[m a d r a]

ok. i've just become extremely f**ked off with my ISP of the past 4 years [futurequest] who today effectively took my all my domains down without prior notice until i agreed to remove a graphic one one of them which they had decided was 'unacceptable' and about which we were still in discussion.

i am now urgently seeking another host who can offer me a similar package for a decent price....

+/- 100MB web space
decent number of pop accounts
own cgi-bin
php
mysql
unix or OSX server

[unix virtual server with all the above would be nice]

and in view of futurequest's sudden bout of censorial fundamentalism, i'd like a host that believes in freedom of speech.

anyone got any recommendations or want to warn me off from anyone you've had problems with.

[you may consider this post an official 'dis-recommendation' of futurequest.net.

[zonetuke]

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
You'll find plenty of opinions in the above forum. I use Hostrocket.com and have been pleased with them. Reasonably priced and good service.

matthew

[awaspaas]

check out http://www.getwebspace.com

excellent, personal service, low prices, great performance, im a happy customer

[mgl]

try hostway.com.

check out the ratings on tophosts:
http://www.tophosts.com/top25/displa...amp;max_page=4

hostway is usually in the top 3. I've used them for a year for a few sites and a friend of mine uses them for a dozen sites. we've never had a problem with them. Cheap, fast, and setup is painless. I've had no problems with downtime. The management tools are good.

[VRL]

Originally posted by m a d r a:
<STRONG>ok.
and in view of futurequest's sudden bout of censorial fundamentalism, i'd like a host that believes in freedom of speech.

anyone got any recommendations or want to warn me off from anyone you've had problems with.

[you may consider this post an official 'dis-recommendation' of futurequest.net.</STRONG>

FutureQuest is bad?? I use them without a problem.
If you have a minute, could you say more about this? What happened?

The only one I would avoid - AIT. A nightmare, in my experience. (Billing mistakes, over-billing problems.)

[VRL]

If you do not want to say more about the graphic in question, no problem. I'm just curious.

[m a d r a]

well, i was pretty surprised myself with FQ about all this. as i said i've been with them for four years now and, although i've always thought they were a bit pricey, was prepared to pay the extra for their [up to now] good customer service.

in brief the story is as follows;

i was getting a load of spam a while back from a christian site [porn-free] which campaigns to rid the web of pornography. in the end [as a piss-take] i emailed them posing as a stereotypical stiff upper lip british colonel who claimed to find the bible sexually stimulating and asked for their advice.

the christian site took the email seriously and sent 'the colonel' a 'how to save your soul' reply replete with numerous links to bibilical quotations on the web. i thought this made for quite good comedy, so i posted the correspondence on my site. in my article i took out the links to christian sites in their reply and replaced them with links to porn sites instead.

this was months ago and i neither heard nor thought anything else about it. then on saturday i received a mangled and barely comprehensible email from futurequest which was worded as though it was a response to an enquiry i'd made to them, telling me that my site was in violation of TOS as it was "promoting pornography" and i had 24 hours to remove the offending links. this i did immediately, realising that although the article was just a satire i was in violation by including these links [even tho' i wasn't "promoting pornography" per se.]

i then received another email from FQ demanding that i also remove the graphic from my frontpage which linked to the abovementioned article on the grounds that it too was pornographic. now, have you got your kleenex ready. here's the image in question.......



pretty sexually arousing eh?.... i wrote to FQ again pointing out that by no stretch of the imagination could a picture of jesus with a ridiculously cartoon like pair of breasts stuck on top be considered as pornography. it may offend people's religious sensibilities [and is meant to in the same why i find the fundamentalist crap spewed out by idiots like 'porn-free' offensive] but it is most certainly not pornography.

FQ then emailed me back basically saying "we're right -you're wrong. take it down or else". when i tried to access my site to take down the graphic [realising that FQ weren't prepared to enter into any kind of debate about it] i found that FQ had not only taken down the site in question but had also taken down another domain i host with them which was not under any dispute at all.

i emailed them again and they 'reconnected my site' with the further warning that i had one hour to remove the graphic or all my sites would be taken down again permanently.

i found it all pretty heavy-handed and bullying. all the more so in view of the fact that deb from futurequest has been sounding off, on the web, to anyone that will listen over the past few weeks whingeing about how big evil paypal have been bullying sweet little futurequest. pot calling kettle black or what?

well, that's about the size of it. i did make a genuine mistake with the text links in my article, which i remedied within minutes of receiving FQ's first complaint but FQ's attitude towards the graphic [ie. take a very dubious stance and then bully me into compliance without allowing any debate] has just got me thinking, do i really want to host with them anymore? where will the censor's axe fall next?.... can i mention the "sex pistols" on my punkrock site [hosted at FQ] or is the word 'sex' pornographic?... could i write a review of the dead kennedys' "too drunk to ****"... or is that pornography? what if i want to do a few pages on renaissance art or sculpture?.... all those breasts and buttocks must be absolute filth in FQ's eyes.

i doubt if any of the above would have happened with a different subject matter. someone at FQ has obviously been offended on religious grounds and decided to use a crazy interpretation of their TOS to censor me, so please keep your host recommendations coming [especially anyone else whose content also gets a bit close to the knuckle on occasion and has found a host which takes the right to freedom of expression seriously]

[mindwire]

Ummm... change providers. That is completely ridiculous.

[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: mindwire ]

[philzilla]

heh, i was going to suggest the host that a mate of mine is using at the moment, but they seem to be down at the moment... doh!

anyways, they offer all the above, including the virtual server part. i'm pretty sure it's dsvr and they're based in manchester, which is local to you, if i'm not mistaken? at least you can turn up on their doorstep and twat them one, if they try and stiff you like the last lot did

nice to see you back, by the way

[m a d r a]

hi phil.

i was with DSVR before futurequest and they f**ked me off as well. cannae remember the details but it was sommit along the lines of i was paying them £300 odd a year for my virtual server package. they then started offering new customers twice the disc space at half the price.

i told them that wasn't fair. i was a customer of a years standing, so i shouldn't be paying double what a newbie was having to pay [and getting less in return]. their attitude was "you signed up at these rates so tough sh*t" and they also told me they wouldn't allow me to cancel my current contract and sign up for a new one at the improved rates.

pity really, coz up to then i was pretty impressed with DSVR as well.

maybe it's just me. is it too much to expect to find a host that will just take the money. treat all their customers the same and shut the f**k up and let me get on with it, as long as i dinnae do anything illegal?

[ReggieX]

Does it need to be UK-based?
I've been using Korax.net based here in Tronna for 2 years, never had a problem. Don't know about specifc TOS that might apply to crazed fundies, but they're reliable and keep small enough that tech support is right on top of things.

[d0ct0rteeth]

http://www.phpwebhosting.com is cheap.. never had a problem..

C-

..................

[metfoo]

cyberwings
www.cyberwings.com

110 mb
unlimited pop, imap, webmail accounts
1 subdomain
6 GB per month bandwidth
cgi-bin
custom error messages
2 mysql db's with phpadmin

$3.90 for the year!!!!
www.passwird.com is using them. I will move my domain over once the setup my account (they just had a huge half price sale in april)

definitley worth it.

my site is at www.hosdtica.com right now. my addy is:
http://www. r i b i t c h .com

no spaces, the swear filter removes the cuss word if spaces arent there

[ervier]

http://www.cqhost.com

* 100 MB space
* PHP
* 1 MySQL database
* JSP
* multimple subdomains
* 10 popboxes
* 3 GB traffic

But I don't know how they would react on your graphics!

[m a d r a]

metfoo:

$3,90 per year for that kind of package is so cheap it's *too* cheap! i don't see how anyone can offer that level of service at that price, unless they're hosting several thousand domains on one server.

thanx for the info anyway folks. i'm checking them all out gradually.

[Mac Guru]

http://www.downtownhost.com

100MB:
$12.95/month
10GB of bandwidth
35 POP Email accounts
5 subdomains
5 FTP accounts
3 Mysql db's
3 mailing lists

I use them with a 350MB plan. EXCELLENT service and AWESOME tech support for ANY problems.

Mac Guru

[mitchell_pgh]

The $3.90 plan sounds too good. You must get zero help-desk other then the web site junk.

[Moderator]

Is hostway.com US based?

[m a d r a]

thanx folks for the info. i'm goin to investigate a few of these and see what the score is. as well as the physical setup and prices tho', i really need to find a host i can rely on not to piss me about like futurequest have done over some f**ked up bible thumping hangup one of their staff has. i'm not planning on hosting any porn or nazi sites but i want to be able to write and draw what i want without some twat sabotaging my business because it offends their sensibilities.

let me know if you've had any censorship problems with these hosts you're recommending.

[this was a longwinded... *bump*]

oh, and BTW i don't give a toss if my host is based in the UK, US or some small mining planet in the crab nebula. i just want some decent service for the hundreds of $$$ a year i pay these people for basically letting me have a zip disc's worth of space on one of their computers !

[ 05-06-2002: Message edited by: m a d r a ]

[macvillage.net]

If you want someone reliable, but cheap, check out pair.com.