000WebHost

So, the features they advertise do look pretty good, but for your own sakes DO NOT FALL FOR IT. This "service" is a DISASTER from beginning to end, it is simply unbelievable that a "service" of this quality and this much contempt and disrespect to the customers is still around.

First of all, you'll be lucky if your uptime is 60%. Yes, half of the time you or your users try to access the site, it is down. Disks fail, servers shut down ... and on, and on and on ... The other half of the time, it is up, but you have to be REALLY patient to get the page loaded, it is so slow, I sometimes think they are just typing the content in by hand as it is loading. I was running a standard BB engine there, nothing fancy.

You think this is all? Oh, no, just wait, this is only the beginning. So, if you get some kind of traffic coming in (and I mean just SOME traffic - maybe, 100 hits per DAY, nowhere near real traffic), their puny servers start to collapse, and come down to a CRAWL. And then (get this!), they blame YOU for your db queries being "slow"! My 12 year old PC runs these same queries in milliseconds (not tens of milliseconds, single digits).

So, they let you run this parody on a website for a while, and accumulate enough users, and user-contributed data, they just ... shut it down! Yes, without any kind of a warning or anything, in the middle of the day, the site just disappears, and all your users start getting redirected to some stupid and irrelevant upsell page for the webhosting, instead of the site they were looking for, without explanation or any message whatsoever. And they won't tell you about it. You'll have to wait til one of the users thinks about notifying you to find out your site is gone.

Naturally, when this happens, you login to your account to see what is going on ... and that's when you find out that your “slow queries” violated their TOS. Needles to say, there is nothing in TOS about “slowness” of your “queries”, I mean, one would have to be a complete idiot to put something like that in their TOS (“our servers are way too weak to sustain anything remotely resembling a database, you are better off hosting it on your damn laptop”).

Anyway, so, what do you do now? I suppose, write them a polite letter where you apologize sincerely for inadvertedly straining their “servers” with your “slow queries”, promise, that it will never happen again, and humby point out, that there is actually nothing in the TOS speaking to the effect of the speed of the db queries, and thus technically you are not even in violation.

At this point, you are, probably, not even interested in reinstating your account anymore. I for one, had enough of this “service” by now. It's nothing but trouble, problems all around. NOTHING works as advertised ... So, I don't even ask them to reactivate the account, just give me my data back, simple enough, isn't it? Let me download the content of the database, and I'll be out of your hair. Simple enough, isn't it?

Well ... that's where the most interesting part begins! The response I got from their “support” person, states that:
accounts that they THINK are in violation of something, are cancelled immediately
Once the account is cancelled, all data pertaining to it is DESTROYED, not just on the server disks, but even in the backups, and there is absolutely no way to recover it.

Now, I don't know about you, but I found this “policy” absolutely EYE POPPING. Not only, they shut you down whenever they fell like it, but they will allso INTENTIONALLY and WILLFULLY DESTROY ALL OF THE CUSTOMER'S DATA. Not because of some catastrophic failure or an act of sabotage, but AS A MATTER OF POLICY.
“Hosting service”, destroying their customer's data on purpose? That's a new one ...

I just could not believe my eyes when I read their reply. I figured, there must be something I am missing, misunderstood, it just cannot be true. So, I write back, and ask for a clarification. Here is the exact reply I got back from their “suport”:

--- QUOTE
Hello,

Your account is gone. Nothing can be recovered. All backups are removed. Any or all data is gone. I don't see why you are nit picking at everything.

Regards,
Damien | I hate signatures
--- END QUOTE

Now THIS left me speechless. Just WOW.

Perhaps you are thinking something along the lines of “well, this will never happen to me, because I always make backups”. Think again! If you have more then 10M of data, the db backups won't work with this hoster either. They crash in the middle of the download. I tried many times and not once was able to download successfully. And when I asked “support” about it, I got a reply to the effect that “yeah, we know, it does not work”.

Well, enough said. I hope, I was clear enough to persuade you to stay as far away from this “service” or from any other “service” ran by these fraudsters (notably, hosting24.com is their creature too – I urge you to stay even father away from it!) for your own sake.
There are plenty of hosting choices around the net, and this one is BY FAR THE WORST ONE!

Worst host EVER! Said they were reviewing my site for malicious or phishing content and that it would take 2-4 hours to complete. Sent a scathing email after 5 hours asking the status, never heard anything, created a ticket, never heard anything, tried to log on the next day and my site (all my work) was gone, couldn't log in, deleted my whole account. Had to send a comment to them with a different email because it stated I needed to log in with my account with them...Kinda' hard to do when they've deleted my account. Still have had NONE of my requests for information replied to. Site just disappeared overnight after I complained, fantastico never worked. horrible, horrible, horrible! RUN THE OPPOSITE OF WHEREVER 000WEBHOST IS, don't even get their free site if you're going to put ANY work into it, it'll be deleted! Moved to hostgator.com and have been happy ever since.

This host I am using myself, and this is probably one of the best on the market:

* 250 MB of Disk Space

* 100 GB Bandwidth

* Your own domain hosting or free sub-domain

* cPanel Control panel

* Over 500 website templates ready for download

* Free POP3 email box with Web Based access

* FTP and Web based File Manager

* PHP, MySQL, Perl, CGI, Ruby.

* No Ads.

* Referral program - $5 for each signup which stays active for at least 30 days.



Update (03-04-09): Site rating was reduced to 2 due to multiple user compaints on the reliability issues and questionnable business practices :(

You see that angry face? That is my emotional look on 000webhost. To a new little kid on the scene, this service seems doodlicious, right? WRONG. 000webhost, while it does provide a few services, is what I like to call shit. Of course, I hold a personal vendetta against them. With NO FIRST WARNING, they closed down my account (podtube.co.cc) and refused to relinquish the domain. The admin stopped answering my PMs when I asked for my domain at least back, because they don’t backup your files. I was forced to move to Zymic, because although there is a slightly lower ease of use percentile, it’s also a lot better. Higher disk space, more capabilities, more secure, more power, more features, higher uptime. 000WebHost’s uptime, by the way, is not 99%. It’s more like, I don’t know, 57% or slightly higher. Which is horrible. Especially because they impose restrictions, like mail. And the moderators on the forums are all goody two shoes because they get domain names and premium hosting for their nonexistent services. Basically, folks, I know I’m probably going to get flamed, especially because I said they rocked earlier, but 000WebHost sucks. Use Zymic, AdminLounge, or another free and easy solution. Thanks for listening.

They do have a good idea about cPanel and auto-installer but they never implemented it well and the server had lots of downtime and so slow.

http://www.resourcesandmoney.blogspot.com

Two days been down 99% of the time and no access to cpanel after the admin has updated cpanel and other stuff think he is a lame amateur according to the information on my homepage http://123nowonline.com and http://pr7now.com today its a small thing to do as admin to finish the update job. And no support connection AT ALL i waited more than 24 hours for the first ticket i sent ... stay AWAY AND NEVER MOVE YOUR DOMAINS THERE.

Its got a more professional feel than most of the other free hosting site I've looked at, and theyre reply pretty quickly to support requests. The CPanel is smart. I was looking for PHP/MySql hosting in particular and theyve got this too, plus you can access MySql remotely, essential to me.

However on the con side, when I first set up all was great for about maybe 6 hours then my site got taken down and replaced with a note that they were checking it for spam/illegal content. Why they have to take it down to check it is totally beyond me. So i ticketed them and they said 2-4hrs and sure enough it did come back up, eventually. Then the next day its very intermitant on and off, just not reliable. Im waiting for a response as to why - perhaps thats nieve.

Ive only just started using it and i like the professional feel so im going to stick with it for the time being as ive seen nothing better, but it does seem very unreliable, you could not host any business here. What I cant work out mostly is that they dont have any PAID hosting packages and there are no adds anywhere to be seen, so I'm just not sure what their motivation is and that unnerves me, because if i understood their revenue stream i would have more confidence in the service.