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Okay, hope this rant isn't too off-topic.
What I want to know is why can't I find any decent review sites for Web Hosting?? So, I'm hoping to dip my toes into the world of creating my own website. I've got a modest budget (~$50 p/yr or so) and limited experience. I thought I would do some research about which Web Hosting (and domain registration) services are most recommended (shouldn't be too difficult, right?), but I was amazed that I couldn't find ANY decent review sites! Of course, there are dozens of websites that claim to provide reviews for Web Hosting, but they are all somewhere between useless and ridiculous. I found several reviews sites that gave 4.5-5 stars for every single Web Hoster. Another reviewer began every single review with, "This is another great company...". And none of them provide useful cost comparisons; they only list the entry price. I don't CARE that HipHopWebStop has Plans that "start from" $2 p/month! That doesn't tell me anything about what the service is really going to cost. ("You too can get started for ONLY TWO CENTS A WEEK!!*" *[Prices subject to change. 30 year contract required. Price adjusted to $17 per day after the first fortnight. $5 p/hr extra for javascript support.])
What the world needs (IMHO) is a side-by-side comparison of the top 10 or 20 Web Hosting companies including actual 1-yr, 2-yr, 3-yr costs, what features are included for free, how much all the "extras" cost, technical specs (OS, languages, database support, etc), and HONEST USER REVIEWS about things like tech support, uptime, bandwidth and overall experience. If anybody can find (or build) a review site like this, could you please let me know about it?
Thank you. I'm done now.
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kdmote wrote: What the world needs
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is ...
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If you are on the business of making a new web site, don't start doing anything unless you've read all the SEO guidelines out there...
Once you've started getting indexed any change is like starting from scratch.
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As I understand it, they all suck.
I'd rather be phishing!
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kdmote wrote: What the world needs (IMHO) is a side-by-side comparison of the top 10 or 20 Web Hosting companies
Why?  Web hosting is not a car that you buy every few years so comparisons may be valuable. I think most of us pick one then stick to it if they provide good service or change otherwise.
Also considering limited "supply" of hosting companies I don't see any way to verify the reviews are not "sponsored". Instead if you are looking for a hosting try to find 2-3 that you heard of before, check if they have features you are interested in and SLA and then google them for problems people may have with them.
No review site will provide you such information like constant support topics of "site goes down constantly" or "network is crawling at peak hours".
--
"My software never has bugs. It just develops random features."
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Web hosting is not a car
Yeah, but fifty bucks is fifty bucks. I dont want to get stuck with a Hoster that's going to charge me an arm and an elbow for things that i don't even know I'm going to need yet. (Like Whois protection or whatever). And, I know you can't guarantee non-sponsored reviews on public sites (all user-review sites are apparently 20-50% astroturf), but a savvy reader ought to be able to sift through that. What I'm looking for is large groups of experienced users saying, "I've used this for x years and I've been pleased with uptime", etc.
modified 27-Oct-15 13:25pm.
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I'm sorry to say that but $50 a year is actually quite cheap. Mind that it actually is a beer once a month (maybe 2 depending where you live).
For that price you can get a good deal for hobby site and to try some things, but if you want hosting for high profile, high availability and high traffic site that also needs fast and large database and maybe some other services it will easily burn that $50 in minutes
Than again. Do your research and if you are not sure what you are buying then don't go for 2 year contract first
--
"My software never has bugs. It just develops random features."
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1: DO NOT USE ARVIXE. They have suddenly become terrible.
2: Moved to SmarterASP.Net [^]. So far, so good.
3: Eventually, push everything to Amazon. May cost a little more but is probably worth it.
Good luck - if you get stuck... you're on your own.
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Set up a free Amazon EC2 instance with your poison of choice (Ubuntu, Windows, whatever), with or without Apache/Passenger/IIS, with or without PostgreSQL, SQL Server Express, SQLite even, and start coding. I use namecheap for registering a domain and it's easy to point it to the EC2 instance, just define an elastic IP (horrible name) first.
Me personally, I just use my own web server rather than go the IIS/ASP.NET/Razor/MVC route, but you can easily set that up too if you want to go more mainstream.
Once you've got the EC2 instance set up, I'd suggest option A: set up FileZilla (do not use their installer, it's full of malware crap for some reason) and follow the steps in this[^] excellent CP article on configuring the ports.
Option B: I also use a Bitvise SSH server[^] along with WinSCP, which I find easier to use than FTP.
However, I typically keep both services turned off unless I need them. Once you set up an EC2 instance (or anything anywhere on the cloud, you'll find China starts trying to hack your site within minutes. Yes, minutes.)
When you're ready for the big time, look at StartSSL[^] to go https with a free certificate.
Total cost to you in dollars, zero.
Marc
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Some very intriguing advice, here. Thanks. I'm going to have to sift through it. (Dumb question: what's the FileZilla/Bitvise step for? Is that the only way to transfer my content to EC2?) (2nd dumb question: what do I have to worry about regarding Chinese hackers?)
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kdmote wrote: what do I have to worry about regarding Chinese hackers?
I've heard they bring Won Ton of troubles! (Sorry, couldn't resist it!)
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kdmote wrote: what's the FileZilla/Bitvise step for? Is that the only way to transfer my content to EC2?
You can set up Remote Desktop for file sharing[^] but because I didn't know how to do that until just now when I looked it up, and because I like to develop & test locally, then upload with an auto-FTP uploader the latest "release", I like FTP. WinSCP is great for general fussing with the file structure, and faster than working through an RD.
By the way, one more recommendation: definitely use FluentMigrator[^]
I love how I can program DB changes in a fluent syntax, like:
Create.Table("ParticipantHowHearAbout").
WithColumn("Id").AsInt32().Identity().PrimaryKey().NotNullable().
WithColumn("ParticipantId").AsInt32().NotNullable().
WithColumn("HowHearAboutId").AsInt32().NotNullable();
and package the migration DLL as part of the upload. When I restart the server, it automatically runs the migrations (here's my whole class that does that):
public static void RunDatabaseMigration(string dbname)
{
string connectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[dbname].ConnectionString;
string migrateExe = Path.GetFullPath("..\..\..\libs\migrate.exe");
try
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo(migrateExe, "-c \"" + connectionString + "\" --db SqlServer -a migrations.dll");
psi.UseShellExecute = false;
psi.RedirectStandardError = true;
psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
Process migrator = new Process();
migrator.OutputDataReceived += (sender, args) => sb.AppendLine(args.Data);
migrator.ErrorDataReceived += (sender, args) => sb.AppendLine(args.Data);
migrator.StartInfo = psi;
migrator.Start();
migrator.BeginOutputReadLine();
migrator.BeginErrorReadLine();
migrator.WaitForExit();
Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("Error running migrations: " + ex.Message);
}
}
and the database is brought up to date. I use it also to create tons of test data in a test database for performance tests and demos. FluentMigrator is the cat's meow, and migrations is one of the things I actually thought was cool when I worked with Ruby on Rails.
kdmote wrote: what do I have to worry about regarding Chinese hackers?
Yes and no. You definitely want to make sure that pages like setting passwords, administration, etc., are authenticated and your admin passwords are not, well, default! I've watched IP's originating from China trying usernames and passwords like "admin/admin".
And while Amazon sets up an administrator account with a password that looks like gobbledygook, the less number of ways to hack into my website (especially since it is a live website for a non-profit), the better.
Marc
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This info would make for a fantastic article. Unless there already is one.....
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kdmote wrote: regarding Chinese hackers?
Most newer FTP server software includes Dynamic IP filtering that stops most of the hacking. My home/office server is IIS 7.0 (the last version before dynamic IP filtering) so I've had to deal with it another way...just let 'em in. Why?
I got tired of seeing hours of hacking attempts on the Administrator/Administrateur/Administratore/Administrador account, so I setup an FTP account named Administrator with a password of 'admin' and gave it read-only access to it's own private folder containing a single text file belittling the scumbags. Recently, I received a less than polite message made up from the usernames in the log file.  That one actually traced back to the Netherlands. I lookup the CIDR for any abuser and blacklist them. China hasn't been nearly as much of a problem (entertainment) since I did a mass import (deny list) of known Chinese address blocks. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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This is the type of site I'm looking for: honest, candid, informed reviews from an experienced customer. Unfortunately this particular post only compares two alternatives(one of which I've already ruled out based on principle).
modified 27-Oct-15 15:02pm.
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GoDaddy is evil. I've done a domain search to find a name that was available, and seconds later, trying to register it, it has mysteriously become unavailable, but I can now buy it at some ridiculous price.
I never went back to those ***holes.
Marc
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That just happened to me a few minutes ago. I thought I was seeing things!
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Okay, so $50/yr is not a large figure. What is that, about 1hr of wages?
I use my own Amazon server, it costs me about $16/mo for my own server.
In fact, you can try their FREE server, if you want Linux.
And that gets into the second part. What are you looking for? Hosting simple html? Hosting PHP or .Net?
These are all radically different. GoDaddy has hosting.
Depends on what you need/want.
I have used about 4 hosting companies (outside of amazon). Some charged low fees, and throttled my site as a VM (once we exceeded some limits). But it was CHEAP. We watched clients forced through a merger (or two) of these companies, and get told they are not going to be supported in 2-3 months after the merger (old, custom configurations).
How much support?
How much access?
How much are you relying on them to keep all of the security stuff patched?
Are you going to need MSSQL? (One of the sites, I can access the NAMES of every database they host. Based on most users, I could probably guess what the passwords are, and access other peoples data).
You should go check out the prices of AdWords from google... You $50 would not last you a week, and may not last more than a few clicks! So, I am not sure how you intend to drive users to your site.
To me, I ran into the same problem when looking for hosting companies, but the problem is really hard. Hosting of Linux or windows? Self service or full service? Really secure or Really Cheap?
And the field is constantly changing as well. HostGator was decent a while back. But their cheapest level is like $5/month (which is NOTHING in my opinion), and that already exceeds your limits.
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Unless you're willing to spend at least $10 per month, I don't think there is any point looking.
You'll spend more time "collecting tools", comparing, domain registering, certifying, etc., than being live.
It's a tax deductible business expense.
If it's a "hobby", build you own site first on your own machine; all the components are free (IIS express; ASP.NET; etc.).
If you can get a decent site running at "home" first, then one can consider more "economical" hosting sites.
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I've been using "WinHost" for a couple of years now and they seem to be pretty good. Costs, oh, $100/year or something (I have 2 domains up there). I'm starting to host client databases up there (SQL Server) and the performance appears acceptable to them. FWIW...
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I'm going to chime in with another cloud provider - which makes it dead simple to set up a website, and is cheap, too (free to start with):
Heroku
Go with Namecheap.com for your domain (another low cost good one is name.com) - or, if you want to be ultra-super-cheap - you can get a .ml domain for free:
www.point.ml
For free DNS (if you need it):
freedns.com
Ultimately - if you do things right, you can set up a website for free - completely free. It won't have the best domain, nor the best processing power or space (or bandwidth) - but it will be enough to experiment with, and build your website. Once you get to a point where you are ready to launch, pony up for a bit of extra dough (and really, it will be a very minor amount) to get a real domain, up the hosting, etc.
Note that there are many good things about Heroku - for one, it is very easy to set up and maintain your cloud server. The gui is dead simple; I haven't checked Amazon lately, but the last time I did, they didn't make it very simple to get things up and going (and to know how much you would be charged). Also - most cloud server providers offer a very cheap sliding scale of things; you can even sometimes have auto-ramp-up for loads (as well as ways to cap things), and re-size your system up and down as your needs change. Backup can be made automatic, plus many other features - too many to name, and it will vary depending on the provider.
Oh - one other service to get (once you have your site launched, mainly):
www.cloudflare.com
They basically make CDN easy - and if your site become really popular (or you get DDOS'd) - they'll absorb the load before it gets to your hosting provider, so you don't get a huge bill in the mail from them.
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Movie Quote Of The Day
I've come here to create a new country for you called chaos, and a new government called anarchy.
Which movie ?
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W.
(the movie, not the letter...)
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