Disappointed With Future Host
Nov 13, 2008
I'm just like anyone else, after hosting my website for a while with shared host, i think it's time to try out VPS. One of my sites, which was just set up and host with a shared hosting company, is using Joomla and it's a database driven site, so shared host is not a solution for it. As the number of user increasing quite fast for the shared server to handle, i think i will find a VPS package for this site. After doing some research, i found that Future Host has a lot of good reviews. Going to their, read about VPS linux hosting package, i decided to go for the Cpanel Platinum. Their Sales support was good, i had a chat with them and they gave me all the info about the offers and specials. I thought i was lucky because i found a good deal and a good host for my first VPS experience, but i was wrong.
After i purchased the VPS package and received the payment information, i did not receive anything else from them. After waiting more than 6 hours, I decided to contact them for support and ask whether they have activated my account or not. They said that they were supposed to send me a Welcome letter, in which i can find out about my VPS account but they did not. They also said "your VPS should be provisioned within the next 2 hours", if not i will have to contact them again (?). Anyways, waiting another 2 hours later without receiving anything, i submitted a ticket again and have no reply since.
They promised 30 minutes support systems but my ticket hasn't been reply for 7 hours. I submitted another one asked them nicely that if they can't activate my account, whether i can get my money back? I get no reply whatsoever until now. I think anyone in my situation would be disappointed as well, when you find a new host you looked for information, read a lot of reviews and hope we will get a good host, just to find out may be that's not true!
( I can send all screen-shots of all the tickets and account info that i dealed with Future Host if required )
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Jul 18, 2008
Just thought I would write a review of Real Web Host and how I came to be disappointed with them and there services.
I first came across Real Web Host some time ago, a friend had recommended them, and hosted a number of web sites with them.
After a period of time hosting with them I decided to leave to set up a project I was working on, I worked on my project for about a year but things did not work out so I decided to cut my losses and close the project down.
This left me needing hosting for a couple of web sites I still had so I went back to Real Web host last year and bought hosting for my 2 web sites.
During the last 4 or so months I kept getting problems with connecting to my web sites and FTP, they did not last for long but they seemed to be happening more frequently of late.
Now normally one would submit a ticket if something like this keeps happening but I didn't and my reasons for that is from my experience of replies to previously submitted tickets.
To clarify the above paragraph, when I submitted a ticket about a problem with my hosting I would often get a short and somewhat rude response saying there is no problem and to check again, obviously I would check again and the problem would have mysteriously have disappeared, this would be the scenario for many different problems I submitted tickets on, I would report a problem, they would reply saying there is no problem and miraculously the problem that I reported had disappeared.
Now I appreciate from time to time there may be problems with a hosting account but what I do not appreciate is being treated like an idiot when I report a problem with them fixing it and then telling me there was no problem to begin with and often they would do this in a condescending and rude manner.
Now due to my two experiences of hosting with Real Web Host and the current economic climate I find myself in I decided to cancel my accounts with them and move my 2 sites to where I could get the best value and services for my money.
I searched the Real Web Host web site for information on cancellations and came across the following page [url]
On this page it clearly states that: "Customers can cancel service any time and be refunded any full months that are pre-paid"
I had paid for both on my accounts a year in advance so I submitted 2 tickets to there billing department, one for each hosting account, informing them that I wished to cancel my hosting with them and that I respectfully requested a refund for the 2 full months that were remaining on each account, 4 months in all totalling $32
I received a reply asking why I had submitted 2 tickets on the same issue and that one was good enough, they also linked to there rules page and told me to read it with regard to cancellations and refunds.
I replied to them saying I had submitted 2 cancellation tickets because I was cancelling 2 hosting accounts, I also replied saying that I had read there rules page but that it contradicted another web page on there web site which says "Customers can cancel service any time and be refunded any full months that are pre-paid" I also linked them to the page.
The reply I got back was a quote from there rules page about cancellations and an instruction to read them again.
I then replied to that ticket saying that I had already read there rules page and did not need to read it again and I again linked them to the page on there web site that said "Customers can cancel service any time and be refunded any full months that are pre-paid" and I respectfully asked them to honour this and refund me for my unused months.
I got a reply back sating that the page I linked to was incorrect and that there rules page has been the same way for 5 years and it overrides any other information that I see or find on there site.
I took there latest reply to mean that they would not be honouring the statement on the page I linked them to on there web site that clearly states "Customers can cancel service any time and be refunded any full months that are pre-paid" and that no refund would be forthcoming.
In closing what started out as a good experience with Real Web Host turned into one of disappointment over time, with condescending and rude replies to tickets that often treated me like I was an idiot down to them not willing to give me a refund for my unused months even though it clearly stated on there web site that they would refund for any unused months.
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May 22, 2007
Stay away from future host
Would you believe this this is how they treat you over at future host when someone hacks there server with your site on it. They suspended my account without me even knowing it.
This is actual support tickets from them.
Dear Customer:
We have received this complaint regarding hacking activity on your VPS. Due to the seriousness of this matter, it is imperative that you react to this situation and suspend the account immediately. Failure to acknowledge this complaint and resolve the issue in a timely manner may result in suspension of services. We would like to give this opportunity to you as described under our Acceptable Use Policy to resolve this issue.
Thank you for your time and assistance.
Regards,
Future Hosting Security
So then i get a hold of them after waiting an hour and half for them to answer there support ticket since they have no phone or nothing else. What can you expect i guess when they operate out of a garage.
so then they say this:
Generally TCP scans are used to find vulnerabilities in remote servers and thus is constituted as a security risk and a hacking attempt. This ticket is not to be used for support. You should open a new ticket in support for the failed message. Let support know when it started.
Regards,
Future Hosting Security
In addition to the above firewall/SSH changes, I would suggest the security setup. The basic security setup is free of charge to managed VPS.
Do the following (You can copy and paste into the tickets):
1. Open a ticket requesting APF installed to block outbound attacks as your VPS. Include this in the ticket:
2. Open another ticket requesting your SSH port changed to another port (pick any random port number)
3. Open a third ticket requesting the basic security setup - this will be performed within 48 hours.
The firewall should be plenty to block outbound traffic.
So i do everything they suggest and they install everything for me. Next day I go to my site and it not working go to support ticket with them and see this.
Your VPS has been suspended for sending a 90Mbps + outbound attack causing issues on the node and switch resulting in packet loss. After reviewing a previous abuse ticket and reviewing your VPS, we have determined it necessary to suspend service. We will make the data on your VPS available for transfer to another server upon request. The VPS will not be destroyed until the next bill date. This action was determined necessary after confirming the tmp directory is clean.
Regards,
Future Hosting Security
Oh did i mention they already new this from yesterday that is why they setup the firewall and everything. Oh did I also mention this was not me that did this. I was the victim. Who's site is now down after just paying close to $200 in custom install to get my site to work on there server.
So I guess the message here is if you want a host that will back you up when you are the victim and not turn of your means of income with out any notice and not make you out to be the bad guy etc.. When you are the victim and they obviously had no security in place to begin with hence the firewall needing to be installed.
Stay away from future host there support is two to three hour ticket response no phone no live chat no nothing. I guess they don't have phone service in there garage.
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Jan 2, 2009
Disappointed with ZipServers.com ....
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Sep 7, 2008
In the beginning everything was fine, must say Norman at geekstorage is a great guy, but the other guy Jay Higdon is a total piece of work. One of the worst people i have ever tried working with.
I got hosting with them about a week ago, norman helped me setup the site to work, but not fully, main feature of the site failed due to server setup errors. In the beginning when i got the host there was tons of whm erros and errors on server that norman needed to fix.
Anyway my complaint is this, today I sent a ticket and explained that i will need to migrate my site to a different host but after when its done i will email them again and tell them its done so they can cancel my account. About 5 min later i try to log into my site, and none of my sites are working. I tried emailing Jay, which was the person working at the time and asking him what did he do, and that i said i need to migrate the site to another server.
I never got a reply, got my refund (-$18), but all my work is gone and i cannot get in touch with Jay. When i open a ticket, i get a message from him that ticket was deleted.
I know there is lots of happy people with this service but this is a warning, if you try cancel with them they will treat you like a piece of garbage. Now, im out of a server, all my work is gone, geekstorage is ignoring all my messages to even get my backups, cause i know they have them (i had the addon safetyweb where they make 2 backups a day)
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Aug 26, 2008
I've read some reviews about webserve and its reasonable pricing and thought I'd give them a try. I also live in the Vancouver area and thought I'd support a local Canadian company.
I usually start small with web hosting companies and try out their forwarding service first. If the service is on par or exceptional, I'll move clients on to the service and expand web hosting options.
So far, it hasn't been a great experience at all with webserve. I have an unanswered support request that is still classified as "New" for the past 3 weeks and also have another support incident that is reaching 8 days old.
At this point, I wouldn't recommend this web hosting service to people hosting a company or business. From experience, your clients will lose trust and reliability. I'm just glad I only purchased the URL forwarding service and did not invest in one of their full hosting packages.
If I don't hear from them in another week, I'm going to have to transfer domain services to a more reliable company.
By reading the reviews, I thought only a "few" people had some issues with webserve and regretfully went ahead with purchasing a service from them.
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Feb 13, 2008
I ordered load-balanced clustered Windows hosting, and after outage after outage after outage pestered tech support until they admitted that their Windows "clustered load balanced" hosting is in fact good old regular 200-sites on one box shared hosting.
Here’s their site:
[url]
And here’s my thread with support:
Snehal - 2/6/2008 7:55:49 AM
Hi [me],
As discussed, we have checked on the server and there was load on the server it was showing 80% CPU and memory used.
We have restarted web service and it back to normal.
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Thanks,
Sneh
System Administrator
Contact No : 1-647-723-5077 Ext 603
Toll Free Support: 866-416-4843
[me] - 2/6/2008 8:45:00 AM
We are supposed to be on a clustered arrangement to prevent this from happening. Are we on a clustered environment?
Evan - 2/6/2008 3:54:57 PM
Hi [me],
I apologize for the confusion.
Our Linux/Unix systems are load balanced clusters, however our Windows servers are standalone.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the short interruption of service.
Evan Hickey
Synergy Support Team
Canada Web Hosting
[me] - 2/6/2008 8:18:46 PM
The service we have is advertised as "clustered server architecture, load balancing and disaster recovery...Load Balanced Windows 2003 (IIS6) Web Cluster" - I am quoting right off your web site:
[url]
Please explain what is going on - I think there is some serious miscommunication here, or a wide variation in what I thought we are getting and what we are actually getting.
Arinjay - 2/6/2008 8:53:01 PM
Hello [me],
I will have our Manager Nadia to get back to you with the details on this.
Thanks,
Arinjay Sonawane.
System Administrator - Canada Web Hosting
[url]
Toll Free Support: 877-587-2771
Aftermath...
Nadia Keshwar (the person in charge of customer service at Canada Web Hosting) didn’t call me. I had to call and implore the sales department to get her to finally call me. Her response was “oh, I’ll have to talk to the marketing people about that.” I told her I feel totally ripped off and want to speak to the company President, Brian Sheppard. She said he'll call me. He hasn't.
I chose Canada Web Hosting because they seemed above-board and legitimate. They are a big enough outfit.
Why would they pull a cheap stunt like this?
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May 14, 2008
i joined jaguarpc a week ago with the intention of setting up a java based mud server on the system. after the vps was set up, i sent a ticket in requesting help on installing gcc, yum and java. when java 1.4.2 was installed, i requested a newer version be installed, in which case they informed me it would cost $70.00/hr to perform. i had linked the installation page for the program i was installing that stressed the need for the most up to date java jdk, of which 1.4.2 is not.
i then decided to attempt the install myself. however, there were numerous errors involved, to which support attributed to corruption of the data files. the solution? reinstallation of the os. the cost of this procedure is $15.00. i sent a response to this, making sure that the reinstallation was really necessary to make the latest sun java jdk work. the tech confirmed that it was needed to get rid of the corrupted libraries.
I paid the $15.00 for the os reinstall, and had the tech install gcc, yum and the newest sun java jdk. however, when i attempted to check the version, a memory error occurred. after trying to set the xms and xmx settings to no avail, i sent a ticket to support asking for the issue to be looked into.
support responded with this:
Java requires a lot of resources to initialize which a VPS can't provide and that is why it is failing to initialize. If you really need Java you should go for Dedicated sever.
when i replied asking why this was not revealed 10 tickets ago, the support responded with:
We are sorry for that. In fact Java is quite resource intensive and can't run correctly in VPS environment. Even if you add more RAM it will work for sometime but again afte some time starts failing. So it is recommended that you do not use Java on VPS and go for Dedicated server.
thank you for apprising me of this after i pay to get the os reinstalled. nearly all of my tickets concerned java, and i stated that it was needed by the program i wished to run. at no point before this was it mentioned that the latest version of java would not be capable of being run on the vps.
overall, i am disappointed with this company, and plan to cancel my account.
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Mar 6, 2009
A little background.
I emailed sales and asked specifically about running Tomcat on the server as I have a java webapp I'm testing and trying to get running.
Sales were responsive and confirmed Tomcat was ok to run and recommended a plan which I went with.
My experiences so far:
Support up to now has been very responsive.
My concerns:
I asked for Java and Tomcat to be installed. They were, but today I found that:
- Java had reverted to an old version
- Tomcat which was version 5.5.23 now appears to be 5.5.25 and is in a different directory (5.5.23 was in /var/lib/tomcat5/, 5.5.25 now in /home/cpeasyapache/src/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/. In addition, the config file
tomcat-users.xml no longer had the manager role in it. I have re-added it but attempting to login fails every time.
Why am I disappointed? I asked specifically in my support ticket why Java disappeared. No real answer and I have wasted much time trying to get a java webapp deployed without having to also contend with outside influences changing Java and Tomcat without my knowledge until I discovered these problems.
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Sep 26, 2008
I signed up with Virpus over a year ago when I found a nice deal here on WHT. After having months of no problems, and decent support I would eventually tack on two more VPS' to my account, bringing the total to three through Virpus.
However, starting in July I started to have uptime issues with them. Their nodes were constantly on the fritz and it was starting to feel like a weekend experience of their node having issues. It finally got to the point at the beginning of September that I no longer wanted to deal with the ******** of their node problems, so I made the decision to transfer over accounts to Infinitie, where I have another VPS with.
Each ticket I submitted in regards to any of my three VPS being down would have a slow response and either a "It's up now" type of comment. :
7/22 - VPS 'are down, can't access anything. Ticket sent in, node problem.
7/29 - VPS' are down, again, node problems
8/11 - VPS' are down, never had the issue resovled within ticket. Had to find out from a newsletter that it was a node issue again
9/07 - VPS' are down again, took 12 hours for a reply (and 12 hours of downtime on three of my VPS). Node problem ... surprise surprise.
9/09 - VPS' are down again, only took an hour for a reply this time, and was told that the node was not working properly this time..
9/12 - VPS' are down again, took 11 hours for a reply. Node problems.
As you can see it got really frustrating in September. Not one mention of credit throughout the node problems I had to endure, although they did send out a newsletter offering a $5 credit to people who submitted some feedback to them. Amazing how that will get credit, but their crap *** nodes constantly having problems and me having well over days of downtime doesn't.
So I bit the bullet and submmited a cancellation request for my VPS that was due first (the other two were about a week after) and I ended up getting a nice little kiss-*** ticket opened up on the cancellations behalf offering me a credit for the issues pending I copied the ticket ID numbers back. This ticket was sent to me on 9/21.
Given that I've been a customer with them for over a year, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and allow them to offer me up a credit and see how it went for another month. Granted, at that point one of the servers was already transferred and running at Infinitie thanks to John giving me a stellar deal after explaining my problems to him.
It's now 9/26 and the ticket that Ken opened up in regards to my cancellation has never even been replied to. I've updated it a few times (so they'd get some notification and see the bright *** orange "customer-reply" in whmcs) but to no avail. So far I've had two payments already go through (silly me forgot two were on subscriptions) and one of them being for a service I canceled prior to the due date. Obviously it being a subscription I can't dispute it, but I did ask in my ticket for a refund for the two invoices that went through and hopefully credit put in place of it. I've since canceled both of the Paypal subscriptions so I don't forget about it again next month.
I'm just posting it here because I know Ken occasionally hits up WHT, and I've already exhausted my resources with replying to tickets. Sometimes publicly stating an issue seems to get a better response from a company.
Just really disappointed with how Virpus has turned out after the year of being with them. Their support had typically been stellar when I first came to them in September of last year, and throughout my stay here.
ETA: Not even 5 minutes later after I get the entirety of this written up, I received a reply to my ticket stating that a refund could be not be issued for the two invoices that went through (one of them being a payment that was made AFTER I canceled the VPS...) But it's still annoying that it took five days for a two-liner reply.
I'm still way too hesitant to remain with Virpus at this point, even with a mention of credit for all my services that have been affected
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Oct 24, 2008
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy hosting with CheapVPS.co.uk, but I find their level 1 support staff to be lacking the basic skills required to respond in a helpful manner.
Their typical replies often instruct me to confirm that the problem has been resolved, when in fact nothing has changed; this is just a waste of my time (and theirs).
I would expect that my issue is forwarded to level 2-3 admins when level 1 staff can't provide a sound solution/fix. This is the case sometimes, but not always. Most importantly (and this occurred to me today) level 1 staff should never, in any form, have access to a customer's VPS without prior consent/approval. Maybe I'm coming off as a little paranoid here, but I'm not fond of the idea of inexperienced individuals going through my stuff. Limiting access to just level 2/3 admins can only mean good as far as security is concerned.
I honestly can't recall a time when a good solution was provided by level 1 staff. While I strongly trust Rus Foster and the way he conducts business, I would ask him to take the above into account and reconsider the policies in place.
(I was originally going to paste a screenshot of my last support ticket, but I now think it won't be neccassary as my post adequately conveys my concerns)
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Apr 22, 2008
I find comparatively few mentions of Future Quest here and so I thought I will add one more.
My site was hosted on Future Quest for close to two months. Thus what I am saying here is based on the experience of someone who has about 3 months experience as I had spent one month researching into web hosts before taking the plunge.
Future Quest has:
(1) extremely fast response time in terms of tickets. When you submit a ticket, you can expect to get a reply within a very short time. When I first got my account, the replies came almost instantaneously as they try very hard to get me over the learning curve.
That is not a small matter as I started off staring at the screen and not daring to key in a single word just in case the server explode.
(2) the control panel is sufficient to do the routine work like creating databases, email accounts, file management, etc. Coupled with SSH and FTP, the control panel became quite flexible. The response time is quite fast as I believe there are few overheads in using the panel. The control panel, ssh and ftp are sufficient to run a website.
It was only later when i tried using cpanel and directadmin that I am able to make a comparison. For more advanced jobs like site redirection and crontab, these are better.
But these are one-time jobs and do not justify continuous higher RAM overheads. On the other hand, FQ may like to consider a more complete tutorial with troubleshooting tips.
In which case their site owners will get the best of both worlds.
(3) the forums are quite friendly and the people helpful. The various site owners give useful and pertinent comments.
(4) perhaps the most important point is the integrity of the organization. When I signed up, i was told that i can use their services for 60 days and if i close my account during that time, i am entitled to a full refund.
Well, i used up to close to 60 days (short by a few days). When I closed my account with them, I instructed them to deducted off two months, the agreement notwithstanding.
But what they did is to honour their agreement.
Which makes me respect them deeply.
.....
The reason i decided to move are two: I need more domains using mysql tables and a faster response time. After experimenting with another vendor, i realized that i can only get very fast response time if i moved to a host that is close to my city. But that will mean that my target audience will be affected. Thus a compromise is neccessary. I also find I had taken for granted the level of support from Future Quest.
.....
In conclusion, I came to view these factors as crucial in selecting a web host:
(1) supportive staff who are cognizant of a newbie's fear of doing the wrong thing and willingness to help the newbie through, especially during the initial period
(2) technically sound and viable infrastructure. They claimed 100% uptime and during my time there, I found nothing to refute this claim. At one stage, I was glued to the site almost 18 hours a day for 3 weeks.
(3) no overpromising to get sales. After the sales, keeping to the promises made. A matter of integrity.
I find Future Quest perform very admirably in these respects.
It will be ideal if Future Quest open a branch in the East to serve the Asia-Pacific region. It is either that or I migrate to the States. Come to think of it, that is not a bad idea.
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Nov 9, 2008
I applied for 2 Visionary accts. with Future Quest with 2 domains that was a week ago still no email or any contact. They have my debit number which makes me nervous. I didn't see any complaints about them on the internet. I tried to cancel the acct. on the cancellation page and it wouldn't take my domain names. I've emailed about this issue also. Has anyone else had problems with these guys? I'm new at all this. I've heard Site Builder is good..are they?
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Apr 2, 2008
Does the hosting industry have a future because IMO the internet is getting faster who knows what the speed will be in 20+ years time, what I am trying to say is surley people will start to host their own sites from their own home.
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Apr 24, 2007
Anyone here using Future Hosting's VPS? How long have you been on it, how is support? Are they stable on uptimes and connections? Does the managed vps mean they will install software for you such as ffmpeg and etc? I am needing a good vps solution for my phpfox website,
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Jul 4, 2007
I'm not having a good experience with Future Hosting. Since January, I've had one disk failure and two power outages. Future Hosting usually gets good reviews, right? But I'm thinking of moving my site to Slicehost. Is this a good move?
Domain: ultraviolet-u2.com
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May 24, 2007
Here's my "less than 24 hours" review.
I ordered a VPS and within 10 minutes it was setup and I was ready to go. Since then we've had at least 20 communication through tickets/email and they're been great!
Although I wish they had phone and chat support, ticket support works fine. The prices are very reasonable, and I love that they have so many options(control panels, resource amounts, etc.)
I'll reply with a week review, but I have no doubt that it'll be better and better.
I highly recommend Future Hosting, thanks again!
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Feb 22, 2009
The great, the good and the == well,not so good!
The GREAT!
Service is UNREAL! Keep in touch constantly!
The Good!
Speed, Uptime are good!
The Ugly!
site took a bit longer to get than stated, no big deal, but then no cpanel. After that, system dumps(appeared to be from tailwatchd) == 4 or more per hour, then support added a script to delete them every few minutes. then no Email-- no Exim, courier--NADA. Sent in a ticket, got exim working, no courier so went to Dovecot(worked). Was unmanaged! Never switched anything to it, so didnt lose anything.
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Nov 24, 2008
How many people are on future hosting servers and can anyone comment on the performance
Last time I had one my loads where very high, access to plesk and ssh was very slow
They have a new offer on, 35% off double ram etc.. seems to good to be true
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Dec 1, 2008
Id just like to mention that I really appreciate the hosting service you (Future Hosting) provide to me and the work and support that you have assisted me with - I am very gracious and I look forward to future help from you.
I thought I should also mention that you are the host I have even been with the longest and you have left the most satisfaction out of the all the hosts I have gone through,
Being able to have a VPS service provided to me and served in a UK datacentre is extremely important to myself and my clients - that is what is so great about Future Hosting, they give you a large choice of selection of datacentre's to choose from when signing up with them!
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Jun 12, 2008
I sometimes wonder if part of the reason hosting companies "oversell" or promise more than they could deliver if all customers used the resources they were offering is that technology continues to offer more.
For example if they have 500 GB drives on their server now, but know that they will be using 1 TB drives in 6 months, do they go ahead and offer plans as if they already had the 1 TB drives?
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Nov 17, 2008
I've made a deal locally for a decent chunk of bandwidth in a secure datacenter. I've pretty much finished building the behemoth server and i even know to an extent what VPS software I am going to use to handle the virtual environments. The major questions i have are as follows.
1. Does anyone want a mainstream panel like cpanel or plesk? (personally i've always went with Directadmin and webmin on dedicated and VPS accounts i've had in the past due to the pricing)
2. What do you want as far as CPU share, RAM, and HD space? (I've seen some providers offer mear 200mb's of disk and some that offer 1TB)
3. Do most people prefer huge bandwidth chunks that are shared, or less bandwidth but on a dedicated level? (would you want 2mib dedicated or a shared 10mib?)
4. What OS's should I be offering?
5. What services should or should not be allowable? (personally I don't care but im sure there are federal laws here in the states that dictate what can and can't be done.)
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Mar 30, 2007
*I know there is another thread about Future Hosting but since I am starting my own review, I am not sure if it is best to gatecrash into that review or start my own. I guess it is better to start a fresh one so I don't break any rules. *
Just a little background, I had been renting Dedicated Servers for the last 6 odd years and last year since there were some changes in my business framework, I decided to move the few sites I have to a Reseller's account and a few shared hosting accounts to cater for my needs. That was back in October 2006.
Things were doing quite well but the server in which my reseller's account was hosted was a little shaky with several downtimes, heavy-loads and thus causes the sites to be relatively slow the last few weeks. It was intermittent so I thought I ride out the annual contract (I should not have signed up for a year but that is another story altogether).
However, being who I am, I like to pre-plan 6 months ahead of time. I missed the time when I was using dedicated servers as I like the control it gives me. The Reseller's and Shared Accounts seems rather restrictive in the controls but I guess you get what you paid for. Basically, having to rely quite extensively on the tech support. The Tech Support at the Reseller's account was quite responsive but the hardware did not really give them much justice.
In any case, I thought of bringing forward the migration period because of late the downtime was hurting my business and my clients. I needed very much to think of my customers for without them, I would not be anything today.
The plan was to go with a dedicated server as I did not quite have a good experience with a VPS in the past. I had tried Servint years ago but things were a lot slower than a shared account, I guess it was probably because it was equipped with 128mb RAM and that was when they first started their VPS Services. That experience did not go well with me.
However, reading about the Future Hosting review and looking at what they have to offer, I thought I give them a try, besides there is a 30 days money back guarantee so what do I have to lose.
I saw their offer in the For Sale section and dedicated to ask a few questions and Vik responses were quite professional and quick and I decided to sign up, well almost immediately. He approved the sale and everything was set in motion.
In about 3 hours, I have my sparkling VPS with 512mb which I started working on. It was indeed quite fast, which exceeded my expectations. In fact, from the get-go, these people know what they are doing. I like the fact that they have a Business Continuance Protection as an option which protects me from the bandwidth from DDoS. DDoS is a situation in which I never want to be in but this $2.95/mth gives me a peace of mind.
I like also the fact that they provided a managed service which I sure did make use of it. Although I know something about managing a server and did some of the lock-down, I am pleased that there is a team willing to help me when I landed in some trouble (a few times actually). I had them handle some of the security setup which I did not get to do on my own.
There was the time when I had a SSL certificate set up for one of my site but the https access did not work. I could not figure out what to do and contacted them and they helped me resolved the issue without question. It worked for a while until I messed things up again and they got it resolved again and told me what was the issue when I asked them what they have done. Although, support is not there at the snap of the finger, they have been quite responsive and were helpful.
I love the control the HSPComplete and Virtuozzo Control Panel provided in managing my VPS account. I finally feel that I have arrived.
Like I said at the offset, these guys thought about everything. I love the fact that they provided the free VPS Snapshot which allowed me to create an image backup of my entire VPS which I can restore with a touch of a button. This feature would probably cost me a lot more on a dedicated server and it is free here.
The other thing is that the account came with 3 IP addresses and I found that all came from different C Class which is very neat. Most places will just give you running IPs which may be an issue for some.
I got an additional IP through their HSPComplete interface and it was assigned to me almost instantly.
I have to say that although I have not been there more than 4 days, those were very pleasant 4 days. In fact, I love them so much that I have abandoned the idea of getting a dedicated server. Not only do I save on the money, I got a great service and support.
What more can I say. No regrets here.
*Mod, if you need evidence, the two sites on my signature are hosted on my Future Hosting VPS account. *
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Mar 10, 2009
I signed up with Future Hosting in October 2007. I was looking for a VPS to transfer all my domains to. I chose Future Hosting among others I was considering. Back then, Future Hosting had an offer, so I ended up paying 10$ for the first month and I said I am not going to loose anything let me try for one month and then I can decide if I will stay or not.
So I chose the package I wanted and proceeded with the signup. A while later, I get my VPS setup and all is running. I then added more features to my VPS.
The first problem I faced, was a problem with PLESK, so I opened a support ticket and after exchanging few replies, the problem turned out to be from the domain. We used domain.com instead of x.domain.com so that was fixed pretty fast.
Pricing: 10/10
The first month I paid 10$, and they always got deals going on. Everyone says you get what you pay for, with Future Hosting you get more. Other companies might charge you for backup, but they came up with future protect which backup all customers data every two hours. In addition they have server doctor which takes care of automated tasks without the need of an administrator.
Speed: 10/10
I find Future Hosting very fast as opposed to other servers and I am very happy with that speed. I know it may differ from your location, but I am in Lebanon and I am very satisfied with the speed.
Uptime: 10/10
In 18 months I never had a single downtime. Even when they moved me from the old to new datacenter, I didn't notice any downtime. 100% uptime in 18 months.
Support: 9.8/10
I wanted to give them 10/10 but there were few issues with very few support tickets. Overall support was great, now they added server down option, so this will be dealt with directly I assume, but I don't think someone will use this feature much.
When you open a support ticket, once it is read, they notify you and tell you they are checking it and will get back to you soon. Sometimes the issue requires a senior admin to check it so they will forward it to the right person and also notify you of that. In those 18 months I never had any ticket unsolved.
I faced very few problems arising after requesting support on some issues. One of them happened twice and which were taken care of fast. After one of my tickets was solved, any website on my VPS I browse I get served the php file, which means, I am asked to save the file, the server doesn't compile the php file which was a bit scary. The second happened today, none of the domains could access webmail but this was solved fast also.
I am still waiting for a reply concerning the problem that caused this.
One thing worth mentioning and I am very happy of, is the help you get from Future Hosting support. A while back I asked to upgrade my php version to PHP5 and mySQL to mySQL5. After a while I get a reply that PHP version is updated to version 5.x.x but they couldn't update to mySQL5 because it was attached to plesk but when plesk released a new version supporting mySQL5 I reopened a ticket asking to be updated to mySQL5 and it's done. Since I am working on my own PHP Framework, I needed some modules installed on the VPS so I can use them. So I open a ticket and requested if imagemagick and ffmpeg could be installed on my VPS, an hour or two later I get a reply these were added. Now you know how happy I am with them. Other hosts might charge for all that.
One other thing. I faced some troubles with my CC for few months. So once I get that my CC was declined, I asked them to expend my billing grace period so I can fix it and they gladly did it. I don't know how many hosts would do that.
Overall: 9.95/10
I am very happy with Future Hosting and hoping to increase the number of servers with them once I release two of my applications. Two things I would recommend. First, introducing windows VPS. The second phone support.
If you are hesitating whether you go with Future Hosting or not, don't think about it, just go there read the TOS and then sign up.
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Apr 2, 2009
Even though this is a 2 year review of Future Hosting, I would like to back up a little bit more. Lets go all the way back to April of 2006 when I opened my first site.
Between April 2006 and March of 2007 I tried about 5 different hosting companies. I changed companies because I did not believe that 15 people on my forum at one time was "High Usage". And that was the story that I was told over and over by those "other" hosting companies. That with 15 people on my forum at one time, I had reached the limit of my hosting plan.
In March of 2007 I had enough. After changing host around 5 times, and getting the same line of bull from each one, I decided to give running a website one more try.
After reading the reviews here on WHT, I decided to go with Future Hosting. When my forum was setup and people started visiting, something strange happened. My forum could support more then 15 people at a time. To be honest, I was amazed. Here was Future Hosting, and my forum with 20, 30 and even 50 people on it at a time. This makes me wonder what was worng with those other hosting plans I had payed for.
As my forum grew, so did my server needs. Over the past 2 years I went from the most basic VPS plan that Future Hosting had, all the way to the most expensive.
Instead of 15 people at a time, now my forum has 350 - 400 people at a time, gets around 2.9 million page views a month, has over 589,000 post, 48,421 threads and 14,719 members. Over the past 2 years Future Hosting has provided my forum with the resources and tech support that it needed to grow.
Today was a big step for my forum and my relationship with Future Hosting, because I just leased my first dedicated server from them.
To sum up my 2 year review of Future Hosting:
I am a very happy customer.
I highly recommend Future Hosting to anyone looking for a Virtual Private Server (VPS) solution.
Maybe in another 2 years I will be back here posting a review of their dedicated server.
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Oct 11, 2009
I thought I should share my feelings on FutureHosting even though we have only been on their server for 48 hours.
Background
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I started having my sites hosted back in 1990's and have had about a dozen hosts since then. (Started with Pair.net when they were like maybe 2 of the 3 hosts on the planet, LOL) 90% of the time, I have needed to find a host due to my former host being acquired or some other non-technical reason. So you could say that I tend to stick with a host for as long as possible. I have moved from shared hosting, to reseller hosting, to dedicated hosting, and now to VPS hosting. I started my VPS adventures with PowerVPS.
This was about 3 years ago if I recall. Like most here, I did a great deal of homework, read and lurked. PowerVPS was in my top 5 final list. I selected PowerVPS and was extremely happy to put the headaches of dedicated servers behind me. For two years the VPS was very stable. That changed about one year ago. I was told I was hitting resource max and asked to upgrade. Oddly, my sites' traffic was about 1/2 of what it was in the first two years. ie my VPS should have less resources needed. PowerVPS moved many of its legacy VPS users to new hardware. I don't recall they informed me, though they said they did. They did inform me that they would make a decision on the remaining legacy users in terms of billing promotions -- they never did. Downtime continued. I began to notice that their newer techs did not share the same ability of communication and skills as past/founding techs. Answers were curt and became more and more unhelpful. We have all seen this pattern before where a host starts out so well (2 or 3 guys/gals), and as it grows, they add remote staff that just don't have the same passion of the founders, or language skills. (Disclaimer: English isn't my native, so no excuse for lack of communications in business IMHO).
Thus, I began my search for a new VPS here. FutureHosting was in my top 5 along with KnownHost, SolarVPS, Jaguar. Actually, I rated them 3 or 4 in my final list. I tested all of these hosts' sales responses and went through the shopping process just before clicking 'sign-me up'. (I work in Ecommerce so I like to see that process). SolarVPS answered my questions the best. KnownHost a close second. I am sure there are a few other good VPS companies like ServInt, Lunar and HostNexus, but their prices just don't reflect the marketplace IMHO.
Due to my needs and budget though, I selected FutureHosting as they seem to offer the best balance -- competitiveness and support.
FutureHosting - 48 hours
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As my data was on PowerVPS with Plesk, selecting another provider with Plesk was important. Actually, I have always been a Plesk fan having used all the CPs (I just wish they would stop trying to offer 1,000 products and spin off a CP-only company like they were.)
FutureHosting (FH) started the migration on Saturday night. Sunday morning I notice that all sites hadn't been moved. I checked my inbox and read the many emails awaiting me. It seemed Plesk was having a hard time using its server migration tool (typical of Plesk that they introduce a feature that doesn't work 100% of the time.) FH informed me they would migrate my VPS (domains, etc) manually.
While this was going on, another tech worked on some requests I had related to SSH, root access, etc.
What I found in the last 48 hours was what I had hoped for... Techs that received my tickets, and replies that stated WHAT they were doing. I felt informed during the entire process. In some cases, CLEAR explanations were given. In some cases, SIMPLE answers were given -- where I couldn't grasp the why. The level of service was what I experienced in my first year with PowerVPS. And now, a really important point -- EVERY tech that worked on my tickets displayed the same level of competence. All too often, I have felt in the past that the level and ability of techs ranged so much. This became more apparent as of late on PowerVPS (are they contracting out support? No idea.) It was a real pleasure to deal with each tech. I think I counted 5 different names! What I REALLY appreciate was that it was obvious that each tech taking over a ticket READ the entire ticket thread. Too often when a tech takes over due to moving it a tier or shift change, I felt like I needed to explain everything from the start. Gah!! I don't have time or patience for that.
Hardware wise, I moved from (PowerVPS) AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 246 to Intel(R) Xeon(R)CPU E5420 @ 2.50GHz (Future Hosting). In the case of PowerVPS, my VPS was on an old legacy machine that a few of us unlucky ones were still on (We were asked to bump up $$ to go to the new machines, I refused.) I don't know which server is better, but thus far my sites feel much more snappy. I also notice that my former VPS used burst RAM approach vs. SLM. (See my other post http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=896249). I should also state that perhaps PowerVPS uses this in their new machines. No idea.
Overall, I am paying the same amount for my new VPS, the sites are loading much faster and most importantly, the service has been top rate. I was a little worried at first because I heard such great reviews of Knownhost and SolarVPS (I am sure they are warranted), but based on the past 48-hours, I must say my selection was right for me in many ways. I'm crossing my fingers that this level of service will continue 3, 5 or more years down the road. If they do, I won't hesitate to recommend FutureHosting to the MANY developers I come into contact with. (I have sent a great deal of leads/business to every host I have been at.) I will need to revisit this thread on my anniversary to see if things continue in such a great manner.
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Nov 5, 2008
Some of the other hosting companies I have tried are:
1&1
Virpus
Godaddy
And another one I stayed with for 2 weeks and can not remember the name of it. I have tried other hosting companies before. So I do have something to compare Future Hosting to.
Before I signed up with future hosting I had a website running joomla with a bridged SMF forum and another site running MDPro and MDForum. MDPro is a cousin to Postnuke and MDForum is kinda like PHPBB. When I signed up with a hosting company, most of the time I got a VPS and 256 megs of memory - or what ever the company had in that range. For some reason the pages took 10 - 20 seconds to load on the joomla site. The MDPro site was a little faster, but not much. Even though I submitted several trouble tickets, it seemed that tech support could not figure out why the response times were so slow. The usual answer was my site was "high traffic" and that was why the pages were loading slow. I often wondered how 10 - 15 people on a webpage can be high traffic? I tried the joomla support forums, the smf support forums - I looked for help everywhere I could.
After getting no help from one hosting company, I signed up at another, and another, and another. I had almost given up on ever owning a website.
That is when I came to Webhosting talk and started doing some serious research and that is when I found Future Hosting.
When I first signed up with Future Hosting in March of 2007 I got their 256 mg VPS server to run my new VBulletin forum on. It was a new hosting company, a new forum and a new adventure.
After the first month I must say that I was impressed. I had just left the last hosting company because of server performance, so I was surprised when people actually started signing up on my forum and posting stuff. I was even more surprised when the server allowed more then 15 or 20 people on it at a time. And I was REALLY surprised when the pages loads in just a couple of seconds, instead of 10 - 20+ seconds.
A few months later it was time to upgrade to a new server. And then a couple of months later my site was moved to a new data center.
The last time I needed serious tech support was in November of 2007 - exactly a year ago. During that year the only little bumps that have happened were asking the tech support people to update MYSQL, or update PHP for me. A whole freaking year with no server problems. You just do not hear about stuff like that. But somehow the techs at Future Hosting keep these servers up and running 365/24/7.
In the last week of October 2008 my site started experiencing slow load times and connection issues. So I opened a support ticket. Tech support and I exchanged several messages back and forth over the following days. But this time things were a little "different" - the connection problems would come and go. By the time I opened a ticket, and tech support looked at the site, everything was normal. There were a couple of times the tech support person saw high memory usage, or high CPU usage, but it lasted for only a couple of minutes.
Finally, one of the support guys checked the apache server at the right time and found my site was under a small DDOS attack. The Apache server had around 1,000 active connections to it.
After the tech support people installed some security software, the sever is back to normal and everything is running great.
Currently I have the the Elite package with 768MB of memory and 40 gigs of hardrive space. On this server I run 8 websites.
2 - VBulletin forums.
2 - SMF forums
5- Wordpress sites
One of my forums gets over 1.8 million page views a month, has over 332,000 post, gets 900 - 1,000 members visiting every 24 hours, 700 - 1,400 post every day and around 2,884 members visiting every 30 days.
My VBulletin forum - [url]
My wifes VBulletin forum - [url] My wifes site opened a couple of months ago. Anyone interested in digital cameras - go sign up.
Even with all of these sites and traffic, I still have around 500 megs of free memory and use just a fraction of the CPU.
It seems that most of the time when you read a review its negative. This is just the opposite, I am very satisfied with Future Hosting and highly recommend them to anyone looking for a serious hosting solution to real world needs.
Before I found Future Hosting I had almost given up on finding a good host. In fact, I was considering getting out of the website business all together. It seemed that no matter what host I tried, I would get the same results. Whether it was slow page loads, or terrible support - every company I tried seemed to be just alike. Until I read a review about Future Hosting here on webhosting talk.
Here I am 20 months after signing up with Future Hosting. And I am telling you, if your sick and tired of your host - dont live in misery, dont live with slow page loads, dont deal with poor tech support. Contact Future Hosting and get your website up and running like it should be.
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Sep 15, 2008
Dallas special Future Hosting is running and I was curious if anyone has a review of their servers?
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Dec 22, 2008
After considering and comparing VPS offers from Future Hosting, Knownhost, Wiredtree, and Liquidweb, I went ahead and ordered from Future Hosting.
I'll post my initial impressions, and try to update the thread over time.
I currently have a VPS at Godaddy, plus shared hosting at Godaddy, 1and1, and Namecheap.
My objectives were to get away from Godaddy VPS, set up with a 'better' provider, and consolidate sites.
I am fairly technically adept, though not an expert. My requirements are for hosting appx. 25 sites currently, with perhaps another 15-25 to be added over the next 12 months.
Most are low volume, a few are low-to-mid volume. Nothing fancy, primarily informational sites and affiliate sales sites (WP and Xsitepro), and some direct ecommerce.
I focused on the 4 providers mentioned above based on recommendations and reviews here and elsewhere. My main concerns are reliability and price.
After comparing plans and the specials listed on the 'Webhosting Offers' board, I settled on Future Hostings "Titanium" managed VPS offer. The special offer they listed was for 50% off lifetime cost.
Through live chat, I spoke with Nick to ask some specific questions. He was patient and helpful each of the 3-4 times I came back with questions.
One question I asked was how long it would take to get provisioned. He quoted me at under 12 hours - this was also mentioned on the "Offers" thread, specifically for the current special.
The "unspecial" price was $84.95 for 1Gb RAM, 650Gb bandwidth, and 50Gb disk space, with cPanel. I added Fantastico for $3.95. After the coupon code, I'll be paying $46.42 / month.
I put in the order at 10:04am.
Registration was activated at 10:50am.
Cpanel, Virtuozzo, firewall, etc. installed
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Mar 26, 2009
Some information about my forum:
I run a VBulletin forum with - 575,614 post, 14,369 members and 2.9 million page views per month. On average there are 300 - 400 people on the site.
The server right now is a Linux CentOS VPS with 1.1 gigs of memory. The hosting provider keeps telling me that I need a dedicated server.
Question # 1 - In your opinion - do you think its time for a dedicated server?
The server I am looking at has these stats:
E8300
2 GB RAM
250GB HD
cPanel
Management
The price I was given is pretty good. So the offer is going to be hard to pass up.
Question # 2 - Has anyone here used Future Hosting for their dedicated server solution?
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Apr 11, 2008
I'm configuring a website for a client who has moved their web hosting to downtownhost, but is keeping their email hosting with their current provider. They do not want to configure an MX entry on DTH to autoforward email back to their current provider because they don't want their email to pass through DTH.
In order to do this, do I keep the nameserver entries on the current provider the same, and configure an http redirect to point to DTH? Or is there something else I should configure on the current provider?
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