Web space providers - recommendations please ?

[Paul K]

A lot of people here have their own little web sites where they host photo albums, articles about aviation and other things - and I'm thinking of doing the same. Additionally, I'd like to be able to host downloads, have a guest book and possibly a message board. Also, it should come with the 'tools of the trade' because my copy of Dreamweaver is out of date, and I'm not buying a new version.

Any recommendations as to who I can go with / warnings about who I should avoid ?

All suggestions gratefully received.

[DarrenL]

I use http://www.bluehost.com/ I believe petermcleland does too if I recall correctly.

Cheap reliable, lots of toys to play with.

Full features of what you get - http://www.bluehost.com/cgi/info/hosting_features

Under the simple scripts section of the control panel you get site builders, website templates, builders, photo galleries, e-commerce applications, wiki's forums, blogs even classifeds you can set up and many many more.

[Paul K]

Darren, that looks great. I'll wait and see what other people come up with, but that one is a definite possibility. Ta very much !

[Paul K]

Bump; any more for any more ? Anybody use UK-based providers at all ?

[TSR2]

We use webfusion who are superb, but I don't think they do free programs like Dreamweaver. Tbh, I haven't heard of anyone doing that before.

[Paul K]

Thanks Ben. The review sites I've looked at don't rate Webfusion very highly at all, so it just goes to show what use they are !

No, I'm not expecting a new version of Dreamweaver. I just mentioned it because I'd like all the tools included in order to do what I used to be able to do with Dreamweaver - if that makes sense. Thanks for your response.

[DarrenL]

You should note one thing, do not believe any online reviews. You will get bad reviews deliberately added by rivals companys who have employed a few temps to trawl the internet and give themselves glowing reviews but rubbish rivals, trolls doing it for a giggle or people who perhaps have been banned for hosting illegal "warez" or porn.

Happens everywhere these days.

[petermcleland]

As Darren says, I have used BlueHost for many years from when I first put up my website...They have been utterly reliable and keep their kit right up to date. You pay a bill Bi-Annually and you can start small and then as your site gets bigger and bigger, you can upgrade to bigger space...I have only had to do that once.

BTW...I don't actually use their software for uploading (although I have done occasionally and it works just fine)...I use "My Network Places" in Windows XP and having opened it (no password needed as it is built into the URL) and gone to the Folder that I wish to upload to, I just copy and paste from my computer to there...It is very quick and painless. Their servers are in Utah.

[Paul K]

Darren, never thought of that. Dishonesty on the internet - can it really be so ?

Peter, thanks very much for that.


Peter, Ben, Darren...what sort of 'plans' are you on, so to speak ( i.e. size of the site, traffic allowance and whatnot ) ? And what would you say is a reasonable amount to pay for an average domestic ( i.e. non-business ) web site ?

[TSR2]

I've a VPS (two of them actually) unlimited traffic (within reason), 50GB disk space, 1GB RAM etc. We're on a £19.99 per month tarrif, but I see you can get that for £14.99 now.