So I signed up with DreamHost, only to leave them two days later. Support tickets usually took a full day to be answered, and the connection to the server was ridiculous, rivalling that of $1 hosts.
I'm in Sweden and DreamHost's servers are in the US. That still doesn't entirely explain it, although I'm sure it contributs to the fact. I've got a 10Mbit connection from my apartment and enjoy furious speeds to most servers I happen to connect to.
So I went looking for another host. A reliable, trustworthy one. It's incredible how many webhosts there are now. As it turns out, half of them are literally being run by eighteen-year-olds with reseller accounts, sporting just as professional looks as the "real" ones do, and usually far cheaper plans. You Get What You Pay For, now more certain than death and taxes.
Cross-checking WebHostingTalk.com and WHReviews.com, I finally chose UnitedHosting. They're based in the UK, which is a good thing from a support perspective, since I'm in the next timezone. Their servers are in a private rack in the EV1 datacenter in Texas, which I'm entirely indifferent about.
I've only been with UnitedHosting for like a week now, but so far I'm quite happy with my new host so I'm probably sticking around.
During the next few days I'll be diving into Mac OS X, but I already know I love it. I tried not to, but I couldn't help myself. Dammit.
Comments
Next time you'll want to change hosting, take into consideration UkWebSolutionsDirect (.com) from Middlesborough, UK. They host a couple of websites for customers / friends of mine; I'm planning to come back to them with my own website after a *one year trip* to another provider. Their customer service is pretty good, with fast and useful answers.
Comment by Fabio at 22:42, 03 Jun, 2004 #
I use 99kronor.com for my site and they work like a dream for me. They are a bit bad att answering questions in acceptable time but except that...they works for me :)
Comment by Daniel Olovsson at 23:12, 03 Jun, 2004 #
I just signed up with TextDrive, a new webhosting service by Dean Allen (the maker of Textile/Textpattern/etc).
So far I've been relatively pleased. It's affordable and very fast. There's good support for features on the server. The sysadmins are dedicated, as they just launched the product and want to see it succeed.
Comment by Brad Froehle at 07:14, 04 Jun, 2004 #
Have you heard of SegPub? I have only heard good things about their service and uptime.
Its an Australian company but servers are in the US. Their pricing plans are also in AUD so they will be cheaper.
TextDrive sounds really good as well.
Comment by Sunny at 10:17, 05 Jun, 2004 #
Sunny, he is aware of SegPub's existence (see #1, #2, #3).
Tomas, I was wondering: in that other post of yours, you mentioned bloghosts.com, a host I was unaware of. I visited their site, saw their plans and they sound interesting; out of curiosity, what made you turn them down?
Comment by Konstantinos at 16:00, 05 Jun, 2004 #
Konstantinos: I turned down bloghosts, as well as many, many other hosts, primarily for two reasons:
1) There are so many hosts out there that I don't know which ones to trust. The final arbitrator became the presence on WebHostingTalk.com, and/or their reputation there.
and 2) Host in question does not offer SSH access.
Comment by Tomas at 16:21, 05 Jun, 2004 #
The discussion has been closed on this entry. Thanks to everybody who participated.