Host experiences and testimonials thread

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  • sicktracks
    Member
    • Nov 2002
    • 60

    #46
    The absolute worst host I ever dealt with is www.cihost.com These people are criminals! Not only do they lie about your bandwidth, but they RAPE you before you ditch them. Proof that they lied to me...They would send me an email warning me I'm about to go over my bandwidth usage. So after the first couple months of paying out my ass for the overages I decided to take action. The second I got the first email, which was I believe the 3rd week of the month, I shut my site down altogether. Everything, board, homepage, everything. A week later I get an email telling me I did 10 more gigs of transfer!!! I call them and tell them this and the kid had nothing to say and then promply sent me into a never ending loop between tech and billing. They LIE and are criminals. That is a fact. DO NOT EVER USE THEM.

    Comment

    • Dennis Olson
      Senior Member
      • Oct 2002
      • 2789

      #47
      MadGenius.com

      I use MadGenius.com. It's a small ISP that has a variety of plans available, from $10 a month on up. Great tech support, fast reponse to problems.

      Comment

      • IDN
        Senior Member
        • Apr 2002
        • 4030
        • 3.5.x

        #48
        I have been using Host Culture for about 6 Months now, i've had no problems with them whatsoever, no downtime, ect.

        I been scammed before and it wasnt pretty, Arron has been wonderfull and let me shut down and re open my account at a later time. Changed my domain for the account, no problem.

        Tech support is wonderful and i plan on staying with them for as long as i can

        Reason for writing this is so HC can have some positive feedback on WHT when people search for feedback for them.

        Ryan - http://nerdnations.com
        Running vB since 4-14-2002

        Comment

        • Dribbles
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2002
          • 106

          #49
          Venturesonline (I'm using the V500 plan) is really starting to aggrivate me. My server load is never under 7 ... it's usually somewhere between 12 and 30 ... once it hit 60!!!! I thought server loads under 1 were good, now days I am happy to get 10. I feel ripped off actually.

          Comment

          • DiscussAnything
            Senior Member
            • Nov 2002
            • 166

            #50
            OLM.net
            Hosts www.discussanything.com

            I haven't been with anyone since I started my site other than OLM.net

            Pros:
            -Responsive support
            -Reasonable Prices (700 megs, 15gb/mo, and 5 mySQL DBs for 30/mo)
            -Gzip enabled
            -SSH Command Line Access
            -Allows multiple DBs
            -Great uptime

            Cons:
            -Speed

            Overall Impression:

            If you're a smaller site, OLM.net definately works for you. I started with their 7.95 plan and have just moved up as my site grew. 'Upgrading' to higher usage plans is extremely easy and no additional costs or setup fees.

            The speed issues were not realized until I started having more than 30-40 users on my forums at any single time. OLM limits your max connections to 15, so if you have a larger site you need to switch to a 'high CPU usage' plan (which adds 40/mo). For a site that has a databased of 300-400 megs and 20-30 users on at any time, OLM is a great host with great speed.

            Now I am in the market for a host that will run me 50ish a month, but will allow more connections to MySQL
            www.discussanything.com

            Comment

            • msimplay
              Senior Member
              • Feb 2003
              • 224
              • 3.6.x

              #51
              Try these

              We’ve been around since 2000 and have helped thousands of people create websites. We provide all the tools needed to create a full featured website.


              don't know if any of u have tried them but for me they excellent
              service is prompt , eg they already have my money i paid a year in advance
              but when it comes to service, any question their live Perl desk when that is on most problems solved they have their faq section
              and then they have their Billing , sales and other support sections
              i've not been let don't
              Vbulletin runs fast and smoothly , i've not had any downtime to speak of

              So heres there lowdown
              they have 4 plans the one i'm currently on is
              the advanced plan

              Which has nice control panel, lots of easily installable scripts
              300 mb webspace
              10 Gig data Bandwidth per month
              Unlimited Mysql databases
              php, perl scripts Image magick and all the main stuff
              they got some other pluses too just can;t remember em
              all in all i have been very happy with them
              19.95 per month for my plan

              So if u feel like u need a good host try them out
              rugs|cheap rugs|modern rugs|shaggy rugs|traditional rugs

              Comment

              • landspro
                New Member
                • Aug 2002
                • 8

                #52
                Featureprice Nightmare....

                This is a long post, but if you are thinking about going with Featureprice, I encourage you to read about my recent experiences...

                I am going to vouch for www.venturesonline.com also. I just signed up with them a couple of days ago, and their response to my help requests costs them much more than what I am paying for the service... They have bent over backwards to understand what was going wrong and help me get around the problems in migrating my vbulletin forum from featureprice to their server.

                Sure, I am a stickler about uptime. I was a senior systems engineer for a paper mill responsible for a computer that needed to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I inherited the system when it was in a bad state and improved the reliability to exceed 99.9%. But if you are around computers and networking a lot, you understand that there is an awful lot that can go wrong. As long as the person responsible is capable and doing their best to make sure it doesn't happen for the same reason again, THAT is what matters to ME!

                If you want to hear a HORROR story, I am here to tell you one...

                On March 3, 2001, I purchased the Platinum Package from www.featureprice.com. Their web page said that I would get a month free for signing up on the free package. I paid for a year.

                The first year went fine. I added vbulletin to my site, and a wealth of information began to build on the forum. The forum celebrated its first anniversary....

                Then it happened!

                Suddenly, on Aug. 28, 2002, all the threads in the database were gone! I had to quickly start learning to maneuver around the mysql database to figure out what to do. I noticed the posts were there, but the threads were GONE!

                I learned enough to figure out how to recreate the thread links one by one, and I don't remember exactly all of the details of how I managed it, but one by one, I recreated over 1650 threads, entering the user that created the thread and the last poster, along with their member ids. I had to enter bogus date and times. There wasn't enough time to fix it.

                Meanwhile, I researched this forum and found out that one possilble cause of the problem was that the limits on the database were set incorrectly. I notified featureprice. They said it was a third party software problem. I insisted. They insisted. I told them what I was having to do to recreate the threads. When I approached 10MB, I warned them again that it had better not happen after all that work.

                This was Labor Day weekend. It took me three days and three nights with almost no sleep to recreate the threads. Then, IT HAPPENED! Database errors. The threads were gone... But I have to admit, I was being watched and featureprice believed me. I called. They said it was okay, to keep doing what I was doing, and I did, and it worked.

                The threads are there, but I don' t know that I will ever have time to fix the date/timess.

                On Sept. 30, 2002, I began to get database errors again. The only thing that featureprice would tell me is that they were 'working' on the problem. On Oct. 1, they sent an explanation email saying that a third party had wiped out the disk and that we would be credited one month free service for the time lost on web site. I had to upload all my web pages, reload the vbulletin software, restore the database from a backup.php3 which was all I could do because featureprice would not give me to priviledges or access to Telnet/SSH to do it the right way.

                I lost all the user posted images. The passwords had to be individually reset, and it was another nightmare which caused me many days and nights to recover only to have a corrupted database to this date.

                Nov. 18, 2002, my email stopped working. I notified featureprice. My email service was down until Nov. 25, 2002. Email sent to me was returned saying that I didn't exist.

                Feb. 17, 2002, I started getting email stating that my WEB HOSTING renewal was Due in 14 days. I thought they meant the domain name dues. I paid it. They put a block on me. I called support only to be told to go to live chat, but first I needed a ticket number. I applied for a call ticket. Live chat didn't work.

                Then I received an email that said I was blocked and said to call the sales phone line. Sales said that I had to pay by Mar. 2. I told them about the free month at sign up. They said there had never been such an offer in the history of featureprice. I told them about the free month for the crash. They said get with billing on Live Chat.

                Sales was rude and hung up on me. Live chat didn't work. I was blocked out. I couldn't even log on.

                My local telephone service line went out. It took Bell South 2 days to respond and fix it Meanwhile, the clock was ticking.

                I continued to try Live Chat to no avail. I called Sales again and read them the email message. I was taken off block and able to sign onto live chat. Still no response.

                I paid $25 to get 1 hour guaranteed response on the phone. They called back 2 hours later. I explained the billing error. They acknowledged the free month for down time and said they would give it to me. I received nothing in writing. On the issue of the free month offered at sign up, I was again told that featureprice never made such an offer.

                I FAX'ed them a printed copy of the html that advertised the free month (with the date and time on it). When I walked back into my home from the trip to the place to send the FAX, the phone was ringing. It feature price billing. I was told they could not honor the free month from 2 years ago, that I should have noticed that my billing date was in error a year ago. I told them I never received a bill. I paid in the middle of March to make sure it was paid before April 2, 2002. They said that I should not have paid in March if the bill was not due till April 2.

                I said, but I paid AFTER March 2, 2002 which indicated that I knew it was due on April 2. She said they would NOT honor the free month.

                Meanwhile, all known support telephone numbers left me with a message stating that in order to get support I had to go to their Live Chat. But Live Chat would drop me after an hour of waiting.

                I browsed their web site and found out that I had to move all my web pages and files to a new server and change my domain registration.

                I did some homework, and decided on venturesonline because they use vbulletin and I was able to read their forum.

                I don't have unlimited disk space any more, but I know how much I need. I didn't when I started.

                It has taken me two days to bring the forum up on the server. It would have taken me a lot longer without the extensive support that I received from venturesonline. They went out of their way to not only understand the problems I was encountering, but help me understand what was going wrong.

                The new forum came up just shortly before AOL members started logging on. I had to shut the old forum down until my domain name server change registers throughout t the system. AOL proxies were allowing users to switch back and forth between the two forums, posting on one, reading on the other, sending pm's on one, reading on the other. It was too confusing.

                It has definitely been a nightmare, and I haven't even begun to tell you about the featureprice networking hardware failures...

                I am very pleased with the response and cooperation that I have gotten from venturesonline. They never once treated me as if I were a dummy even though it was obvious that I was learning as I was going. They never closed a help desk ticket saying that it was my problem or a third party software problem. They even sent me links from the vbulletin forum to help me to understand the problem I was dealing with...

                So, I guess it is up to you to decide.... This is only my testimonial...

                Good LUCK!

                Ann B.
                Zone 8b
                Gulf Coast
                Ann B.
                Landscape Propagation Forums

                Comment

                • jackyhow

                  #53



                  is pretty good

                  Comment

                  • RandomLove
                    Senior Member
                    • Aug 2002
                    • 246

                    #54
                    I second what post#46 said, www.cihost.com is very bad. I cancelled my account and they still sending me invoices!! www.site5.com are ok, but they don't have phone support nor a ticketing system, that's very bad. www.verio.com expensive not worth it. www.superb.net prices on the average, I liked their firewall option, but they should improve their service & support, because sometimes support tickets take three days to get answered. www.rackshack.net took their sales 2 working days just to answer a simple question, so I cancelled the request.

                    BTW, all of my experience is with dedicated servers only.

                    Ok, that's it [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]

                    R.L. [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]
                    Last edited by RandomLove; Thu 20 Mar '03, 6:46am. Reason: Added dedicated note

                    Comment

                    • padmaster
                      Senior Member
                      • Mar 2003
                      • 203
                      • 3.0.0 Beta 5

                      #55
                      XO Communications



                      Current plan - X1 - $24.95/month

                      Been with XO for three years now. Never had any problems. Interface is a little rough. A little pricey. Currently looking for something a little cheaper or at least more for my money.

                      Comment

                      • ForeverZero
                        Member
                        • Dec 2002
                        • 62
                        • 3.0.5

                        #56
                        ciwebhosting.com

                        Pros

                        • 1 GB storage
                        • Great Prices
                        • Unlimited traffic, transfer and email accounts
                        • 24/7 Tech support, including phone and trouble tickets
                        • Recently upgraded servers
                        Cons
                        • New servers aren't configured properly
                        • 3 MySQL databases limited to 30MB
                        • Not knowledgable of vBulletin
                        • Old servers had too much downtime

                        Comment

                        • Mr. X
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2001
                          • 1112
                          • 2.3.0

                          #57
                          Pixiehost.com: Signed up for a platinum package, they never even got BACK TO US with the account details, so we cancelled.

                          Fluke? Perhaps, but first impressions are important, and PH failed miserably.
                          website: joe.pcfx.cc
                          forums: pcfx.cc
                          gallery: here

                          Comment

                          • raxafarian
                            Senior Member
                            • Apr 2003
                            • 317
                            • 3.0.0 'Gold'

                            #58
                            CC-hosting

                            CC-hosting:



                            I'm currently using the 'standard' plan. 100.00/yr. 12GB/month, 100MB storage. VB runs very fast...no problems in the 3 weeks we've been running it. My site is: www.thedecostop.com

                            Pros: very quick tech support. This is a small isp and the owner is right on top of things. Upgrading packages is painless. The cost for extra storage is a few bucks/month/100mb. Unlimited (at this time) mysql databases. Gzip.

                            Cons: I hate to advertise them... my site runs so great I'd hate for them to get overloaded . None.


                            Edit: I have around 190 users, 600 threads, and 7000 posts. During the day averaging 25 to 30 online at once.

                            Comment

                            • Angelina
                              New Member
                              • May 2003
                              • 3

                              #59
                              yahoo?

                              I am currently with yahoo. I have seen no comments about them. Does anyone have any? This is so hard trying to find a host. The right one.

                              Comment

                              • Ozark
                                New Member
                                • Jan 2002
                                • 13

                                #60
                                Last month I move from featuerprice.com to http://www.f5hosting.com. I was hesitant to move to a new host, not knowing the potential problems I would encounter with a new hosting company. With so many to chose from, I decided to email 3 hosting companies (on a Saturday) with questions about operating a vBulletin Board. Only one hosting company responded in a timely and answered all of my questions. F5hosting.

                                I made the right choice. I’m amazed with the incredibly fast support response and outstanding customer service! Need vBulletin support? F5hosting knows vBulletin. Great features, great price and outstanding service. I couldn’t ask for more.

                                Comment

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