirds of the respondents outside the US agreed to the proposition that it was "good that Americans now know what it's like to be vulnerable".'

And of course, claims of the USA's pre-eminence appear specious when one considers that the country is on the verge of collective suicide:

http://www.manufacturingcenter.com/tooling/archives/0400/0400fu.asp

Le victoire est toujours à nous...

Tsk tsk.

Has no one any charity in their souls anymore?

We should all remember that, like children, there are no bad web hosts... at least, none of them start out that way.

Of course, some of them do grow up to be crooks, scoundrels, thieves, and incompetents...

Then again, such hubris has created a climate of opinion where in one recent post-9/11 poll, 'two-thirds of the respondents outside the US agreed to the proposition that it was "good that Americans now know what it's like to be vulnerable".'


I'm glad you think it was good. You'll see us beefing up our military and meddling more in world affairs. That's what you wanted, right?

Originally posted by 1Lit.com
How can Crosswinds get away with this?

Easy - you keep paying them. If they're that bad, leave. If enough people leave, they won't be getting away with it anymore, right?

-B

Land-rich but cash-poor, eh?

Originally posted by 1Lit.com
However, I didn't want to really spend more than $5 a month for the site I had at Crosswinds, considering it wasn't making any money and I didn't need any advanced features. That's why I stuck with Crosswinds. I think they should be able to provide a reasonable basic hosting service for $5 a month.

...

If I showed you how much profit I have generated via affiliate programs in the last three years, you'd weep 'YokoOno'. Suffice to say, my earnings have been able to pay for a luxury apartment in the heart of London, the fourth most expensive city on the planet according to a recent survey.

You can afford a luxury apartment in London yet you "can't" fork out $5 a month for a website? I'm mildly surprised nobody's ripped into you on that point yet.

I also agree with the opinion expressed earlier somewhere that once you had experienced problems with Crosswinds why did you stay?? I'm not saying "you brought this on yourself" but I do think you had ample warning signs and it might have been a good idea to get out earlier in the piece, before you lost everything.

As for free hosts, here's a bunch you can try:
http://www.boomspeed.com + http://www.domainvalet.com + http://www.esmartstart.com + http://free.prohosting.com + http://www.portland.co.uk/freewebhosting.esp + http://www.ranchoweb.com

Good luck. :erm:

Originally posted by 1Lit.com
Does anybody know of a worse web host in the world than Crosswinds?

Almost. I won't say who.

While I have never had a site on Crosswinds, I have seen sites hosted on them. Files not found, those dreaded 404 errors seem to be one of the only things that Crosswinds supplies their customers.

We have had sites on Linux Web Hosting and more recently Aletia. I guess the only thing I can say is that I want to get my money's worth. The service advertised is rarely what you recieve.

I have been on Geocities, Tripod, Free Yellow as well. The free hosts are great as you begin. Then once you get your own domain you look and hunt for the best value you can afford. Of course your money is always different in value than the next guy. ;)

Since beginning on the 'net 10 years ago, I have learned that you really do get what you pay for. Don't hold your aspirations too high and you won't be disappointed when a host fails. Then again, what you should get and what you do recieve are always 2 different things.

Cynical? Probably, but I was with Aletia for almost a year. Doesn't that explain it?

Sara

Hey Sara, nice to see you over this end of the internet :)

Greg Moore

Wow ... Crosswinds

I remember hosting with this site back in 1998. When I saw unlimited space and bandwidth, that was the go-getter for me.

I probably uploaded like a gig to their server. What really turned me off was how slow the damned stuff would load and how they "had" FTP, but I could never login to it!

Like another person said in this post, this problem lead me to getting my own domain name around early 2000.

Now I'm a webhost ... go figure!

jt

1lit: *Getting back to the POINT of the forums and not spitting in each other's faces for having a difference of opinion* YES, there are some hosts that are worse than yours. In MY opinion, Certihost is one of them. They are rude, sarcastic, caustic, curt, and that's only if/when they do decide your pathetic cry for support is deemed worthy of a reply.

Please don't let the nastiness of some people in these forums ruin you on seeking out information here - the forums are a good source of info on a lot of different subjects; there is a vast knowledge base here! And, if you can just ignore the jerks and idiots (judging by some their feedback and remarks, I think they are hosts or employees of a few of those *hateful* hosts!), you will most likely find an answer to whatever your dilemma is.

Personally, I find it very useful to see what others have to say about hosts - good of course, but the bad as well - that will let you make up your own mind. I've been through several hosts just since January of this year. Of the many I've tried, some are good, most have been bad.

If you are willing to spend $3.95 or $9.95 a month, "spiderwebgroup -dot- com" has been a good host (yes, folks, MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and one of my current hosts). They are reasonable, intelligent, and have lived up to all they say they offer and more. Again, via personal experience and another current host, is "valuablehost -dot- com"; they've been quick to answer support questions, helpful and knowledgeable, as well as being a reasonably-priced host.

We, being human, are all subject to imperfection and make mistakes. However, it really peeves me that a lot of hosts can and do get away with scamming people – that’s not a mistake; most do it on purpose and/or just don’t care. And why do we keep trying to ‘hang in there’, someone asked? I guess because sometimes we believe them when they say “sorry, we messed up – won’t happen again”. Then it happens again, then they give another excuse – then another (and some of these guys are real adept at coming up with ‘believable’ problems), so we stay. Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t know how Hosts and Servers are managed/built/maintained (or we wouldn’t need them, huh?), so we don’t necessarily know these things are not true.

But, somewhere a warning bell should go off when their problems continue to happen, as it usually indicates a number of things related more to the greediness, ineptness, or just plain laziness some of these guys have rather than hardware/software functionality. And, as is the norm, by the time they show their ‘true colors’ we, the customers, have a lot of time, money, and effort invested and tied up in them. That’s probably why you’re up at 6a.m. trying frantically to get your site back on it’s feet for the umpteenth time, yes? And, that’s probably why you ended up in here. I, too, got all but ‘body-slammed’ in a forum (not this one, though! …But, the night is young…!). My dreadful “posting” sin was also to have had it >up to here< with a couple bad webhosts and extol their terrible acts done to me by venting to any sympathetic-minded person(s) in the forum who would listen. Although some of the nasties reared their ugly heads (they gotta be ugly – if not physically, then spiritually, mentally, emotionally, etc.), a few others replied too, and I was also sympathized with (which is what I really needed at the time) and given some good hosting references.

Bottom line, just ask or say what you need, weed out the garbage as best you can, and go back and give it a shot. If it doesn’t work, try something different…. and keep trying until you succeed – or go nuts trying!

Best of luck to you, and all others like you. Endeavor to persevere!

She-Bear, thank you for your kind words of advice. I appreciate you taking the time to post a useful and level-headed message.

Knotty, the reason I CAN afford a luxury apartment in central London is because I have to be tight with my expenditure on other things. I don't own Nike trainers or designer clothing. When I go away, I stay in two star hotels. I rarely spend more than $3 (sic.) on a meal. But the money I've saved over the years has enabled me to own an apartment worth $200,000. I earned every cent of it through hard work: I've never received a cent from my parents, ever.

Plus, Knotty, I don't think I should have to pay more than $5 a month for the hosting of a ten page site for which I require no CGI-BIN, custom 404 pages, or any other advanced feature. $5 a month is more than enough for basic hosting with minimal bandwith.

P.S. I agree with the comment above that a lot of people have jumped on my back for daring to criticize Crosswinds because they themselves run second-rate webhosting services and want to defend their fellow Osamas in the industry.

ive used 40+ free hosts in my time before i went paid, and i can safely say that there are worse than crosswinds...
only decent free host i ever used was homepage.com which was great, then went down to just good when bought by altavista, then died :(
but yeah, i would rate geo****ties, angelfire and the vast majority of french/russian free hosts as worse than crosswinds...at least CW was semi decent for a short period of time

Wow,
This post has gone WAY OFF TOPIC. i am glad that it is finally getting back on track.

Basically, your saying you can't afford more than $5.00 a month to host the site, yet you loose money when it goes down. Hmm,, if I had a site loosing any money when down, I would defanately look for a better alternative.

Think of your time in repairing it above the money it is loosing.. now what is hosting it worth?

Cheap hosts usually (not always) start out great. However, to pay for their servers, and make a profit, they will over load the servers (causing down time) and have poor support. They may not even be able to supply you with a back up of your site.

These are all things you have to think about when wondering how cheap you can host your site.
Your time at 4, 5, and 6 am, are best spent sleeping, and not repairing your missing site. Any tech at those hours is getting 45 to 90 bucks an hour, some are actually more... You need to place a more logical value on your waisted time when it goes down when you factor your cost of hosting.

If it is truly not making enough to pay 10 to 15 bucks a month, then perhaps trash it all together, and come up with a new site that makes some money! :-)

I guess all I am saying, is that if you are paying dirt cheap prices for hosting, you can't really expect too much from the host, because the facts will prove that sooner or later they will fail in every thinkable way.

Best of luck with your ventures,

Tim L :cool:

After all, when that Yank outfit Netscape, Inc. gave away those browsers for free, they PROMISED everyone they would work, didn't they?

21st Century for god's sake. People should upgrade more often.

- most browser are for free but they work -



P.S. Sorry for jumping in...

Originally posted by akashik
Hey Sara, nice to see you over this end of the internet :)

Greg Moore

Waving at you Greg! :)

Originally posted by superiorhost
I guess all I am saying, is that if you are paying dirt cheap prices for hosting, you can't really expect too much from the host, because the facts will prove that sooner or later they will fail in every thinkable way.

I couldn't agree more!

Sara

Originally posted by TMX


Easy - you keep paying them. If they're that bad, leave. If enough people leave, they won't be getting away with it anymore, right?

-B

Therein lies a problem.

If they're anything like DonHost, they'll close your account immediately even though there's a month prepaid on it (theft, effectively) and refuse to transfer your domains.

It's a shame. Their service wasn't too bad but their petty attitude when I left will lose them businees.

I get irritated by the FREE FOR LIFE when the 'owner-operator' is just playing a game.


Can some places afford to keep their promises?

See any mention of FREE on HOTMAIL site anymore? Even the 2mb you get is all spam...soon it will be visit every 3 hours or box emptied....

EMAIL was the biggest FREE FOR LIFE..PERMANENT...


I like that FREESERVERS...their affiliate program 'community architect'.... IT BOLDLY STATED TO ANYBODY SIGNING UP...FREE FOR LIFE...YOU WILL NEVER BE CHARGED..YOU GET 20MB,FTP.....(hey..why don't they change their name?)


Crosswinds at least by rumor was struggling for a long time. I can understand them dumping the ridiculous free unlimited.From day #1 who pays for it? --- but these ads on all free places used to be minor... now they just make people beg-borrow-steal to pay for their site. ooo---I had site on crosswinds disappear I think 5 times....


A good point in prior post. THE FREE INTERNET. KEEP THE INTERNET FREE. INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY. CONNECT UP EVERY SCHOOL ON EARTH. (2002 what for?)


Now you look for information with a search engine and results are just places selling you something.

FREE a failed concept but pay-pay #1 eliminates most the worlds population---unless they are blessed with usa dollars...euro dollars?

If your non-commercial where do you make the decision to pay for putting educational information on the web? I think most like some personal webspace but beyond that if its personal-hobby?

The internet will soon be like a usa phone book 'yellow pages'....dial-up just to search for a business........

wow..that was short...



:bawling: