Web Hosting Needs
Hey all,
This has nothing to do with MySQL. Sorry about this, but I am at a loss. Several months ago I switched from using godadday shared hosting that I had used for about a year and a half. It wasn’t because of their service, which was always good, but because of the fact that I got sick of how they started using very blatent sexuality in their commercials. You may laugh at that, and that is fine, but I have four kids and think about such things. Anyways, I switched to another shared-website hosting solution. They lasted a month until some script kiddie broke into the host server through ftp (wow..imagine that..breaking in through an unencrypted access point).
Not only did I have to find out about this from a reader of my site, but I was told by the hosting company that I needed to change my password and clean up everything and they weren’t going to do anything about it.
Because of the following I decided to change again:
- I didn’t cause the problem
- there never should have been a problem in the first place
- a simple script run from the root directory could have searched through all accounts and grepp’ed and sed’ed the offending lines from the html and php saving me and other hosted sites hours of work
I decided that it was time to have a bit more control over things. So, I got a vps with another company. Now I could keep the stupid things from happening, but three times in two weeks my entire vps has gone unavailable. Today it was for almost six hours. No reason given.Is it is just me or is this infuriating? So, I am going to change again very soon. This time I am going to solicit some input as I seem to make bad choices when it comes to hosting. I have to stop changing providers as it just causes more problem. I am looking for a Xen-based vps. Open to suggestions 
Again, sorry for the bother about such an off-topic item. Please forgive me but I am pulling out my rapidly greying hair.
5 Comments so far
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http://www.JohnCompanies.com always gets good reviews. I used them for a while a few years back and never had any problems. If you google around I’m sure you’ll find other reviews. Also, http://www.webhostingtalk.com is full of reviews, sellers, and good info for topics like this. You can do another search there to see what others have experienced.
I did the switcheroo thing from one host to another for a while too. I’ve landed on Pair networks (http://www.pair.com) and been there for oh, about six years I think. I’ve put at least four client sites on them too, plus my family’s sites and a club I belong to. I have absolutely loved the service. The availability has been good. It hasn’t been zero downtime, but I forget the last time there was a problem. One of the shared servers did start having load issues one time because of another user, and they promptly — and seamlessly — moved me to another shared server.
I’ve seen so many “I’m switching providers again!” blog posts. People love some host, like Dreamhost, and brag about how cheap it is and everything (pair isn’t cheap), then a month later they’re complaining bitterly. I really think you get what you pay for with most hosts.
I use Bitfolk for my vps needs (http://bitfolk.com). I found them to be very reliable, flexible and friendly.
Note: The owner of Bitfolk is a friend of mine, so bear that in mind with my recommendation.
Thanks for the feedback. I will evaluate these and a couple of others I have gathered from people around the office. I am going to try and ride out the rest of month that I have with the current provider before switching, but if there is another downtime event like this I will immediately start switching over to whomever I decide on. Thanks again!!
Keith
For my personal work I used to use godaddy vps. I switched 4 months ago now because my linux skills were not up to par to update all of my services such as php/apache/mysql and my server quickly became a target of all of these script kiddies. I offered to pay godaddy to help with updating my vps but they declined saying your vps your problem basically. I now use MediaTemple and love it I use the GridServer package and allows me to have the power of a vps but MediaTemple updates all of the services so I dont have to have the pain of doing so.
Cheers,
-Michael