Share the knowledge....

:angry:
The webhost formerly known as cyberwings.

The best hosting service i have found/seen is www.createspace.net I encourage everyone to check them out.

I've not had first-hand experience with the best or the worst.

I come to WHT because I'm still looking for the best and I wish to avoid the worst.

Originally posted by Toolz
I've not had first-hand experience with the best or the worst.

I come to WHT because I'm still looking for the best and I wish to avoid the worst.

same here, amen to that

:angry:
Successfulhosting back in my newbie days.

The worst host I've ever come across back in my young, dumb and full of...rum...days is Tentex, who have long since ridden off into the sunset on a three-legged donkey walking backwards.

The best host (and the only one I recommend for my clients) is Sectorlink (http://www.sectorlink.com). I do have the odd problem with the sites I have hosted there (odd problem being once every 4-6 weeks) but they always answer my questions and usually within an hour (in one case, they solved a problem on the server in 4 minutes. I haven't seen that before or since.)

Worst Host : g n x o n l i n e . c o m


Best Host : reddi-web.com

Best: http://www.focalhosting.com
Great support/HONEST and fair.
Worse:That would start a battle here.
Hint:They run a lot of banner ads at the top.

I recommend Tina Peters' AffordableHOSt at http://www.affordablehost.com.

I also recommend Manny Quintiero's Global Internet (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH GLISOL/GLOBAL INTERNET SOLUTIONS; they are two different companies!!). Global's site is at http://www.gloint.com.

Joni

If you are a ASP or Coldfusion person I think http://www.crystaltech.com is one of the best out there. Not the cheapest but good customer service and fast, stable servers.

Originally posted by LiNuX
:angry:
Successfulhosting back in my newbie days.

I'm still with them - does the flame imply "worst"?

Just listing those I've personally experienced:

Best hosts:

http://www.downtownhost.com/
http://www.enhancedhost.com

Worst host:

http://www.stargateinc.com/pages/hosting.htm

Jessica

This thread is doubtless useful because it will provide a good list of leads and "red flags" for all the newbies.

However I feel we need to add a disclaimer here: "it all depends on best for what and worst for whom. A host from one person's "worst" list could make it to somebody's "best" list depending on the requirements. Also best this month can often be worst next month. Caveat emptor. Nil desperandum. May contain traces of nuts. Store away from direct sunlight..."

(sorry I got carried away there) :)

Originally posted by GonnaBeGood
The best hosting service i have found/seen is www.createspace.net I encourage everyone to check them out.
Daniel,

Might want to spell check the site before offering it on public forums. Your future clients will thank you :)

-Matt

They all are good and bad.
:D

Originally posted by RackNine

Your future clients will thank you :)


LOL. Caught that! ;)

back in the days i was hosted on dynastyhost.com, it was very good.

worst: one2host.com
best: I don't know

While features are important the MOST important things to me are support and uptime.

Bad: LasVegasWebHosting - really nice fella but the server was down more than it was up. Hope he's gotten everything fixed.

Bad: VirtualEmpire - support took sometimes 48 hours to answer a simple question and when they did they would leave it so that you'd have to give them more information and therefore wait another while to get anything done or resolved.

Good: HostAreUs - good uptime, excellent support - I've asked questions at 3:00 AM and gotten quick answers - within an hour or so. Only downside I've seen is that there are a few spelling mistakes on the site but that doesn't affect my site or their service. Also they've just increased features like bandwidth on most if not all their packages.

I'm not associated with HostAreUs except in the sense that I'm happy with what I've seen so far.

Having said all that I agree that best and worst are relative. What you think is the world's best host could turn into a nightmare overnight and the world's worst host could turn themselves around and get things straight.

My two cents.
Mark

Originally posted by RackNine

Daniel,

Might want to spell check the site before offering it on public forums. Your future clients will thank you :)

-Matt

Spill chukking? What is splel checkng? :)

Seriously, Matt's got a very good point. Even if you look past the spelling errors, there are other site-related errors. Copyright 2003? It's not even 2003 yet. WUSSUPWITDAT? And what's with the two sets of meta tags?

Best: www.needa.com hands down. Great network, great people, and an actual staff of real employees, not one guy working out of his basement.

Worst? Icom.com (domain resolves to Interland now, maybe they bought it?)

I had an issue with email malfunctioning, and they sent me log in details for several accounts (yes, full login details) and asked me if one of them was mine. When I told them that was a security issue to do that....they sent me a different set of complete account info...

I left the same day.

Hosting Matters is the best end user hosting available. Not only do they have reliable servers, but their service is top notch and second to none.

I've been with them a long time and they have never failed to meet my high standards.

Worst, I think would be Cyberwings - when they were still in existance, I spent $1 just so I could see how bad they were :D. After processing fees, they made about $0.45 off of me... 144GB of transfer per year for $0.45... who can beat that deal?!

Best host I've used: Site5.com (http://www.site5.com).

Worst host I've used: CommuniTech.net (http://www.communitech.net).

It's 50-50.
Half of the webhosts are decent, and half of the webhosts just plan suck and need to find another business.
There is not a best host and there is not a worst host. By rules of infinity, those have not been discovered in the web hosting universe. However, there are some good hosts and bad hosts.

The Bewares (Red Light - Stop) are ***** (C_I_Host), FeaturePrice
The LookOuts (Yellow Light - Caution) are OLM, Host2Own
These are from personal experiences.

Some Green Lights:

I used Spire, Superb, VentureOnline (no glaring issues for these 3). These hosts lacked desired features at the time I left, but some appear to have improved (i.e. Superb now has a control panel).

Currently using AlwaysWebHosting, pair Networks, and Verio (no big issues). The weakest link is Verio due to features, but they may have the best fiber network.

These are all the host that I have dealt with on a personal basis.


The B&M post that I have seen reference Cyberwing, CI, TotallyHosted, Earhost. Do some searches and read for yourself.

Best: Sprynex (http://www.sprynex.com/)
Worst: Doteasy (http://www.doteasy.com/)

Worst: Earhost

Best: Communitech.net

Best: http://hostnexus.com
http://okihost.com
http://ecphosting.net

so far only been with one host, but hope to stay with them since I've heard plenty of horror stories about bad experiences.

I've been using and reselling Interland accounts since long before they changed from HostPro and I've always been totally happy with their service.

- They're always smoking fast
- I've had virtually no downtime in over 5 years now
- The new blueHALO products have proven to be very nice so far
- Great reseller discounts

As a regular customer their online support can take a little while, but to be honest I've rarely ever needed any support. They have great documentation on all of their services.

As a reseller I have a contact that answers my questions and sets up new accounts for me within minutes. I've had absolutely no complaints.

Chad Smith

WORST = Specialhost.com - complete disaster area!

worst so far: hostpacket.net

best so far ontariotek.com

Went through few hosts. The best one, at one poing was hostrocket, but then they grew too fast and became the worst host ever.

The best and my current host is mbshost. Server is fast and available and Samuel is easy to work with.

rockci.com is by far the worst in my book.

I would not complain if there were minor problems or I had gotten my money back, that would be fair; but thecybercity.com or they were called tcchost. took my payment and were gone in a few days. Awful.

The two best that I currently use are:

http://www.c-i-h-o-s-t.com

(take the "-" out, I had to insert then because their name gets censored here)

and

http://www.worldwebhosters.com

Whatever you decide, if tcchost starts up again, do not sign up! LOL :-)

Best: http://www.focalhosting.com/
Worst: ***** (Sea Eye)

~Charlie

BEST: DomiNet.Net
Superb Help, Superb Uptime, Nice guys, No hidden fees. No restriction on their servers (unless you start consuming so much the servers are about to crash)

Worst: GNXOnline.com
So many restrictions... and only 1gb of tranfser... it was a discrace! :) BUt the cool part... can still logon to the userpanel that expired 1.5 years ago! :) hehehe

Originally posted by AHDOnline

Best: Communitech.net

Originally posted by Synthetic

Best host I've used: Site5.com.

Worst host I've used: CommuniTech.net.

Just to reinforce what was said... :stickout:

Best: www.cahostnet.com
Worst: OLM.net

Originally posted by Toolz


I'm still with them - does the flame imply "worst"?


Yes, next to HyperHosting...I've had the worse service with them. The customer service is great, but my site was always down for long periods of time...

worst: http://www.readyhosting/

best: ive had good luck with http://www.gearhost.com/ and http://www.hostmatix.com thus far...

Best -- AtomHost...never had a problem with these guys. Should've stuck with them.

Worst -- Edgehost...non-existent customer service. Can't even do simple things like activate an account. Pathetic.

worst: ucvhost - absolutely horrible EVERYTHING, followed closely by icom.com

best: I don't know - I was so disgusted by ucvhost, I started hosting on my own server. ;)

http://activewebhosting.com/

Originally posted by Meow Meow
http://activewebhosting.com/ And being with them was one of your best or worst experiences?

Is it me?

They charge us $150 a month, for a 35Mb site, with MAYBE up to 5 Gb down transfer.

When I called to inquire what we get for that money, they:
1st-hung up
2nd time-transfered me to support, who transfered me to Sales,
who transfered me to support, who then hung up on me.

They are local to me-but calling them sounds more distant & distorted than transmissions beamed from the moon, to NASA, then to us on TV back in the day.

When trying to access their Site stats page, you must call them, & then you get to listen to the little patter of feet as the Linux/Unix guy runs down the hall and re-sets the Stats login page of a (possibly) outdated Apache server. Then you tell them the passwords over the phone.
They run down the hall again, then you can get into the Site.

I had a similair issue with RH Linux...VER. 6 for chrissakes!!!!

After logging out that day-I returned the next day only to find the Stats interface not working.

Their customer support pages are only for billing reveiw, and there are no control panels.

Billing has no clue what you are paying for, and it does not display.

I recently had a user on a full T-1 line email me that, he is on a T-1 and FIY-your Site is , and I quote, "profoundly slow".

So, I am glad I found this Site, so I can get something better.

Best - Fluidhosting.com

Worst - imhosted.com

Best I've used: Superb and Hosting Matters. (Am using both currently and have been happy with both since 11/2001.)


Worst I've used (chronological order):

Tabnet/Verio: We were with Tabnet when Verio bought them...accounting wasn't that great to begin with. Verio made all service non existent. Used them early 1997 to mid-1998.

Voyager/Corecomm: Voyager bought out a local (Ohio) host that we really liked. And then the problems started. No support. They moved us to a new server, and could never figure out how to configure their own store software to that new server. They solved the old server problem by shutting it off without changing DNS setting to the new one and without resolving the store issue on the new server. (2000-2001)


And I really found Jaguar PC's support to be lacking. Know others here like them, but I didn't like waiting 5 weeks to have an unresolved support ticket closed without a fix. Dumped them after a few months. (Mid to late 2001)

Originally posted by sasha
Went through few hosts. The best one, at one poing was hostrocket, but then they grew too fast and became the worst host ever.

The best and my current host is mbshost. Server is fast and available and Samuel is easy to work with.

LOL..I work with the father of the owner of Hostrocket...:)

hostpacket.net is the worst!!!! :angry:

I have had a reseller account with
http://www.dixiesys.com
since Aug 2002
I have been very happy.
Owner is a sys. admin and knows what he is doing.

I had a real bad experience with cologroup. I used internet seer as a monitoring service and I had outages totalling more than 48 hours in a three month span. Unfortunately, internet seer could not report all of the mysql outages that were going on as well. The only reason I knew about those was because I was working heavily on my sites on a daily basis and discovered them as they came along.

The worst experience was when I logged into mysql and all the data I had put in the system for the last 2 days was gone. It was as if they had done a restore of my database and table structure from 2 days prior.

I originally had signed up with them to start my hosting business using their virtual servers, thank god I did not transfer any customers to their servers or else I would have been laughed out of the business for the poor performance of the system.

You know, I kinda liked those guys there at cologroup, but business is business. I am quite sure I would not have been as nice if I had lost any customers do to their poor performance and administration of their systems. I was just lucky....it could have been worse.

Hopefully for them, they will finally get their P's and Q's in a row.

Robert

Well, the worst certainly have to be thathostingcompany.com (out of business) and WorldCom (not just BAD hosting, but high-speed internet).

Worldcom is just awful, their billing is fraud, that is the simplest terms to put it. I used to be with them for high-speed internet, because I thought I was going to use them as a core for a new business, but that was a mistake. Now I use Vortech and I have to say, they are the best, that I have ever used anyway.

Vortech is always "right there" if you need them, and have great uptime.




Wow, my first post in many months. Must just be bored tonight.

verio and activewebhosting where my worst, but they where back in my newbie day's.

Verio - had rip off prices, $30 a month for 200 mb's, wtf is that?!

activewebhosting - the owner was a jerk, and the server's where slow, oh and you had to put you're php and cgi files on the cgi.yourdomain.com subdomain, or they wouldn't work.

My best thus far.

Myacen - Great support, and the server's run great to.:)

Dot5hosting are good! :)

Verio - had rip off prices, $30 a month for 200 mb's, wtf is that?!

This does not make a webhost bad just because thier prices are out of the budget range, it just means they make a higher profit margin.

I know little about Verio webhosting, only thier backbone, which would be the 4th backbone we have tried, and so far the most stable with the best pricing (contrary to thier web hosting plans).

There are alot of people out there that want to pay the $30 for 200MB over $10 for a Gig for multiple reasons....

The worst webhost I have ever dealt with (2 of them actually) which inspired us to start ours was:

1) Thevirtualhost.com - NO support, bragged about how good thier servers were, but they were all Cobalt RAQ2's, outages continuous....

2) Addr - I can talk on this one all day. Had people from there steal our CC number, servers had issues with ASP when they were 2000, it goes on and on.....

Granted, the experiences were over a year ago, and things could have really changed in that time.

WORST:
powweb.com :angry:

GOOD:
rackspace.com ;)
ipowerweb.com ;)
mtvhosting.com ;)

Verio is a ittle expensive but to be honest, they have great support.

Originally posted by sasha
The best and my current host is mbshost. Server is fast and available and Samuel is easy to work with.

Happy holidays Sasha =)

"They explode like firecrackers in the heat!" haahha, Kimberly got a kick out of that, sick lol.

Sasha, you'll always have a place with MBSHost and thank you for the comments, we really are working hard to earn your business.

Manlius.com gets my vote for the worst webhost.

As i'm typing this, their servers are down for the 2nd time this month, with the last outage lasting nearly 3 days. When we came on here to ask/complain about what was going on, we were left clueless for days they were down. When they did come back up, not only were our questions unanswered (and still to this day), but they also decided to cancel anyones accounts who spoke up against them.

STAY FAR FAR AWAY FROM MANLIUS, unless you like never being able to reach your website of course.

WORST:

SiteTurn.com

BEST:

HostMatix.com (i'm with them at the moment. excellent service.)
WebHosting.com (excellent service, but pricey)

Originally posted by DaFreak2002


This does not make a webhost bad just because thier prices are out of the budget range, it just means they make a higher profit margin.

I know little about Verio webhosting, only thier backbone, which would be the 4th backbone we have tried, and so far the most stable with the best pricing (contrary to thier web hosting plans).

There are alot of people out there that want to pay the $30 for 200MB over $10 for a Gig for multiple reasons....

The worst webhost I have ever dealt with (2 of them actually) which inspired us to start ours was:

1) Thevirtualhost.com - NO support, bragged about how good thier servers were, but they were all Cobalt RAQ2's, outages continuous....

2) Addr - I can talk on this one all day. Had people from there steal our CC number, servers had issues with ASP when they were 2000, it goes on and on.....

Granted, the experiences were over a year ago, and things could have really changed in that time.
listen, that was imo that it was a bad host, it costed alot, and my site seemed to alway's be slow, don't tell me if i had a bad time with them or not, you are not me, ok?:rolleyes:

Not trying to tell that you did not have a hard time. Just sounded like you were trying to point out because they were expensive that they sucked.

I had no idea by your post at the time that it was that bad.

Best host : www.prioritycolo.com - that is, if you like good uptime, fast customer service and good prices

Worst host - My next door neighbor with his xmas party - he ran out of beer in the first 2 hours... :bawling: :D

Vito

:angry: Honestly? For me it's a dead heat between entryhost.com, unifiednames.com and your-site.com.
entryhost.com/unifiednames.com - these loosers have two names; they "loose" all of your mail while "upgrading" systems. The tech support people close tickets before they solve the problem. When they get overwhelmed they simply shut down!
As far as your-site:
It's sad. The founder of the company died unexpectedly, and the staff he left behind has never recovered. When you contact them for help, if they respond, they tell you to "shut up, and leave if you're not happy." EEEK!:confused:
A good one? You tell me- I'm looking for one!

The worst by far I have experienced with is Cedant.com. They were once very good but were taken over by another company and turned into a nightmare of excessive multiple charges, reduced features, etc.

I go out three months ago and went to Eryexma. This seems to have been a mistake. In less than three months my site has been down 4 times for periods ranging from 24 hours to 3 days. They seem to be amatures relying on the software and their promised 24/7 service does not exist. I am lucky to get even a reply in less than 12 hours and they never seem to be in any hurry to get the site back up.

I really need advice on where I can get hosting for 800mb to 1gb disk space and 2gb data transfer. Data transfer will be much higher with a good host but the constant outages have reduced my pages views dramatically.

The BEST PREVO.net very good. To good to even be in the same post as that other host.




Left them for the others low prices. Came back when the other went under. You get what you pay for. except with Prevo which you get more then you pay for. and the support is very very quick getting back to you.







the worst Cyberwings - SW i hope you get what you deserve.
:angry:

Originally posted by DaFreak2002
Not trying to tell that you did not have a hard time. Just sounded like you were trying to point out because they were expensive that they sucked.

I had no idea by your post at the time that it was that bad.
ok No problem, sorry i went off, i was sort of out of it when i posted my post before this.lol:o

Best hosts I am using now are:

Fluid Hosting, Priority Colocation, DellHost.

All have great support, great network uptime and fast response time from Chicago.

Best....ADEhost.com
Worst....hmm...Tacidblue.com (remember that huge scam?)

EDIT: Changed the worse from pair.com to tacid.)

Originally posted by vito
Best host : www.prioritycolo.com - that is, if you like good uptime, fast customer service and good prices

Worst host - My next door neighbor with his xmas party - he ran out of beer in the first 2 hours... :bawling: :D

Vito

HAHAHHAHAA thats great.......lol not much of a host is he? i would demand my money back or a free month of unlimted beer supply.

Best hosts would be azuretek.net and prioritycolo :D

Worst would be gotoecom.com, as their support is never around and websites go down VERY frequently.

Originally posted by GonnaBeGood
The best hosting service i have found/seen is www.createspace.net I encourage everyone to check them out.

How can you tell if they are the best. They have been in business for a week or two. They did look promising until i found out how long they have been in business. see how you feel about them in 6 months or next year.


"CreateSpace was launched on December 1st 2002. We are here to provide you with the best service and quality of hosting. CreateSpace provides it's customers with web hosting and design services for your individual or business needs."

Best:
www.downtownhost.com
www.bulkreseller.com

Worst:
cyberwings
truehosting (or some other names)

Originally posted by goedesign


How can you tell if they are the best. They have been in business for a week or two. They did look promising until i found out how long they have been in business. see how you feel about them in 6 months or next year.


"CreateSpace was launched on December 1st 2002. We are here to provide you with the best service and quality of hosting. CreateSpace provides it's customers with web hosting and design services for your individual or business needs."

lol...well, if you do a search, you will notice that all 3 of his posts say the same thing.

Do you smell something cooking? :D

Best: http://PowWeb.com
Been with them over a year with six sites. Very saitisfied.

Worst: Any host could be the worst depending on your personal experience.

The absolute worst was something like RapidWebSite many years ago.. the president called and threatened my grandmother. Then he was bragging to me on the phone about how much money he had, and how many lawyers he was going to sue me with. Because I wanted a refund of $150. I don't know if they are still around under a different name.

Lately, here are
THE WORST:

LunarPages: moronic support, sheer incompetence

CWIHosting: s-l-o-w support, & incompetent

EchoLima: slow, incompetent, NEVER answer their 800 number, ignore a lot of emails

TeraByte: rude, incompetent, basically refuse to do ANYTHING you ask of them. things break a lot.

THE BEST:

DreamHost: the best support, the best control panel. But conueries are a pain, and there have been downtime issues lately.

Iniquinet: very small but very competent and helpful.

Best- www.xgamingservers.com
Worst- www.hostonce.com

I didn't try out many hosts here but I do like ...
Manlius.com <--- Cheap and friendly
Dixiesys.com <--- Reliable and good reputation

I hate the following...
CyberWings.com <--- That was my BIGGEST mistake

What I'm going now...
PriorotyColo.com <--- Just signed up for a deal

Worst: C_I_Host (one word: terrible)

Best: httpme.com

Best Host : www.22host.com
worst Host : www.siliconhouse.net

TACID BLUE :angry: :angry:

Answer to:

LunarPages: moronic support, sheer incompetence

We recently had to fire ONE of our support staff, due to his incompetence. Thats true.

Just talk to Max, Todd, Robert or Chris and they will give you a superb answer to your support request.

My site is hosted on Lunarpages. So far I have no problems with their support - decent to very fast responses and they get the job done. I would admit to blowing a fuse even once when they bungled up my website during a server move, but they act fast and get the matter solved within one day.

Maybe I'm just lucky, as I run a simple website with no scripts running, so I don't need that much support as anybody else may have.

Previously I used Worldzone Free for my website. Now THAT is incompetent tech support. When I was with them, the persons behind support were usually competent, but their support message boards were run by technically incompetent moderators who actually slammed the users for complaining too much, not appreciating the webhost, and even threatening to suspending the board! The attitude seemed to be that I must be slavishly grateful that they are even working to solve the problem. Sheesh. I sincerely hope things were better now with them.

Originally posted by Toolz
I've not had first-hand experience with the best or the worst.

I come to WHT because I'm still looking for the best and I wish to avoid the worst.

Yes, i too agree with that. You took the words right out of my mouth Toolz!

Best: ROTOHost.

Worst: Rackshack (not really a host, but I've had numerous troubles with them)

web-spring.net is the worst.

They continued to steal money from my credit card for 5 months after I left them. (I left them because they were down more then they were up) Even after 43 emails and 11 phone calls they didn't stop. It took a call to their local Police Dept to end it.

WORST = illisys.com - complete disaster.

Originally posted by vito, markcw & Alystair
Best host : www.prioritycolo.com
They scared me away with their TOS and 'Fees' ...

"4. Payments and Fee's: Credit cards which are declined may be subject to a $5.00 declination fee. Payments on credit cards which are reversed for any reason will be subjected to a $100.00 reversal fee. Services may be interrupted on any accounts which reach 14 days past due. Accounts interrupted as a result of non-payment will be subjected to a $100.00 reconnection fee. Accounts which are not paid by their due date are subject to a $15.00 late fee. Any additional service fee's, including technical support, bandwidth overage charges, and other additional fines, or fee's will be charged at the end of the month, or at Priority Colo's discretion. Accounts which can not be collected by Priority Colo may be turned over to an outside collection agency, and the subscriber agrees to pay a $100.00 Collection Fee"

and...

"If the subscriber disputes a charge to their credit card which is at Priority Colo's sole discretion a valid charge under the provisions of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and/or Terms Of Service (TOS), the subscriber agrees to pay Priority Colo a $100.00 reversal fee."

This is not good -- basically you give them the right to charge you MORE if they fraudulently charge to your card and you try to get it reversed -- not too cool.

sitehostz.com also has a similar TOS with a heftier reconnect charge: "Service interrupted for nonpayment is subject to a $200.00 reconnect charge." Again, not too cool.

While I haven't actually seen Manilus.com's TOS, maybe they should add something similar to theirs so when they inappropriately shut people down they also get paid for it - now that's a good business plan -- get paid whether or not you deliver the goods!

Stay FAR AWAY from hosts with those kinds of terms -- I've already marked those 3 OFF of my list.

GM

Originally posted by GraniteMouse

They scared me away with their TOS and 'Fees' ...

"4. Payments and Fee's: Credit cards which are declined may be subject to a $5.00 declination fee. Payments on credit cards which are reversed for any reason will be subjected to a $100.00 reversal fee. Services may be interrupted on any accounts which reach 14 days past due. Accounts interrupted as a result of non-payment will be subjected to a $100.00 reconnection fee. Accounts which are not paid by their due date are subject to a $15.00 late fee. Any additional service fee's, including technical support, bandwidth overage charges, and other additional fines, or fee's will be charged at the end of the month, or at Priority Colo's discretion. Accounts which can not be collected by Priority Colo may be turned over to an outside collection agency, and the subscriber agrees to pay a $100.00 Collection Fee"

and...

"If the subscriber disputes a charge to their credit card which is at Priority Colo's sole discretion a valid charge under the provisions of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and/or Terms Of Service (TOS), the subscriber agrees to pay Priority Colo a $100.00 reversal fee."

This is not good -- basically you give them the right to charge you MORE if they fraudulently charge to your card and you try to get it reversed -- not too cool.

sitehostz.com also has a similar TOS with a heftier reconnect charge: "Service interrupted for nonpayment is subject to a $200.00 reconnect charge." Again, not too cool.

While I haven't actually seen Manilus.com's TOS, maybe they should add something similar to theirs so when they inappropriately shut people down they also get paid for it - now that's a good business plan -- get paid whether or not you deliver the goods!

Stay FAR AWAY from hosts with those kinds of terms -- I've already marked those 3 OFF of my list.

GM

If we fraudulently charge your card, then ... that wouldn't be taking into play anyhow. If you declare that we are stealing money from you essentially, why shouldn't we have any measures to take on our own behalf? That obviously would have ramifications on our part, as we would get billed from our merchant provider for the chargeback, and anyone who gets too many of those gets their merchant accounts turned off, so wheres the problem there?

Do you have intent to declare that your host is illegally charging your card? Because if not, i dont see how that clause has any effect on anyone frankly :eek2:.

Top 5 worst host that I have used...

1. ci|host (beware, they sue everybody including customers new and old - see http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99601)

2. rapidserver.com (aka irides.com, soloserver.com)

3. icdsoft.com

4. media3.net

5. wisehosting.net (if they don't get their act together soon, they will be riding much higher on this list)

See the following thread for more detailed info on why I feel this way about these hosts...
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99479

Best: Is there such a thing as best of the worst? Otherwise, this entry goes left unfilled.

GM

Originally posted by porcupine
If we fraudulently charge your card, then <snip>
If? That's not a very convincing statement for potential customers. You make it sound like it is very possible that fraudulent charges may very well appear on a customer's bill. A better way to reply to this would be "WE WOULD NEVER FRAUDULENTLY CHARGE A CUSTOMER BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE ILLEGAL AND UNETHICAL"

If you declare that we are stealing money from you essentially, why shouldn't we have any measures to take on our own behalf?
You do have options... the best option being a ruthless attorney who likes to sue for defamation and theft of services. You do have an attorney, don't you?

Do you have intent to declare that your host is illegally charging your card?Because if not, i dont see how that clause has any effect on anyone frankly
Um, I'm not quite following you there, but here's my reply anyway -- you are scaring people off with those terms, and your customers are essentially having to pay you for their legal right to dispute a charge. And that's not good.

GM

:rolleyes: I'm not here to sell you on our TOS, our TOS is designed to protect us from abusive users, and if you choose to take the parts which are extremely clearly outlined as doing so out of context, theres little i can do about it.

Perhaps you should do a search on WHT for us, and see what you turn up, as i really dont appreciate strangers incinuating that we're going to fraudulently charge peoples credit cards, i was making the point that if your card had been fraudulently charged (by anyone), the TOS with the reversal fee's would not be legally applicable in that scenario.

Yes, of course i have lawyers, but we all know how much legal assistance on any such matter costs, i dont even need to ellaborate on that any further, or at least shouldn't.

If you dont like the terms of service, plain and simple dont sign up is all I can say, i've seen this arguement there before, we try to maintain our Terms Of Service in a manner which is fair and protects both parties, long and the short is, if you dont have a contract with us, and we're illegally charging your card, the TOS would not be in play, and if you did have a contract with us, and we were illegally charging your card, they would not be upheld by any bank or court in that respect.

The pure intent of that section of the ToS is to prevent people from attempting to use that to weasel out of charges that they may incur, or to hold people utilizing stolen credit cards liable, chargeback fee's are atrocious, and when the day comes to a close, ultimately, a companies TOS needs to protect them, and ultimately, such sections of the TOS have no effect on legitimate users.

I dont suppose you'd like to call up the SPAM policies next and state why it's unreasonable that most hosts reserve the right to charge an obscene "cleanup" fee for SPAM too while you're at it, because it's the same boat, unless you intend to do it, it has no effect on you :rolleyes:.

Originally posted by porcupine
i really dont appreciate strangers incinuating that we're going to fraudulently charge peoples credit cards
Porky: please go get laid and take a chill pill for the betterment of mankind --

1) you are taking this way out of context yourself and are probably scaring more potential customers off with your obviously bad attitude. Take some pointers from the Manilus.com boss -- on WHT he has already stuck his foot in his mouth so many times as of late that I don't think he will ever again be getting any new WHT customers.

2) You insinuated it, not me -- I simply pointed out the TOS is all. You are way too defensive on this subject, which leads me to believe you have something to hide.

Again, my point and only point -- your TOS states that customers are essentially having to pay you for their legal right to dispute a charge. Not good. Expand on that all night if you want -- but 'nuff said from me on that topic.

Originally posted by porcupine
I dont suppose you'd like to call up the SPAM policies next and state why it's unreasonable that most hosts reserve the right to charge an obscene "cleanup" fee for SPAM too while you're at it
I think it is quite obvious that is a terrible analogy.

GM

Ok, first off, appropriateness, i dont think we need to say what is and what is not appropriate, this is a business based forum.

1. If customers are scared off by the fact that we write our TOS to protect themselves, and them the simplest way possible, then they're probably not the type of customers we're interested in acquiring. The TOS is written to prevent abuse, people who would likely be frightened by it are people who intend to abuse, or have abused services in the past, our network is not your toy, and yes, we're very serious about abuse.

2. When i said "if" i was not insinuating we fraudulently charged credit cards, i was stating "IF" anyone did that, their respective TOS would not hold up as they would be in breach of their own contract.

3. Last but not least, if we breach our own contract by illegally charging credit cards, our TOS wouldn't protect us from anything, and it certainly doesen't make the customer pay for their "legal right to dispute a charge", i'm not sure what your game here is, but you're way off, and im sure you'll find that theres a similar clause in almost every providers ToS, for example, straight from the RackShack ToS, not very different from our own:

"If you dispute a charge to your credit card issuer that, in RackShack's sole discretion is a valid charge under the provisions of the TOS and /or AUP, you agree to pay RackShack an "Administrative Fee" of not less than $50 and not more than $150."

You're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to define this as unreasonable.

List of good hosts:
SonicHost.Net (http://www.sonichost.net)
Aplus.net (http://www.aplus.net)

I consider the worst

valcato.net

is the service I´m using now. I only used 1003.08 Meg of bandwith from the 5gb quota and the site is down.

Check: megagente.com (http://megagente.com)

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/1.3.27 Server at www.megagente.com Port 80)

Others have the same problem. Check their forums. http://www.valcatosupport.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1020


Maybe they don´t care about it. Less the 2 weeks they took to activate my account and the never answered 5 e-mails I send them for money back guarantee. Ever the so famous Perl Desk.

A resumee:

No answered e-mails
False bandwith
No moneyback guarantee

3disystems.com is the worst we ever come across....

Originally posted by porcupine


"If you dispute a charge to your credit card issuer that, in RackShack's sole discretion is a valid charge under the provisions of the TOS and /or AUP, you agree to pay RackShack an "Administrative Fee" of not less than $50 and not more than $150."

You're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to define this as unreasonable.

Anyone who has a clause like this might want to check with their merchant account provider, however. You wouldn't want to violate your contract with *them*, believe me.

Kevin

humm where is my replied in here folks ... did anyone see my reply nick in this thread ? or it got removed ? and why :rolleyes:

I've have to say 3-95.com is the WORSE host I've ever hosted with.

They moved their servers this summer and didn't telll anyone. Had to go to their forum to find out wtf was going on. Suppose to be a 2 hour ordeal but it ended up taking DAYS.

I'd say they're worst than most the free sites out there.

WORST OF THE WORST: Featureprice.com !!!

I have been with them for a year. This is a disgrace. As it is well documented on these and other forums, someone should sue these people.

I am swithing to HostingMatters. I do not know how their service actually is, but I read so much good things and opinions about them, that I hope I have made the right choice.

Originally posted by porcupine
Ok, first off, appropriateness, i dont think we need to say what is and what is not appropriate, this is a business based forum.

1. If customers are scared off by the fact that we write our TOS to protect themselves, and them the simplest way possible, then they're probably not the type of customers we're interested in acquiring. The TOS is written to prevent abuse, people who would likely be frightened by it are people who intend to abuse, or have abused services in the past, our network is not your toy, and yes, we're very serious about abuse.


Your TOS not only prevents abuse, but it also discourages people from any type of complaint against your billing practices, illegal or not. That shows, in the public eye, a total lack of confidence in your practices, and it sounds more like you're out for revenge/payback instead of making sure that the customer is happy.

How would you like it if a customer charged YOU an administrative fee of $100 for legal fees incurred during that same dispute if they really were right about their claim? Or better yet, how would you like it if the customer charged you a "damages incurred" fee if you mistakenly de-activated their account, misplaced their payment, or even better, accidentally deleted the contents of their site by mistake? Maybe the customers should start making their own TOS...

(BTW, I was considering your host until the blatantly questionable practices in your TOS were brought to my attention)

The absolute worst: http://macecom.net/
The best: http://www.Site5.com (linux) and http://www.GearHost.com (Windows).

Both of my “best” have had problems in the last month… but they are, honestly, MY best.

My worst is still rebuilding the servers from last weeks virus....

:angry: ci|host - worst-squared

:cartman: VenturesOnline, Burst

The Worst.. I think Featureprice takes the cake on that one.

Frogee.com is the BEST EVER!

http://www.frogee.com

They are wonderful!

Great 24/7 service, fast server, etc.!

Best host I have used is a small company called orphus (www.orphus.net)

They got this amazing $15 for 5GB space and 100GB/transfer deal that I was doubtful at first but after using them for more a month I can safely say they deliver on their product. :)

Too bad they dont have reseller acounts..

www.liquidonline.net :o) = good

rackshack.net dedicated servers on nt are the best ... cyberpixels are the worst

Worst: Cyberwings, Tera-Byte, Powweb

Bad: Myacen
Not very good: Dominet

Best so far: Sonichost

the best so far = clookhost

I haven't used any bad hosts, but here are the ones i nominate for the best i've used :)

- My DSL line ;)
- Decent speeds, but the tech was a lazy bugger (heh'). All the space i could afford, heh'

- 24Hostingnow.com - Friggin' fast servers, nice pings, awsome prices and James is the dream tech :D

I was reading most of the thread and was like 'no featureprice.com? what's wrong with you people...' but then, sure enough it popped up ^_~

~Francisco

www.orphus.net

Although I am moving from them in a day or two (becuase I need more transfers not because of bad service) my stay there has been a pleasent one. They really do give you the full 100GB transfer and 5GB space for $15. Great service for great price! Definatly recommended!

I have tried free webhosting and one payed.

I hade some really good experience with one of the free ones, until they decided that their "experiment" with free webhosting had to be cloesed down. I could have stayed if I had payed, but that was before I knew better.

:eek2: The worst was a free host where I couldn't create or upload any files, only create folders. FTP didn't work and their "control panel" never worked. I don't remember their name.

:D The best (so far) is the host I pay; Infodoma.com. Forum, tickets, fast e-mail support. Small but reliable.

Worst: Ahhh... I can't remember their name.

Best: Oxeo for sure!

Ive been with 4 hosts for the past two years.

All of them have been great, i changed packages to a different host because it was more cheaper.

Im currently with www.matrix-hosting.com very good.

i have yet to experience a bad host...

The worst (and first) host I ever used was c i h o s t . c o m . They search the newsgroups for people who complain / tell the truth about their service, and threaten them with legal action.
Their billing practices were bad, and customer (dis) service worse.

The best host I have ever used is Dreamhost - www.dreamhost.com . They are reliable, competent, and offer great service.

OH my head hurts.! does anyone have any idea of how many hosting companies there are and % of good or bad?.

Bad host: addr.com

Slow response of support I ever had :(

Before getting involved with Spry Hosting, the best host I ever dealt with was VServers.
But then through the process of merger/acquisitions it's essentially no more.

There are a lot of worst hosts, but fortunately none that I care to mention.

Before I started concrete about 1 year ago I was with adehost and loved it!!

I've only been with two hosts, and have already hit both ends of the spectrum:



:angry: Imhosted.com: no tech support, false advertising, no "life" behind the scenes, long waits, didn't even register my domain after one week

:D : unitedhosting.co.uk: absolutely fantastic, setup in 30 minutes, had my domain fully propogated in less than 48 hours (I realize they don't do the propogating, but I never understood the whole process until I realized how fast it could be done, and how long I had waited with imhosted), amazing tech support, REAL people who actually admit their faults (few, if any) and work hard to make web hosting a joy! Great, active forum... I could go on and on and I've only been with them about 4 days :-)

I am delighted with my new web hosting company! I've only been a customer for a little while now but they have been so responsive with every question I've had. They are affordable too.
enterprisedigital.com

www.Mega-stream.com if you dont belive me go look for yourself :mad:

Best: www.verio.com <- Can't go wrong with them! :D
Seriously though, the best for me is www.myacen.com

Worst: cyberwings

i've head alot of bad things about uk2.net

I'd have to say that one of the best hosting companies out there is FeaturePrice.com. Great prices and awesome customer service. I recommend it.

FeaturePrice -- Arggg! My sites have been down for a couple of days now. Can't get ahold of support. The support is just terrible!

The price and features are nice, but what good are features when you can't use them?

Stupid newbie me, I signed on for a year with them, and I'm assuming there's not way I would be able to get my money back.

Wish I had read this thread first.

Man, I'm so pi$$ed at Feature Price! I sit and wait and sit and wait for the online support and it keeps booting me. My time is worth a hell of a lot more than this!

If I was not clear, FeaturePrice.com is one of the worst for support.

I am a friend and partner of mega-stream.com, and just would like everyone to view:

http://www.datastreamusa.net to see how mega-stream's name was blackened for association with datastreamusa.net at the time.

If you do a search of the forums as i have done of wizzard005, check out the differences in posts, one moment he is selling the servers he has for a few thou $, the next he has 50 servers, then looking for dedicated servers only to be assumed to move his colo servers to dedicated, all '50' of them!! Oh and thats forgetting about teh post of the permanent connections he has haha! Look through the posts and see for yourself.
I may be wrong, please feel free to post websites on each of the 50 servers you have, and i will gladly apologise for my mistake!
Anyone interested in the story of datastreamusa.net may email info@armata.net as siggested on their site.

Its not nice for hosts to slag off other hosts, especially for no reason. Not getting involved in any slagging matches, so i wont post again in this thread no matter how much rubbish is said.

Enjoy your day peeps.

Worst for Me : Aplus.net

Stay away from this company, they advertised as "unlimited" bandwidth so I signed up for a year.. they shut down my site without warning and tells me to pay $30 more every month or site will remain shut down. That's some BS!

I was curious about aplus.net .
A potential client turned down my web design (and hosting )offer, because my hosting prices were too high for him.

He ended up signing up with aplus.net and had someone else design the site. I checked out their site, and their prices seem too good to be true. Especially the unlimited bandwith, which my host does not offer. I thought at the time "there must be some catch to that offer".

I guess there is some fine print which says you : cannot host images / cannot use the bandwith for x y or z and so on.

Anyone else try aplus.net ?

- Jay

I'd like to change my previous entry to @webhost.com.

spammer

Originally posted by jonmck
Frogee.com is the BEST host of all! They are at www.frogee.com. Best prices and best support!

:spam: :rolleyes: like every post you have is "frogee.com is the best!!!" :rolleyes: :eek:

worst = aplus (websolo)

You know, I almost went with FeaturePrice.com and sent them an eMail asking a question and they didn't respond.
Recognizing the red flag, I held off on signing up. They were in the midst of upgrading their website so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and forwarded the copy I had in my Sent mail folder again a few days later. Again, no reply.

I was so glad I didn't go with them especially after reading some of the comments in this thread.

I can see that this Forum wil be very helpful in avoiding some of the pitfalls out there.

i've been with a few webhosts, most were average
n' what not. i signed up with featureprice in May'02,
at that time they were still really good, great help
and very nice. it's just this couple of months, they've
gone down the drain.

it took the 3 days to answer my question, and their
answer was to email another dept. c'mon. THREE days
just to tell me to email another dept?

my site is mad slow, and disappears every other
time, i have trouble ftp'in and for the past month
have not been able to ftp at all.

:(

featureprice is just the poops.

i don't have the best experience with any host yet.
that's why i'm here. to search for one. hopefully.

I've only been a customer of this company for a little while but they just seem so on-the-ball and have great customer service.
www.enterprisedigital.net (http://www.enterprisedigital.net)

I have yet to find a really bad one.

The two we have right now I would give about a 7/10 rating:
Lunarpages.com and Vianetworks.com

Vianetworks used to be better, but over the past year or so they seem to be gradually sinking lower in the ratings. Slow server software upgrades etc - their stats program has not been upgraded for almost 2 years now.

Lunarpages we are still new with - only a couple of weeks. Tech support has been variable, esp on weekends.
One thing that bothers me about Lunarpages is that they delete any message on their website forum that is at all critical of them. On the other hand, most hosts don't even HAVE a forum...

worst = GISOL.com
I sign up with them for one year ,they are not honest at all..
search the thread GISOL to find out...

Looking for what happen?
www.gisol.org

CI HOST = WORSE EVER

BounceWeb.com

Global Internet Solutions = FUXXing WORST!!!!! AVOID THIS HOST AT ALL COST!!!!!

Out of the many years that i've been hosting (my sites), i've been with Interland.net (http://www.interland.net) , which were okay until for no reason terminated my account!

I'm currently with Hostingplex.com (http://www.hostingplex.com) and their doing a great job of keeping me happy!

I've also used Addr.com (http://www.addr.com), but that was long time ago, maybe in 1998 or something ha!

[QUOTE]

The two best that I currently use are:

http://www.c-i-h-o-s-t.com

(take the "-" out, I had to insert then because their name gets censored here)
[QUOTE]

I would suggest leaving the spaces and not going there.
:angry:

I can't believe someone would actually use CI HOST. They are the biggest joke online.

I know - I once said something not in their favor in a newsgroup, and their lawyers began emailing me - threatening action.

I don't know how such companies stay in business so long - that experience I had with see eye host was back in ... 1999, I think.

C.I is a scam and a spit in the face for companies that actually try to run a business.

I use Below10host and it is the best I have ever used... good up-time and has been around for a long time... since 1998 I think.

hostonce is the one that sucks!

Worst in the world = MCHost :angry:


Best of all = Voxtreme :)

Originally posted by vito


Worst host - My next door neighbor with his xmas party - he ran out of beer in the first 2 hours... :bawling: :D

Vito [/B]

:homer: no beer no tv make Homer go something something.

Crazy?

Don't mind if i do!!!;)

My site is hosted at datastreamusa.com for a yr now and the uptime and speed is great.

My earlier one was hostonce.com

5$ for unlimited everything but their server was always down. Files get deleted. Support emails take a week or more to reply.

Registering domain is free but the ownership is them. Which means, I couldnt' get back my domain tangraonline.net after I cancelled with them. Now this domain redirects to some XXX site.

I have only used lightningservers.net and so far it's been good.

Worst - Cyberwings (spent more than I should for two months of service for 5 domains that pretty much didn't use any resources - yes, I know - "newbie" is as "newbie" does)

I tried a few of the other hosts (all offered free hosting - e-rice, ikiwi, and totalchoice - formerly simplenet) and the best of those three is probably ikiwi - real nice, easy to work with, and very understanding.

Having said that I'm with Boston Promotions Unlimited now - made me an offer that I couldn't refuse and so far they're doing pretty good. My sites went down for a bit (I think is was due to NOC having some problems) but all in all they're good. Response time is excellent (seems like the owner never sleeps - he even answered one of questions in the middle of the nite) and they also have a toll-free support number (I've never used it though).

Edit-Hey, how come my "Post" is still one? I've posted a couple of times already:stickout:

Originally posted by just4sc
Edit-Hey, how come my "Post" is still one? I've posted a couple of times already:stickout:
Posts made in the advertising forums don't count. I looked and your other posts all fall in that category.

Alright there,

Just thought I'd bung my votes in!

The best host I've used to date must be Reddi-Web who have a great level of customer service & performance.

The worst by far is a company called Hostzone.co.uk who also go by the name of Knightmaster enterprizes... they have almost no support, poor features & very low performance servers which is probably self inflicted by the staff there.

Anyone else tried these two hosts?

Cheers, Robin.

Worst=JaguarPC

Im sorry, but honestly "tollz" just has some grudge that is not based on any type of facts. Visit our forums, email us, call us even. Come by and visit if you like, toolz isnt a client as far as I know and therefore has no leg to stand here when trying to bash a company....and yes his post is nothing but a blatant bash.

Want more, search his name...he apparantly went around diggin up old aletia posts just to go on this bash rampage.

toolz, if you have anything you want to discuss please contact me.

Worst: hostpacket.net
Best: ****************, westhost.

Worst:
C_IHost (In the year of the crash and burn)

Best:
For Managed Servers - Ventures Online
For Unmanged Servers - Rackshack

Worst personal website host

freehostingweb.com

poor service and site can be down for many hours each day without support!!!

Best Host: HostingChicago.com at http://www.hostingchicago.com, they have great server packages with excellent Web Site Manager losts of very good applications and very good tech support with responses in minutes not hours.

Worst is hosting.com. Very very bad service, hgih prices.

This first few pages of this thread is :spam: heaven.

Just putting www.whateverhost.com really doesn't tell us if it's a good or bad host. Duh :rolleyes:

The better - zeonhost.com
The best - futurequest.net
The better than best - alphaomegahosting.com

I have been with AOH for 6 months now. Good prices. Ethical!!! Great personalized tech support -- seldom used, but never had to wait more than 2 hours to get a total fix. Not a status report -- a fix. They are extremely patient with newbie questions, but are total pro's if that's what you need. A truly honest forum -- in the 6 months I've been there, every server problem, every glitch [there haven't been many] has been faithfully & honestly recorded on the forum, with NO subsequent deletions or cover-ups.

FQ is also magnificent, but pricey.

moo goo gai pan.......bellgamin

I tried a few of the other hosts (all offered free hosting - e-rice, ikiwi, and totalchoice - formerly simplenet) and the best of those three is probably ikiwi - real nice, easy to work with, and very understanding.


Since when does iKiwi offer free hosting?,

BAD : http://www.websitecreations.net/

NICE : http://www.tera-byte.com

EXCELLENT : Still to come...

Originally posted by Artashes
WebHosting.com (excellent service, but pricey)
Glad you said that! I used to do tech support for them :D

www.obantec.net my first host slighly highly priced however there a UK based company great support and great speeds i would recommend them to any1 wanting European Servers :)

This is a difficult to say best or worst, always something become better or worse.

For my experiences, in the past few years, VO has the most stable time for me, but it's a little bit expensive

Hostmatters.com is pretty reliable, and they answer tickets in minutes.

the best = digitalxweb.net and splashhost.com

the worst = tera-byte.com

Hmm... I heard good things about tera-byte... but that was months ago... have they turned bad?

Originally posted by Jag
Im sorry, but honestly "tollz" just has some grudge that is not based on any type of facts. Visit our forums, email us, call us even. Come by and visit if you like, toolz isnt a client as far as I know and therefore has no leg to stand here when trying to bash a company....and yes his post is nothing but a blatant bash.

Want more, search his name...he apparantly went around diggin up old aletia posts just to go on this bash rampage.

toolz, if you have anything you want to discuss please contact me.

This post has now been spammed across four threads. This outfit is obviously as challenged in pursuit of context and relevancy on these forums as they are in their support department.

I'll get right back on topic and restate that:

Worst Host = J...aguarPC

This is simply a matter of opinion - one that was requested by the thread starter. For info on why simply do a search or see here: http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=101006

Originally posted by dominicohare
Since when does iKiwi offer free hosting?,

You have to ask real nice :D and also put up a reference to their site. ;)

The best: www.lnc-hosting.com

The worst, ugly and junk: www.copioushost.com and www.donhost.com

Copioushost has 50% uptime... It is normal if you have mailserver down or stats server down in a week or 10 days... They never compensate you anything...

Donhost are frauders. They get money but don't make a work

Copioushost offers "unlimited" webspace... automatically putting it in the crap category.

I would like to recommend realwebhost, you can find them at www.realwebhost.net.

Great packages, great support and more. Just take a look at their site.

I'm very satisfied with them.

That site takes a long time to load, but its a nice site :)

Bounceweb.com is the worst host I've seen... my friend hosts with them and his domain name doesn't resolve to his site, but it redirects it to Bounceweb.com - showing their own site, but not his... and they said it's his problem. What a way to run their webhosting service... I guess that's why they put the 'no money' back there, but then I guess that's a big warning sign.

There's absolutely no service or support... they've even disabled their messageboard because everyone was complaining about bad service, etc etc.

I have just started a video production company and when I went looking for a web host I was shocked as to how many there were. But because of your request I have a good idea where to look, Thanks

www.hostevolve.com - Solid, reliable hosting, I refer all my design clients to them and they host my own ventures as well. Mike and his wife (Mike's id here is Michaeln), the owners, are 100% honest and trustworthy folks and they make sure that all clients get fast, quality support.

I definately recommend them...

As far as worst host, I've never really had any experiences with a host that were bad enough to warrant calling them out here. I guess I've been pretty lucky :)

Originally posted by Toolz
This thread is doubtless useful because it will provide a good list of leads and "red flags" for all the newbies.

However I feel we need to add a disclaimer here: "it all depends on best for what and worst for whom. A host from one person's "worst" list could make it to somebody's "best" list depending on the requirements. Also best this month can often be worst next month. Caveat emptor. Nil desperandum. May contain traces of nuts. Store away from direct sunlight..."

(sorry I got carried away there) :)


You also have to take into account people who pick a certain webhosting company and flame them to death wherever they go :D

i think GNXonline has been reading my posts! :) Suddenly i couldn't logon anymore into my controlpanel! :) Hehehe

Id recommend the following.

http://www.people-host.com
http://www.one2host.com
http://www.vibehosting.com

Iv'e used all these hosts and they are very reliable and very helpfull...

and I would never recommend Directoris

http://us.directoris.com/hosting/

I would elaborate but it would be so hum - hum boring

The worst host I've ever used is definitely featurePrice. They started out fine (last March), but I moved my site before the time I'd paid for ran out. Their website is full of bad links, they don't have any customer/tech support contact listed on their website. They use an email submission for requesting tech support, which says they usually reply within 24 hours It's been two weeks--there's been no reply. They have on-line chat--but you're only supposed to use it if you've already gotten a ticket number in reply to your email. If you can get ahold of their tech support telephone number, they won't help you either without a ticket number. They cut off holding time at 4 minutes, and if you do get to talk to a tech, they disconnect you at 8 minutes--no matter what.

I wasn't impressed with jumpline--their move to new servers was very badly organized and not communicated to their customers. They moved me to a new server--but didn't move my website or email addresses/groups/aliases.

I'm currently using Total Choice (www.totalchoicehosting.com), and I've found them to be reliable, helpful, and fast.

--Beth

Stick www.sacointernet.com on that list of for the worst... well they would fit in nicely, but it appears that they have vanished without telling anyone.

Worst host I've encountered: CI Host http://www.******.com (lol, they're banned)

Best host I've encountered: Intretec http://www.intretec.com

I've had several sites on newglobalnet.com (http://newglobalnet.com/) over the last four years and they've been great. Support is quick, features are about standard, and the price is good. It's not your 50 cent hosting package, but $12.95 is about average price-wise for a good company.

to add to the growing chorus, "Avoid C_I Host like a gunshot wound to the head!!!"

hostmatters and featureprice got to be 2 of the worst.
poor servers and techs don't have any knowledge

I was coming in here to comment on a new host I have just signed up with that I am thrilled with. I know your reply "is come back in 6 months or so and report then" and I will.

I signed up with addaction.com and they have gone way way above the call of duty for us. I didn't any more get signed up till my phone rang and it was them to discuss our needs. I own a graphics group and this gave me the opportunity to discuss some of the other things we offer from our site. Then the list is too long and I won't bore you with it, but they have help us very promptly in numerous ways since signing up.

They are extremely professional also.

After 2 bad experiences this is a very nice change.

Worst Host = Dynastyhost.com , Totallyhosted.net
Best Host = www.myacen.com , readyhosting.com (only few weeks of me to be with them but they looks good so far)

oh yes Robert (Myacen.com) do you remember when you provided me free host when we were on IRC #100%mp3s before like umm 2-3 years? ;) :)

worst:
:angry: featureprice were ok until recently, now I hope they burn in hell for the time they have cost me, not to mention the $$$.
wankers

best:
:rolleyes: still looking - getting ready to move - that's why I'm here. so many tricks for new players, but thru this and other forums I am slowly figuring it out.... caveat emptor will, of course, always apply.

anyone know of a site offering: "helpful hints: what to look for in a good host, what to be aware of, etc."?

probably 30 day money back guarantee will work? you can cancel your account within 30 days if you are not satisfied from their services. just simple hint :)

Worst host? Hhhhm....Geocities.com

Best host>>DreamcodeDesign.com (currently available only in the Phils.)

I would have to agree with Featureprice.com being the worst. Ever since they upgraded there website they have gone from good the the cream of the crap!!!!!

FeaturePrice is by far the worst I have ever heard of. We have never had anything hosted there, but know a couple of people that have, and been nothing but trouble. One poor guy got his ecommerce site ripped off and FeaturePrice put up about 5 pages of pictures of drunks at parties at the domain.

In fact, I have never heard anything good at all about featureprice...

The worst webhost is www.webfusion.co.uk

best - site5
worst - aletia

Originally posted by DavidV
I'd have to say that one of the best hosting companies out there is FeaturePrice.com. Great prices and awesome customer service. I recommend it.

I've been trying to get through to them since 1 Feb. You call their number, it says "Thank you for calling featureprice. Goodbye". Excuse me? SInce when is that customer service? And the 5 day wait to get a ticket responded too. Non-refundable 1 year contract. Hmm, I think I've been taken. Got 7 more months with them, and looking for an alternative, because I personally think they are going out of business. They went from ok customer service to non-existent at the end of January. With no notice to their customers of course.

best: endore.com
They have fast an friendly support, almost always up with little downtime, and very reliable!!

Feature Price is the really worst, i signed when i start in the internet stuff ( that means super dummie) and is the worst thing ever happened to my web pages,

99% on line!!! yeah right!!!! they fall dawn 13 hours on a row! almos every week i can see that unforgettable words " The page cannot be found "
and the last thing they do me is change the control pannel, good i said cause plesk sux, what they don;t say is that my account was modified from unlimited mail accounts, and web space, to 20 GB an 15 mail accounts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :angry:


don't sign with them!!!!!!!!!!!!! worst hosting ever!!!!

The best host I have used is www.purple-paw.com
The worst is ********.com

Hi all

WOW 14 Pages!!!! I hope Im not in there! I try my best to give good service!


The worst host I ever had was **********.net

But u could recomand alot of good hosts!

thanks guys...very useful,helpful knowledges :)

the worst company I haven't ever seem is http://www.jmr-hosting.uk.com/ belong to Mark Foster or JMR :stickout: :stickout:

The worst I've come across...

Jumpline when they changed over to Sphera - man did that kill us.
Then we had secured-net.net
then we had smartwebservices (techsupportdesk.com)
then we have slowly gaining up on them MEHOST and if they continue to carry on the way they are going they will get 1st place

Best hosts to date - e_x_p_e_r_t_h_o_s_t.com

The Best: Rackshack and www.speedgamers.com,
The Worst: www.featureprice.com

I can give MeHost the award for least up-time, most crashes, most crowded server. I don't know who owns MeHost, but that person thinks he could break the record of the maximum # of sites hosted on one server (incl. adult sites of course)

www.flexpress.net is the best!

Originally posted by hongjun
www.flexpress.net is the best!


You should not recommend your OWN service! ;)

I would definetly recommend jmr-hosting.uk.com the best host I've every used. Fast, friendly and reliable. :)

There are no good hosts. When you happen to find a good one, they sell it to someone who is not as good.

Signed,
Absolutely Frustrated

www.flump.net is our reseller host, they may not provide the cheapest price, but they provide the best support, 1 second response, cause they use msn messenger.

We provide host for small business, most of clients' website just have 2MB web space and 3MB email box.

It is useless to provde 2GB webspace. there is only one Yahoo, but lots small business.

can someone kindly compile the Best and Worst webhost from all these pages?? my eyes go blurred :stickout:

Originally posted by Prisoner
There are no good hosts. When you happen to find a good one, they sell it to someone who is not as good.


Well, not everyone is so eager to get Borged :)

Kevin

hostwayuk were very good although only with them for a very short period, after i found fluidhosting.com. Someone i had never heard of before, but they are feature rich and at good prices. Pretty fast too.

I have used quite a few hosts,
The best two i have used so far are:
www.planetshosting.com
AND
www.turnkeyhosting.com

Both have great support which i think is one of the most important things about a host,
Their plans are very reasonable too :)

<removed> www.rcthost.com

please take a look at www.amazinghost.net , an affordable windows host, best service and feature out there on the market at this price ;)

however currently now, they're moving their office to bigger location, so their service is a bit slow down.

Originally posted by dtblizz
www.gameroutlet.com is the best ive had.. cuz its my site..
You don't say. Hmmm.

Worst: C I H o s t . c o m, hostrocket.com (http://hostrocket.com), and burlee.com (http://burlee.com) for bad customer service.

Best: Futurequest (http://futurequest.net) which has excellent support - I really liked the community forums - but I wanted mysql and it was too pricey so I moved. For now, I like glidehosting.com (http://glidehosting.com) and although I kind of miss having forums, the service & support is good enough for the price I'm getting. I've been with them since July 2002.

It seems to me that the web hosting industry is in a frazzle.

It takes money to run a good web hosting service, but you have to compete with cut-rate hosts. Many cut-rate hosts lie to their customers to bring them in, and then go out of business when the customers discover the truth. Then, they reappear under another name and do the same scam.

Good AND affordable services may grow so fast that the managers are unable to handle it, and they become BAD or get sold to bad new owners.

It is very difficult to determine which services are among the good ones. I know because I am still evaluating a number of services. I've had some unpleasant experiences, and a few good ones.

What I want is a: STABLE (don't do experiments on the production servers. Plan your upgrades and give fair warnings), REASONABLE (this does not mean cheap. I will pay more than bargain prices for good service), RESPONSIVE (update your customers on what is happening with that server that went down, and do it often) service that I can stick with.

the worst geocities

Originally posted by d3nnis
can someone kindly compile the Best and Worst webhost from all these pages?? my eyes go blurred :stickout:

I hear ya! I'm baffled!

WORST: GISOL
BEST: Still looking :)

Best Discount hosting: Hostyard
Best Reseller hosting: Voxstreme

Least enjoyable discount hosting: 5bucksamonth *It has been many years, though...
Lease enjoyable reseller:mchost.

hrm.. tripod?! :D

:spam: but to do it more than once. aww c'mon now.


Originally posted by dtblizz
www.gameroutlet.com is the best ive had.. cuz its my site.. but other than that,
www.rcthost.com

I got off that sinking ship 12 days after it sailed. lost my money, but I didnt care they are crooks! I did not see that
situation getting any better.


Originally posted by Kiwichan
Bounceweb.com is the worst host I've seen... my friend hosts with them and his domain name doesn't resolve to his site, but it redirects it to Bounceweb.com - showing their own site, but not his... and they said it's his problem. What a way to run their webhosting service... I guess that's why they put the 'no money' back there, but then I guess that's a big warning sign.

There's absolutely no service or support... they've even disabled their messageboard because everyone was complaining about bad service, etc etc.

Originally posted by thomor25
Share the knowledge....

:D :D HTTPme is the best I've run across.

1. Quick responses by HTTPme staff to support questions on their Forum.

2. Quick responses by HTTPme technical staff when helpdesk tickets are opened.

3. Fantastic community of peers with all kinds of expertise, knowledge, and skills.

4. Great owner who cares about his business and his clients.

Not cheerleading for them, they've proven their worth over and over in customer support and service, that's the bottom line and it works for me.

Frank

Originally posted by soniqueblue
:D :D HTTPme is the best I've run across.
1. Quick responses by HTTPme staff to support questions on their Forum.
2. Quick responses by HTTPme technical staff when helpdesk tickets are opened.
3. Fantastic community of peers with all kinds of expertise, knowledge, and skills.
4. Great owner who cares about his business and his clients.
Not cheerleading for them, they've proven their worth over and over in customer support and service, that's the bottom line and it works for me.
Frank
What a nice first post Frank! Bobby couldn't have written it better himself!

Especially as it comes just after this thread about how there is a preference for httpme to lay on the spin in WHT rather than allow realistic discussions about their operations:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=118831

Glad to hear things are working out well for you there.

I chose SuccessfulHosting.com after a 3 day search. I've been with them for about 1yr now and have had no serious trouble. Their customer service could not be any better. The minor problems that I have had have been taken care of imediately. There is always someone there. I have not experience any long down times. Also, the speed seems to be very good. I have customers from all over the world and have received very few complaints about it. The ones that I have received were at times that I was having the same trouble due to factors beyond their control (backbone they are on was having trouble). Overall, I am very pleased with my decision to use their service.

So, fortunately for me, the best and only is SuccessfulHosting.com and the worst is yet to be discovered and hopefully stays that way.

I have been with racknine for a month and I decided to just stop hosting all together. I looked on their site to see how to cancel my account and I could not find anything. So I emailed them...I never hear back from them. I think...ok...maybe my email didn't got though so I emaield again...still nothing.

These people don't reply to emails!

Anyone else have this problem.

I tried to cancel a week before I was suppposed to be billed and now I have paid another month for no reason.

If anyone knows how to cancel an account with racknine please fill me in. Also I would not recommend them especially if you want help with anything having to do with your account.

I should have known something was weird when they did not reply to my emails asking about the hosting...it was my fault I guess.

John

Best: Adehost , they had great service and uptime, very good support and helped me even with 3rd party scripts not to mention they didn't mind my payment being late a few times

Worst: Technohosts , they're gone now but constant downtimes, horrible speeds (good at first) , then after about 3 months the owner chris transferred us to adehost and ran without paying them so we were left in the cold

worst and not recommended: liquidweb, cqhosting
best and recommended: voxtreme, zylink


best for me: ADDR (hear too many bad things about them, but my experience with them was the best)
worst for me: Aventure (my experience sucked, but they supposedly have a good rep)

The majority of replies in this thread are pointless. How can you post a reply and just list a host that is good or bad.

A bad host to one person could be a dream host for another and vice versa.

If you consider a host is bad then you should list what your requirements were at that time and explain how that host did not meet those requirements. Likewise if you consider a host to be the best you should list what your requirements were at that time and explain how they met or exceeded those requirements.

To just say suchandsuchhosting company was the best or worst I have ever been with is completely meaningless to anybody but yourself.

Just my 2cents

Hostonce.com are by far the worst fraudsters I have ever come across. Very cheap and you pay upfront for a year then watch as your site is continually down.

shame..

Geez...

Lotsa people hate FeaturePrice and C-I-H-o-s-t.
Now I don't even dare to open their website. :eek2:

Best host I have used: byzhosting (http://www.bzyhosting.com)

Worst host: None :) All hosts i have used for the past 6 years ar quite good :)

Well, lets see.

If I want to shamelessly advertise, then

BEST: QubeFactor Hosting - http://www.qubefactor.com


Otherwise,

BEST: DeidcatedNow, eHost.com, Reflected.net

"Eh": Infinology.com (nice prices and services, occasional mixups) PCModKingdom.com (hosted out of a basement on a cable connection, no cpanel or anything)

WORST: SiteTurn.com - Hardly any support, no control panel for domain names, takes forever for things to get done with them

Ian

I use http://www.mark1hosting.com because they have personal and proffesional customer support you can phone them when you need or use AIM / Messenger. They are almost always online to responde.

The packages don't seem to be expensive either.

Stay away from nocster /burstnet they wiill bring you heart ache.

Too right Nocester Burst.Net are awful!!

BEST: WWW.RUSKO.US and WWW.DOUBLEHOST.NET
WORST: WWW.APLUS.NET

Why don't I just tell you how to qualify a host:

I do all my own hosting and have my own POP's and I do no advertising. My business is 100% word of mouth. My business encompasses more than just hosting, so I will leave it at that.

1. When you do a "whois" on their domain and a domain they host (these are most likely different servers. If it is on the same server, there is something wrong.

2. Find out the IP's of the nameservers and the website. They should ALL be from different classes of IP's. Take Verio or Webhosting.com for examples.

3. I am not one to bitch about price, because the tendency is that the higher the price, the better. More often than not, this is the case. You also get what you pay for.

4. If you don't know what you are doing, don't host. People like you are a support ngihtmare. Just being honest.

5. See if the hosting company OWNS there own IP's or at least are given routing permission to BGP. If not, the network is at the mercy of the bandwidth provider. If they go down...you have to sit there and wait because your host cannot do anything. If you are a host and do not own your own IP's, I mean no offence, but this is a fact.

6. The equipment matters. Many smaller hosts do not own their equipment (even though they say they do) and or buy cheap equipment. You know that if a company uses equipment that is lower grade, it is more succeptable to downtime. Here are a few guidelines:

Cisco: Switch - 2948 low end good switch
Extreme: 48si low end good switch
cisco: 7206 VRX Router - probably crash and die from a dos attack
Juniper: Can't go wrong - Router
Riverstone - Don't know too much, but good
Foundry - again, not too much knowledge, but good
Linksys - Run...run very far away - this is made for the home network, not for hosting your account.
Nortel - Pretty harcore if they have this.
Netopia - ummm..refer to linksys

the bigger the bad boy, the more it can handle. OH..and you cannot BGP without Layer3, so if your host has no idea of OSI layers...you better move on.

7. Again, I will get flamed, but those hosts that accept PayPal are small or smaller and do not have the ability to give you killer SLA's. Again..Verio, Webhosting.Com, Olm, Media3, valuweb..blah blah.

8. The common misconception of "you must have the top of the line dual processor 8 million gigs of ram....blah blah"..On the contrary, IF your host is good and they monitor properly, the these issues should be put to rest. You can be on a PIII 700 with 256 MB RAM and if administered properly and no processor intensive sites, you should be more than fine.

9. Not only do DNS and website servers NEED to be separate, but SQL, email (email should have a secondary backup which many newer hosts do not and you find out that when downtime comes, you are up the creek and have bounced mail) and Cold Fusion (third party software like this).

10. Those hosts that have been in the industry for 4 or more years and do not have the name "host" (excluding webhosting.Com/Net and Org) in it are usually the more industry leading host. In some cases, this is not true, but the longer a host is around ..well, they must be doing something right.

In the times before ... webhosting was not a catch phrase, so typical companies like webcom.com and verio.netnever took notice. Don't you think webcom.com would have registered webhosting.com if they knew it's true value? I know I would have when I registered my domain in early '96.

----------------

I will not say that you are guaranteed to find the ultimate host if you follow these rules, but I will say that there is a good chance that you probably will find one that you will stick with for a long long time.