The official hosting companies thread

I use 1T3 to host ATS. They have a lot of cool features and the prices are very good in my opinion.

 

for forums, i strongly reccommend cgi2you

my review forum is hosted there and it's pretty easy to manage and edit...and it's free.

or if you have a star wars site, or general science-fiction, Jedi Girl isn't too bad.

 

If you don't mind spending a bit more money, and need plenty of features with your host, try WebAxxs. It's a little more expensive than some others, but has tons of value-added features, most of which I use.

 

Php Forums Easy to customize forums and downloadable.

Another free host, Free Webs

And Fan Sites

 

I use ICDSoft, as well. $7/mo, 333 MB, over a 1G tranfer, unlimited POP3 accounts. $5 domain registration and fee setup. FrontPage extentions, which I use. It also has a MySQL database, but I'll probably die before I figure out how to use the damn thing. Anyway, my only gripe thus far is that they don't support ASPs, which makes lexu sad. If I ever figure out the MySQL php stuff, I'll probably be content, but things don't look promising.

 

Netfirms.com

Netfirms are very good. I use them myself, and I've rarely been let down, even on the free service. The prices are also quite cheap, considering the service they offer, and the package deals available.

 

brinkster.com basic is free. no ads. i've been there for 2 years now.

 

Just a warning, Websots is not a reliable host. I just discovered a couple days ago, they deleted my 6 fan art and didn't even give me a warning.

You cannot trust webshots. I thought they were a good alternative to bravenet.com, but now, I think I'll jsut stick with bravenet.

~aeryn

 

<shameless plug>

I use http://www.thenetbox.com .

</shameless plug>

 

I considering moving part of my site to Brinkster. Anybody got any reasons why I shouldn't? What kind of ads do they have?

 

If you get a general account, there are no ads. (I only have a general account, so I can't say what the other packages are like). And there are forums, html, javascript forums, whatever.

~aeryn

 

hostsearch.com

 

I would have to agree with AERYN regarding Webshots.

I placed all of my fan art there. And they kept removing pieces, then telling me that they were copyright infrigement. Odd that they wouldn't have taken them ALL down. I had to write them emails explaining what "fan art" is. They then said I could repost them.
The problem is, as I was told by one of their representatives...after many emails, is that they have a lot of people going through to check the content of each user. (Those people are the ones who determine what stays on your site...if it's appropriate or not.) And what's worse is that once they've removed the pics they can't tell you why they did it because they have no record of what they remove.

So, I dropped them like a bad habit


I've used www.50megs.com now since January and have had no problems what-so-ever.

 

Brinkster looks good, but there are several things wrong with it:

1) You have to grant them rights to use your content.
2) You can't have certain types of files like .wav or .avi, both of which I probably will have.

 

What is the lowest cost hosting that has domain registration, at least 200 mb/month bandwidth and at least 50 mb storage, and no ads? I don't need server side scripting or databases at the moment, but if it comes with it it'll be a bonus.

If I can make some money I want to get my site hosted.

Right now, my ISP only allows 25 mb/month bandwidth and 5 mb storage.

 

I don't know which one is the lowest but I can tell you how I found mine, which had a reasonable price and the features I wanted (like PHP, MySQL, Linux platform, subdomains). I used a hsting directory, specifcally HostSearch.com:

HostSearch

I particulalry liked that it had some very useful advenced search features like you could specify maximum price, minimum amount of disk space, bandwitdh transfer per month, which DB or scripting languages should be provided, etc. and even do it by region, in case you want a company relatively close to you.

After I found some good candidates I rad the reviews in the site to narrow it down. The few I had left I checked with the Better Business Bureau website and on features and picked one. I've been very happy with them expecpt for the fact I don't get an email when they upgrade the kernel, MySQL or something major that takes your site down for a little while. It would be great to have a heads up but beides that no major problems.

There are also many other hosting directories so you'll be plenty busy just doing the research as sometimes you'll get tons of listings:

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Communications_and_Networking/Internet_and_World_Wide_Web/Network_Service_Providers/Hosting/Web_Site_Hosting/Directories/

sorry for the long link but the BB code didn't like it that long, appaertnly the board is inserting a space.

 

According to the directory, some can be had for 1 to 3 dollars per month. Doesn't sound too bad as soon as I get some money. Sounds good. Thanks.

 

doteasy is the best if you are on a tight budget and don't need to run any scripts or anything.

As far as hosting with sql, php, perl, and all that other fun stuff. I have had good luck with endore.

I would recommend the Apache hosting. It's much cheaper and you can do all you can on the Windows hosting.

I also have a little bit of room on my site and some extra bandwidth and I would be willing to host a couple sites ad free. Just contact me. I am a little bit picky, but not too bad.

 

If you want to do things right, research the company at WebHostingTalk.

Do a search, browse the topics, etc.

 

I've always stuck Geocities for my main website building needs. I use CJB.Net for my hosting of that.

For free UNLIMITED image hosting, i use Image Magician. Just register a free account. It says it only lasts for 2 weeks, but keep using it and it will work fine.

 

You have to grant them rights to use your content.

brinkster does this? that's just one more reason I despise brinkster now. (they decided a couple months ago that in order to serve their clients better, general users must pay to have no ads on their websites).

~aeryn

 

Holy side-scolling, Batman!

Yeah, I'm looking for a new host now that Brinkster has those stupid ads. Preferably something with remote linking ...

 

The bad:
gisol.com
globat.com

The good:
http://www.webmasters.com/
http://www.lunarpages.com/

The story:
I'm relatively new to the whole webhosting arena, but I've had business with 4 separate companies within the span of 4 months. I was an admin with Phatooine.net when we needed a new server back in Oct. Phat is primarily a phpBB site. And though its traffic is moderate, it certainly isn't a bandwidth hog. Nevertheless, the first two hosts we tried proved unreliable and downright shady. We experienced multiple problems with uptime and site access. Not to mention we still haven't recouped the costs of doing business with those two companies. So do yourselves a favor and stay away from globat.com & gisol.com.

I am currently with http://www.webmasters.com/ for my current site DauntlessMedia.net (which is also a phpBB site). It's been reliable and user-friendly. I'd recommend it to anyone needing Linux-based hosting, especially for phpBB sites.

Phatooine (under a new admin) moved to http://www.lunarpages.com/ recently and as far as I know has had no difficulties as of yet.