Comments on: Free Web hosting for three years?

Free Web hosting for three years?

johnnydark — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 12:58:36 -0800

Too good to be true? United Internet is launching its public hosting service with a special promotion: a full 500 meg hosting account free for three years. Includes email hosting, FTP and shell access, 5 gigs of transfers, Perl, Python, PHP and MySQL... plus $25 worth of Google AdWords. Sounds fishy to me, but they never asked for my credit card when I signed up.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:19:25 -0800

Insane. I hope your data doesn't disappear in the dark of the night.

By: slhack3r

slhack3r — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:22:22 -0800

odd, they want a phone number though. not giving them my cell. hmm. i'll use a buddies cubicle. :-) free and anonymous (if you use fake info)

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:23:44 -0800

Hmm, my shitty hosting account renews tomorrow. Can I pull this off in time? Guess we'll find out.

By: Marquis

Marquis — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:26:35 -0800

I signed up a few weeks ago, and have two domains now hosted there. Seems like a great, legit service - it's a promotion that doesn't require any advertising $, hence the great deal. They'll need your phone # to call you with a PIN, but they'll never ask for your credit card. The company's also a legit one - one of Germany's largest ISPs.

By: mischief

mischief — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:33:44 -0800

CGI scripts written in Perl

Pretty much living in the Stone Age, aren't they?

By: sfenders

sfenders — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:42:52 -0800

kewl. I signed up. Why not... Stone Age? You mean the Perl, or the CGI? I bet you can write your CGI in whatever language you like, if you can target whatever their Linux platform is.

By: rocketpup

rocketpup — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:49:11 -0800

Not so stone age if you plan on running MovableType.

By: kelrae3

kelrae3 — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:49:19 -0800

I signed up for it and about 10 seconds after I clicked submit when entering my phone number, I received a call with my 'PIN'. Cool.

By: robbie01

robbie01 — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:50:53 -0800

Quick! Let's all set up FilePile mirrors there.

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:51:42 -0800

Like Marquis, I signed up a few weeks ago and have had no problems at all. I even used my work number to have the PIN delivered and haven't received any unsolicited calls. They seem on the up and up.

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:53:11 -0800

The Anandtech Hot Deals crowd has been picking this apart for nine screens now, and nobody's found any major drawbacks (other than skepticism about the business model)..that's enough due diligence for me.

By: Iax

Iax — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:57:25 -0800

No scam here? no hidden stuff they can send you a bill for?

By: JollyWanker

JollyWanker — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 13:58:33 -0800

If you stop and think about it, their model does make some sense - we're already talking about the positively here, aren't we? And if they are as big as they say they are, the incremental cost to service consumers has got to be trivial when compared to what it costs to support commercial customers. Even when the "free" 3 years is up, the pricing appears to be in line with what I saw a few months ago surveying the available vendors.

By: ac

ac — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:00:17 -0800

I find this hard to believe... however I did sign up and will see what happens. Free lunch!

By: troybob

troybob — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:01:44 -0800

Hey, let's not go as low as putting down Perl-- I'll have to take you down (even if I do hit like a girl)!

By: specialk420

specialk420 — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:10:39 -0800

this thread brought to you by 1&1.COM.

By: Katemonkey

Katemonkey — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:13:55 -0800

Damnit. You can't register if you live overseas. Anyone wanna register me an account?

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:14:33 -0800

A buddy of mine signed up with this deal a week or so ago and likes it alot. I just signed up but they never asked for my phone number. I'd be curious how this helps their bottom line without incurring huge overhead costs. Any ideas?

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:16:15 -0800

troybob, while I admire your rhyme You don't need to do it all the time. Take a break, and try some prose Don't make me punch you in the nose.

By: malevolent

malevolent — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:20:38 -0800

If your site/email matters to you in the slightest it's worth spending a small amount on hosting to help support a good, helpful firm and have stability & peace of mind, rather than opting for an overly generous free offer that can only jeopardise the survival of the company. I've used 3 hosting firms so far - WebFusion persistently screwed up billing and has extortionate charges for extra bandwidth (£50 per GB!); Cyberjack doesn't offer anything cheap or special but always respond very quickly and go out of their way to be helpful; EV1Servers/Rackshack is dirt cheap for dedicated servers but feels somewhat like the Wild West of web hosting - don't be tempted unless you know what you're doing with a server.

By: sageleaf

sageleaf — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:22:52 -0800

I've had an account for about a month, moved some parked and otherwise low-traffic domains there and have had no problems, no spam, no contact. Signed up for adwords account, all seems good.

By: woil

woil — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:30:14 -0800

Looks to me like the goal of it is to get you to go over the 5 gig transfer, and then charge you for that. Is the 5 gigs a montly, yearly, or over the whole life of the hosting?

By: jacquilynne

jacquilynne — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:39:17 -0800

Woil: monthly. From their FAQ page: How about (excessive) bandwidth? If the data traffic generated by visitors to your Website exceeds the free 5 GB in a given month, the additional bandwidth is charged at an industry-leading $0.99 per GB. The free traffic allowance is typically sufficient for a high 5-digit number of visitors.

By: perorate

perorate — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:51:02 -0800

And does it mean anything that the Agreement is only good for the term of one month? 8.1. The initial term of this Agreement shall be one (1) month with automatic renewal for subsequent additional months after the expiration of the initial term (each such month a "Contract Term"). 1&1 reserves the right to accept pre-payment of renewal periods and may from time to time offer financial incentives for such pre-payment. The Contract Term, however, shall remain one (1) month.

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:53:58 -0800

this thread brought to you by 1&1.COM. So is the deal that we can't discuss anything involving someone incorporated anywhere? This thread just saved me at least $50, and probably a whole lot of headaches, given my current web host is some college dropout renting office space from his parents and the servers are as reliable as the Argentinian economy.

By: jcruelty

jcruelty — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:13:57 -0800

wow, pretty cool. i signed up. hope they don't go under.

By: muckster

muckster — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:14:27 -0800

I've been using this for a while, no complaints. There's an option where you can cap your billing at $0, if you're worried about exceeding the limits.

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:30:52 -0800

I've seen this for about three months now at various places -- website and magazines. Just a few minutes ago, I saw an ad in PC Magazine, in fact. Seems legit to me.

By: Espoo2

Espoo2 — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:43:38 -0800

$5.99 domain registration too. *whistles*

By: waxpancake

waxpancake — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:59:38 -0800

I've done this, and it's fantastic. I use it as a backup for large media files for my site. Works very well, no catches.

By: Prospero

Prospero — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 16:31:42 -0800

Reading the FAQ reveals that the offer ends January 14, 2004 (that is, after that no one can sign up for three years of free service, but everyone that signs up before then gets three years free). They also say that they'll be rolling out a full suite of services on 1/15/04, costing between $5 and $29 a month. In that context the deal doesn't seem so insane--the people who sign up for free within the relatively small time window create an evangelizing community that spreads the word. Based on this thread it seems to be working pretty well.

By: billsaysthis

billsaysthis — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 16:39:10 -0800

If the phone call comes so quickly that one could use, say, a pay phone or otherwise anonymous location and no credit card is required, how are these people confident that they'll be able to bill customers whose transfer amount is over 5GB? Seems hinky to me as this could easily be abused by people wanting to post large (copyrighted media) files.

By: Orange Goblin

Orange Goblin — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:09:52 -0800

Wow, I inserted fake info, and the street name and "zip code" didnt match up (is 90210 even real??? that what I always use...). Anyway, it provided real info for me! Pretty cool...dunno if I'm awaiting an email or what tho,

By: neuroshred

neuroshred — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:52:07 -0800

I've been using it as a backup to my Cornerhost account to host video files for Shrednow. I have no complaints. I love that I got a Google gift certificate with it. I have no complaints and have been recommending it to my friends. Now I just have to remember to cancel the account before 3 years is up.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 18:02:58 -0800

90210 is the ZIP for Beverly Hills, CA. Like, duh.

By: ugly_n_sticky

ugly_n_sticky — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 18:20:37 -0800

1&1 will definitely change the market; they are after all responsible for the fact that Germany has the highest number of domains per inhabitants world-wide. Here is what Netcraft has to say: It was surprising how many people in the US hosting industry simply hadn't heard of 1&1. In terms of hostnames found by the Web Server Survey, 1&1 is the largest hoster in the world by a margin, and hosts fully 18% of the hostnames in Europe, making it plain why they felt the need to expand into the US. Financially, the offer is not as reckless as it first appears: it is a time limited promotion until January 2004, restricted to US and Canadian residents, and counters 1&1's lack of brand awareness in the US. In this respect, it may turn out to be "cheaper than advertising" although they will need to do that as well. All sites are hosted by Schlund.de which is growing relentlessly. If you can decipher the graphs, Netcraft has been monitoring their performance. They really mean it and they have lots of happy customers.

By: carfilhiot

carfilhiot — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 22:13:34 -0800

hmm. pretty shrewed plan. in one fell swoop they are going to not only wipe out their competition but sign up a wackload of customers to their service.

By: 2sheets

2sheets — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 22:20:11 -0800

Here's the scoop on the phone - They do give your number to telemarketers. I know this because I gave them the land line number here, and it is the only association that has been made with that number and my name, as I use a cell and I'm not on the land line account. I got a call from Capital one earlier this week. I'm happy with the service otherwise.

By: Krrrlson

Krrrlson — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:27:52 -0800

Now just watch this get slashdotted and the company'll go out of business :)

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:35:04 -0800

Now all we need is a phone equivilent of mailinator.com for the harvest sites like this.

By: cup

cup — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:48:41 -0800

Yes, carfilhiot, it is a pretty shrewd plan and will likely wipe out a lot of their competition. Interesting. When a big retailer uses price to crush smaller retailers, the FPP refers to the retailer as a leviathan. When a big hosting company uses price to crush smaller hosting companies, the FPP uses the words too good to be true. Just an observation and I hope it does not derail this thread. I would much rather this thread focuses on the pros and cons of this particular service rather than become another chain store vs. local shop debate. Thank you for this FPP, by the way, and thanks to all the people who offered their experiences with this company. If I was located in North America I would probably throw some of my experimental sites on their servers just to see how things go.

By: Orange Goblin

Orange Goblin — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 01:21:15 -0800

Civil_Disobedient - I wasn't sure if it was actually the zip, or just something they made up.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 01:58:39 -0800

OG - It's the real zip. And I was totally kidding with the "duh" comment. Like, gag me with a spoon. I did a little research on the 1and1 deal, and it's legit. So legit that it could qualify as the "greatest internet deal of the century", provided nothing better comes up in the ensuing 97 years. You get 3 years of free hosting, with a 5 gig transfer limit ($1 per gig over). There's a slew of additional niceties (mySQL database, PHP, ColdFusion) that makes this deal too good to pass up. Some additional notes: you may want to register your domain with another provider. While their registration costs are good ($6.00/domain), I've heard that they can be somewhat possessive with domains if you try and change providers. You don't have to use their domain registration to point your DNS entry to their servers. Also, you should be smart and set up your system (easily configurable) so that your site will stop serving if you go over the 5gig limit (just to be on the safe side of a slashdotting, for example). 1and1 is going to put a lot of domestic providers out of a job. Being poor of bandwidth, I'm fine with that. I've tested a few sites already registered with the 3-year deal, and they pop up instantly, so it looks like a great connection. In short, get this deal if you ever plan on running a website.

By: Witty

Witty — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 03:44:37 -0800

1and1 is going to put a lot of domestic providers out of a job. Great. I can't wait.

By: billsaysthis

billsaysthis — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 11:37:23 -0800

you should be smart and set up your system (easily configurable) so that your site will stop serving if you go over the 5gig limit (just to be on the safe side of a slashdotting, for example). How?

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 13:06:16 -0800

Go to the control panel (https://admin.1and1.com), enter your login/password, then click on the contract that corresponds to the Domain you wish to configure. Go to "My Account", then "Billing Overview", and click on "Cost Limit". Set the Cost Limit to $1.00.

By: billsaysthis

billsaysthis — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 14:29:29 -0800

Thanks, C_D.

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 01:46:17 -0800

CGI scripts written in Perl Pretty much living in the Stone Age, aren't they? Well, precisely. They don't seem to offer mod_perl, which is generally faster than all the other solutions. I bet there's no mod_rewrite either. No spam filtering.. and I sure hope their shell access is chrooted otherwise they're gunna have big problems. Still, if you don't mind being thrown onto a box with 1000 other customers (I know a host who threw 1600 customers on to a new box), sign up now. I'm sure your MySQL database will really fly. "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."

By: sfenders

sfenders — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 07:24:37 -0800

I probably wouldn't select this deal if I had a site I was willing to spend money on. But I don't, so it's good enough. They don't seem to offer mod_perl, Why do you say that? It seems very probable that they use mod_perl. I bet there's no mod_rewrite either. There is, and the httpd.conf for your server is writable. It probably gets overwritten by their web setup scripts tho, and they don't provide any obvious way to restart the server. I sure hope their shell access is chrooted They're using grsecurity. I know a host who threw 1600 customers on to a new box) 7000 or so users on the 1and1 server I'm on, though I've no idea how many are active. Oddly enough, /proc/loadavg is not readable. No problems so far though. Must be some serious hardware, but /proc/cpuinfo isn't readable, so I dunno, other than that it's SMP. There are a couple of minor flaws, little bugs here and there in the web pages - looks like this is their way of recruiting beta testers.

By: Poagao

Poagao — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 07:38:02 -0800

Nice for people in the US or Canada....too bad for everyone else.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 08:00:17 -0800

Hey, sfenders, I was actually wondering if they offered mod_rewrite. I tried editting my .htaccess file just to test it out, but it didn't work. Do I have to specifically ask them to turn it on for my account or something? (Sorry to anyone not interested in webtech, but I've been trying to figure this out for the past two days).

By: sfenders

sfenders — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 10:29:22 -0800

After looking at the mod_rewrite docs, I think the most likely reason it doesn't work is that "you need to have a RewriteEngine on directive for each virtual host." You could add one to ~/../httpd.conf, but you'd then have to get apache to reload its config somehow. Could also just be that you're missing RewriteBase or something - apparently .htaccess rewrite rules are slightly different than ones in httpd.conf, I've never used 'em myself.

By: sfenders

sfenders — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 10:37:56 -0800

Correction: apparently, you can just put "RewriteEngine On" in .htaccess, like so: RewriteEngine On RewriteBase /xyz #the web url for this directory. RewriteRule ^oldstuff\.html$ newstuff.html

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 12:16:39 -0800

Thanks!

By: Salmonberry

Salmonberry — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 17:37:53 -0800

Thanks for this! I signed up just as it was free and I can use it for stuff I wouldn't otherwise bother with. Pretty cool offer.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 18:48:12 -0800

Aah, I figured out what wasn't working. Do this: RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ---whatever--- It's that backslash that's so important. mod_rewrite now functions perfectly.

By: attackthetaxi

attackthetaxi — Mon, 17 Nov 2003 04:03:54 -0800

I also signed up. Since I've never had a website before, and have always been intrigued by the possibility, I could do worse than to sign up for it just to mess around with the the possibilities and to see the results. For free. Now all I need is a domain name! I do have some concerns about what might happen come early January 2004, it being the roll-out time for their full suite of for-$ services (in view of the one month Agreement period). Many thanks to johnnydark for the post. :-)

By: pzarquon

pzarquon — Tue, 18 Nov 2003 11:33:28 -0800

Poop. The AdWords credit is for new accounts only. Anyone want mine?