TheChrisD - Rant Central

Time to look for another web host?

There’s been a bit of a scare with Dreamhost today. Seems that someone on their end had a little screw-up and now practically everyone is being told that their accounts are overdue and they will be suspended if they don’t pay.
Or even worse, some people have been charged for their renewal, some even charged twice! That seems to be one big downside for the automatic paying method…

Thankfully, I haven’t been charged, since firstly the "credit card" I have on file with them is a 3V voucher that expired at the end of November last year, and secondly I don’t have automatic re-billing turned on. Besides, I would never give them my credit card details. If I’m buying anything over the Internet, I will only pay via PayPal. And if they don’t accept it, I should be able to use a PayPal Secure Card. That is, if they’ve enabled them for Ireland. I tried to use one before and was told that it was for the US only.

However, it is making me re-consider whether it’s worth staying with them. Currently, my hosting expires sometime October this year, so I do have quite a while to go before having to either renew or look elsewhere. However, since I only paid €6 for the year’s hosting, since I signed up during their $110 off period, it won’t hurt me too much to leave them at this stage. However, where else to go…?

• Wordpress.com: They do provide free Wordpress hosting at no cost and all you have to deal with is the global Wordpress bar on the top of the page. But you can’t have your own custom theme, or anything else like that on your blog, which would mean I’d be unable to use them for my stuff gallery, image hot-linking etc.
• GoDaddy: They may be cheap, but they are shit. I was with them before for about 2 months, and had a load of issues trying to change anything since their web panels were so unhelpful.
• Bluehost: Wordpress themselves recommend Bluehost. Their stats are greater than Dreamhost’s, and they still provide a 1-click install as well as properly allowing custom PHP.ini - but I’m unsure as to how much they’ll cost. Their homepage says $7 a month, but I can’t go any further to see the total yearly cost unless I go through the domain screen first. And I couldn’t be bothered.
• Redbrick: The college’s networking society provide webspace, so it may be possible for me to host my site there. But I doubt they’d handle my domain and e-mail, so it may not be feasible.

And in all scenarios, I’d have to deal with transferring the domain, the e-mail, and all the Wordpress plugins, themes and file changes I’ve made. I’ve already moved hosts too many times to want to go through it again. But, I don’t have to worry about it for another 9 months or so, so for now I’ll be sticking with the helpful, yet often buggy Dreamhost!