Web Host forums - necessary ?

[benthai98]

Season's Greetings,

I'm only new here, though have been posting on more cultural based message boards for 5 or so years.

I have started going around popping my head into more IT based forums in the hope of increasing my feel for the market.

It appears, however, that 'hosting info' forums are nothing more than a place for companies to whack up ads about their newest packages etc.

Where did you guys find your host?

Was it from word of mouth, Web banners or your ISP etc?

Do you think people actually look at forums for their information?

I would appreciate any input from you all.

Cheers

Ben

[spufi]

The web host that I recommend the most to people is one I heard about from a webmaster on one of the forums he does. Another site I would recommend, I learned about from a friend.

[Robert Wellock]

Personally I had a free six-month trail from my web host (not ISP since I don't have one) until they decided it wasn't viable to continue offering a free service, so there wasn't a quality of service issue.

However, by then I had had enough time to evaluate the server stability, speed and uptime plus server-side support and general reviews.

For me the servers are stable, fast and provide the relevant Apache modules, PHP and MySQL support.

It's not the cheapest host at £42.00 per year (including domain registration), I own the domain name and get free technical support and unlimited Bandwidth.

Basically the package involved Perl CGI, SSI, PHP 4.2.2, M$ 98, 2000, 2002 Extensions, MySQL, Raw Log Files and Stats, 20 MB space plus 5 MB database space. Actually I now have two accounts because I still have the free old one from before.