I think you can cancel your remaining time with WH4L - it's only a monthly contract but you pay a year upfront.

While I don't generate enough traffic to give a dial up connection a hard time, I still host everything at home. Road Runner allows port 80 and I've got 10 down 2 up which is enough for a single blog that's not too heavy on the graphics (plus my phone).

When I get Verizon Fios, I'll have to pay for business class to allow port 80, but I still consider it cheaper than having to pay for hosting.

Plus, being a geek, it's fun.

Plus, being a geek, it's fun.

I couldn't agree more Robb. I too host my blog from my broadband connection (running on a measly PII w/512MB of RAM I might add).

Yeah, I don't have 99.9999% availability like most of your major hosting providers do, but I estimate that I have upwards of 99.5%. And like Robb, having a very small reader-base I'm sure that I don't generate nearly enough traffic to come close to hitting my up-stream limits.

But to me the most compelling reason to host from home is that I get to learn/tinker with the whole set-up from the server hardware, OS, application server, database server, etc... Now I know that many people are concerned with backup & failover and all of that, but being a small-time site I don't really need the failover. I do however have a pretty sweet backup solution in place -- using Cygwin I have a nightly job that runs rsync b/t my server and workstation, and then rsync+SSH over the 'net to an offsite PC at a friends.

I've been meaning to write up a How-To for getting Cygwin + rsync + SSH all up and running on Windows, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. Perhaps it's time.

Thank goodness. The performance was TERRIBLE on WH4L.

Now if you could only fix that "Loading google-analytics..." slowdown in your dependency chain..

AHHHH darnit! I just hammered out a long comment and hit the reset button accidentally...no warning message! I'll type it up again later on.

Much faster! Very nice!

Much faster! Very nice!

Jeff, for you, I took out google analytics.

> I just hammered out a long comment and hit the reset button accidentally

Is there EVER a good reason to have a "Reset" button? And right next to the "Comment" button?

Isn't that a bit like putting the seat ejector button next to the ignition key in your car? EXCITING TIMES!

Good point. I never even noticed I had a reset button there.

+1 to Phil for removing the Reset button.

webhost4life are a bunch of pirates anyway
despite stating that email is included as are multiple domains the truth is that only the first domain is free for email and all other domains can only be attached at root level. If you want to attach at subdirectory then a charge of $15yr is made. They are completely unwilling to state what else will be charged for. You will also find that despite their guarentee of a full refund this does not include the setup fee.

DO NOT TOUCH WEBHOST4LIFE WITH A BARGEPOLE

I have very good experience so far with webhost4life. The reason I went with them was their customer testimonials at http://webhost4life.com/testimonial.asp

I havn't see any other host with these kind of testimonial on a daily basis.

Lucky enough, I did got the same excellent service from them.

As far as the $15 fee, I got the info upfront from their sales, so that didn't bother me much.

Webhost4life is great, I've been using them for almost 1yr now. No problem and support is amazingly fast. Yes I checked their testimonial page, and I am amazed too. So i contribute my testimonial into there too =)

Webhost4life is definately the best out there.

Webhost4life is working great for me and so far so good. Havn't have any downtime, but I am on the Premium plan. I figure that's more suitable to my business than a $5 plan. I love their support service, they are always fast and knowledgeable. I would recommand webhost4life to anyone.

wow the last 3 comments seemed to come directly from webhosting4life. :|

im about to go with them but im afraide they will turn out to be bad. im a newbie to hosting and i dont need to get tricked and then covered up by webhosting4life agents proweling the net.

maybe it is an excelent service..?? im going to have to do serious research based on negative comments rather than the positive ones.

I've been with webhost4life since 2004, and I've been impressed with the storage space, features, and responsiveness of the helpdesk staff.

Lately however (last year or so), I've noticed a significant decrease in the speed - to the point where I'm considering relocating.

*sigh* the search for hosts is a pain in the ass.

If you want to pay a little more than for just simple hosting, dedicated servers are cheaper these days. No limits to what ports you are using, how much bandwidth, or how much load you are causing on the server. Its your server and you can do what you want with it, even resell web hosting to others. As far as support and having the company set things up for you, find a company that does everything for you for free, such as at Hosted DB (www.hosteddb.com) and others may change a small fee. You can bug them all you want with questions or requests to set something up and not be charged extra.

I also have over 3 years experience with WH4L. It does appear that their level of service has degraded over the past year or so. After some not-so-scientific testing, I believe that the problem lies on their database servers (which I guess can be expected when they offer 2 free SQL, mySQL & SQL express database to each customer). They recently (2/19/08) sent a message that they would no longer be supporting SQL Express after March 19th, so maybe service will improve in the near future. Here's the text of the message they sent:

"After extensive research and monitoring, it has been determined that the resource used by SQL express engine causes a dramatic performance decrease for the server. Futhermore, it creates security issues for the server. Unfortunately, we are forced to discontinue support for SQL Express database engine on March 19, 2008. For all customers using SQL Express engine, please move your database to a SQL 2005 environment. The easiest way is to use "attach" function through the "control panel -> database -> mssql admin" section to attach your .mdf and .ldf file. If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact our help desk support staff. Thank you."

I'll be sticking around a little longer to see if things improve (fingers crossed), but if they do not, I guess I too will be in the market for a new hosting provider...

they do take care of some an to some their attitude is take it or leav it.

the reason i m with them is that they provide all i need in terms of features asp, php , mysql n good valume of space plus more, im not a heavy user but i have over 20 sites parked n have php n asp testing portals runing.
its value for money. but it isnt the best webhost its more like STUCK4life! Well im planing to get my files together n leave them -- i just cant find other host yet that provide same service with same value for mony n thats y im stuck withem.

if any one see this and have a good idea for all round feature with value for money , i love to hear.

I have had horrible experience with webhost4life. Actually no one at the staff that reads the support tickets actually understands what I say. After hosting for 3 years there, the service quality has deteriorated (very slow loading speed) and I waste lots of time re-submitting information on tickets that i had already thoroughly explained. Our company is moving all sites for clients out of webhost4life and I am actively telling all my tech contacts to stay away from that company. It is inefficient, low quality, and in the end we end up paying more with our time and nerves than we save by cheaper hosting. Cheap is expensive!

Like most here we had issues with wh4l. After numerous sql, support, and downtime issues we moved to Server Intellect. We have never been happier and am so glad we left wh4l when we did. I just hope we can save other!!!