1and1 Hosting

I was searching for a place to host my current project, when I came across this: http://order.1and1.com/xml/static/Hosti ... frame=_top

I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with this host, or has any feedback on this offer.

I thought it might be too good to be true, but I'd like to hear others opinions as well.

Thanks!

I have heard they have lots of problems. Never used them because I am a host but from surfing the forums I have heard lots of bad stuff.

Mostly support and uptime problems.

I recently signed up for a free 1and1 deal (2 weeks ago?) and so far am thrilled with it. Still playing around with it though & haven't tried out all the features. So far so good. PHP/MySQL support has me impressed.

I have tried numerous freebies - cause people keep asking me which ones are good. 1and1 is one of the better ones out there.

I used Lycos.co.uk for a few months - worked well too.

My primary sites and those of my clients are of course hosted on my reseller account - not free. But for a personal site or for testing purposes 1and1 seems to do the job. Combine it with a free top-level domain name (see http://www.freedirect.tk) and - well the price is right.

I would suggest doing a search on http://webhostingtalk.com before selecting your host. There are many many reviews located on that site.

I used 1and1 Hosting and hated them. They are German and hosted in Germany and only take Credit Card details and NOT banking details for direct debit. This sucks big time cos a credit card only lasts a year or so before expiring and they put me offline. It got messy but I transferred the domain.

I am currently testing them out just because they have some sort of free promotion; what can you lose? just pay $5.99 a year for the domain, and you've got yourself a free site!

by the way, webhostingtalk forums are really good! they've got great discussion about web hosting there, ironically enough!

Apparently on their homepage they say there from the USA - hmmmm?

Its 3 years free with unlimited bandwidth and so it sounds VERY good. I wish you could get Windows hosing with ASP/ASP.NET offers like that.

unlimited bandwidth


ALERT!!!! unlimited bandwidth IS NOT POSSIBLE!!!

why not?

Bandwidth is the most expensive thing about webhosting. Space is only limited to the size of the hard drives. Since hard drives are getting cheaper and cheaper, hosting companies can just add more space. Bandwidth on the other hand is not the same. Most hosting companies get bandwidth in large blocks. Then they divide it up between hosting accounts.

The reason they say they offer you unlimited bandwidth is that they know that 95% of clients will not use over 2-5 gigs per month. 2-5 gigs is a lot of bandwidth for a personal or small business site to use. Now, if your hosting with them and you use, say 20+ gigs of bandwidth per month. They are going to close your account and say that you are using too much of the server's resources. Even though you have an "Unlimited Bandwidth" account, you will still get closed down. If you read in their TOS and AUP it will say something in there about using too much resources. This clause is in almost every Hosting Service that you will get, but with "unlimited" accounts, they will shut you down. Other services that have set limits on BW and Space will not close you down, because they have already set your limit. Once you reach that limit, your page will be replaced with a "notice page" or your site will remain online and you will have to pay an overage fee.

Here is an example of what a "unlimited Bandwidth" hosting service does:
Say they get 100GB BW per month to sell. They sell 50-60+ accounts with unlimited bw knowing that most of the accounts will only use .5 - 2GB of BW per month. If they have a site that is using more than the expected usage, they will close the web page and send an email to the owner saying they are using to much of the server's resources. Most of these emails are not specific about why you are actually being shut down.

If you would like some more info on "Unlimited Bandwidth" do a search on http://webhostingtalk.com for "Unlimited Bandwidth"

There is no such thing as Unlimited anything in hosting...

Hello, i just saw an add for the first time for the free offer of 1and1 free 3 year service yesterday in a mag. Im very upset that they didnt say that it ended dec 31. I was wondering since so many people are so upset with the service, and since the account was free, that if...
Maybe they wouldnt mind letting me have their account. Please email me, i would really like to have it. I would even pay you a little for it. I can send some paypal or send a check. I just would love to have it. Thanks.

I just wanted to add about bandwidth. I used to have a few very small sites that had some nice pics. Well for some reason, all my bandwidth was being used (5gig) in less than a month. I found out that quite a few people were using my pics on forums and such which then was using my bandwidth.

Some hosters will allow you to add directives to .htaccess (some either have an on/off option right there in Cpanel) to prevent others from using your images on other domains.

Similar to the way the free hosts do it. "This Image Hosted by Geocities", etc. instead of the actual image.

You can also set it on a per-host basis, if you find that there's only one particular domain doing the stealing.

You dont happen to know of any of these hosts in case this comes up again?

Does anyone know if changing the file name fixes the forums stealing bandwidth issues too?