Web Host Annoyances
It seems my web host has taken it upon itself to, instead of displaying generic ErrorDocuments, to display ErrorDocuments with Adverts in.
This - I am not happy with, and I’m sure is illegal for them to do (generating revenue from every customer’s site who hasn’t set a custom 404 page!)
To see what I mean - see here.
I think this is totally wrong and unethical. I’ve been thinking of changing hosts for a while now anyway, and this is now just something that tops it. I will be moving.
I used to think that 1and1 were a reputable company. Now I do not, and I will be writing to them in the near future to express my disgust at this outrage.
October 13th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Arrgh! You’re right. I’ve just tried my own site(s) and they all do it. I’ll be on to them in the morning.
The ads don’t even make sense! Trips to St Petersburg when you access Pete Connolly’s page? Useless. Thanks for the notification…
October 14th, 2006 at 12:25 am
I’d vote with my feet. Time for a new host.
October 14th, 2006 at 1:58 am
“I used to think that 1and1 were a reputable company.”
as did i, until they knocked our MySQL DB’s offline intermittently for about a week, then Apache as well. explanations provided? zero.
we made the switch a while back, and i highly recommend that all 1and1 customers do the same. they’ve clearly grown too quickly, and are making poor decisions with respect to their business practices and support policies.
October 14th, 2006 at 3:15 am
Now the cheese link is generating even more money for them. Why don’t you just create your own 404 page then?
October 14th, 2006 at 9:33 am
I have no problem with the actual hardware the uptime and the software on the root server is good, but the support is disgusting so i’ll probably be moving too. I’ve had a number of emails recommending http://www.dreamhost.com/ - Dreamhost. Might have to look into these guys.
October 14th, 2006 at 11:48 am
xD!
October 16th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Um… 1and1 is one of the worst companies in existance, what with their DNS scams, server outages, and insanely overpriced shared hosting and what-not. Use LayeredTech.
October 17th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Thanks for the heads-up on that one.
1&1 and consistently offering the most bang for buck from what I can see so I can’t see me moving soon but I have certainly started making custom error pages to avoid this uncontrolled advert. While I don’t mind it too much the chance of advertising something I don’t agree with or find immoral, etc. means I would rather not have it happening by default.
I might have a look around at other hosts but it is a nightmare moving a load of domains and getting all the e-mail addresses set up again (especially when you have a lot of non-technical users).