Changes, Changes

[bjarvis]

Like many others, I've become tired of LJ's never-ending DDOS issues. I'm going to post directly on Dreamwidth now, using their cross-post ability to duplicate posting to LJ. If I've set this up correctly, this particular post will by my first in this fashion.

After hosting my own web site & email on a home Linux box for nearly two decades, I've also decided it's no longer necessary for me to do this on my own. 20 years ago, hosting services for reasonable prices were few and far between; these days, it's a commodity. The mailing lists on my box have already been moved elsewhere so all that remains are two personal domains and one web site in each.

I've stuck it out with Earthlink DSL the past 15 years because they let port 25 & 80 traffic through to my box directly; many Internet service providers will block those ports to prevent home servers like mine being installed. If I retired my Linux server, I can finally drop the DSL in favor of a vastly faster system, like Verizon's FIOS, currently available on our neighborhood.

So, Dear Lazywebz... any recommendations for a hosting service at a reasonable price? In particular, I need to support two different domains with at least three email accounts and/or auto-forwarders, and a simple non-commercial no-frills web site in each.

At the moment, I'm checking out GoDaddy.com ('cause they're my current domain registrar), fatcow.com ('cause my square dance club uses them) and 1and1.com ('cause I saw an ad in a magazine). Which others should I check out?

Comments

[davidlevine]

GoDaddy has a bad rep among my web-savvy friends (e.g. http://mkhobson.livejournal.com/631818.html). The local science fiction conventions use dreamhost.com for hosting and it seems to work well. I use moniker.com for registration; it's overkill for the two domains I maintain but it works well and is reasonably inexpensive.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I've heard the same about GoDaddy over the years --I think allanh has had similarly bad experiences.

I'll go look at dreamhost.com... thanks!

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Godaddy are a bunch of evil fucktards. DO NOT USE THEM

Instead, I endorse A2 Hosting http://a2hosting.com

If you do go with them, I may be able to give you a promo code, so let me know before you pull the trigger.

I like them because they have unlimited transfer and storage, as well as connections with a few CDNs should you need them (if you even start to do video/audio podcasting for example) They also have 1click installs for many popular environments (ruby on rails, wordpress, etc). I also love them because they have PostgreSQL as well as the ubiquitous MySQL for your database needs.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

I too recommend a2hosting. I've used it for myself and we have used it for lcfd.org for a few years with no problems. Once I called support and talked to a real person after a problem with my password and an attempt to reset it.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

I've had very good luck on GoDaddy...and they'll let you synchronize all of your renewals to the same date, which is rather handy.

[wescobear]

I cannot answer your question but I can comment that I'm pleased with FiOS. I have a two year deal on a triple play package for $86 (including 1 set box and about $8 in taxes) and I'm very happy. The downside is that you need a set top box for each tv that will receive anything more than a handful of local channels and those suckas are HUGE! The FiOS box is the size of an old fashioned VCR.

[bjarvis]

I'm cautious about a total commitment to FIOS. We're happy with Dish Network being our television provider currently so I'm going to just go with telephone & Internet service for now.

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

I've been using GoDaddy for registration for many years. I hosted one company website with them, but that was a minor disaster. I still use them for registrations, but not for hosting.

I have veered back and forth on hosting companies. IAGSDC is hosted with ServerPoint, which is highly reliable (5x9's up time) but has fairly poor management tools. The reason we hosted with them initially (7 years ago) was that at that time they were the only company that could meet our needs for subwebs and FTP accounts. Now many companies do those things as a normal part of their business.

I loved, reverted to hate, and now love again, Lunarpages for hosting. They have some excellent tools for hosting, including the ability to host and properly administer any number of domains under one account; since I have a number of minor sites that have very little traffic, I've been able to pool those under a single Lunarpages account with corresponding savings. They are much more flexible in email setup than a number of other companies. So this year (month, week, day...) Lunarpages are my favorite hosting company.