Fasthosts is one of the UK's biggest providers for Internet Domain Registration and Web Hosting. I've been a customer of theirs for several years now, with a number of personal websites and the service has alway been fine. No issues with price, performance, etc.
Until recently.
I hate ... Read review
Advantages: When it works well, good service Disadvantages: Awful customer support, inflexible
Fasthosts is one of the UK's biggest providers for Internet Domain Registration and Web Hosting. I've been a customer of theirs for several years now, with a number of personal websites and the service has alway been fine. No issues with price, performance, etc.
Until recently.
I hate complaining and slagging people off, even if they really deserve it, but Fasthosts have wound me up this time.
A friend ... ...and needed to register a domain and sign up for a hosting package. As I'd used Fasthosts before, I had no qualms about using them again.
First problem. We "registered" a domain name after the Fasthosts website told us it was available. In fact, it had already been registered by someone else but we didn't find that out until we'd already signed up for a hosting package and tried to set up the site.
Fasthosts is one of the UK's biggest providers for Internet Domain Registration and Web Hosting. I've been a customer of theirs for several years now, with a number of personal websites and the service has alway been fine. No issues with price, performance, etc.
Until recently.
I hate complaining and slagging people off, even if they really deserve it, but Fasthosts have wound me up this time.
A friend and I recently started working on an internet-based business venture and needed to register a domain and sign up for a hosting package. As I'd used Fasthosts before, I had no qualms about using them again.
First problem. We "registered" a domain name after the Fasthosts website told us it was available. In fact, it had already been registered by someone else but we didn't find that out until we'd already signed up for a hosting package and tried to set up the site.
Second problem. In light of that, I contacted Fasthosts, explained the issue (which they said wasn't their problem, there must have been a problem with the central domain registration database) and asked if it would be possible to cancel the hosting package for the time being, or at least put it on hold until we could come up with another suitable name for the website. I was told that it wasn't possible to cancel a hosting package until after the initial 12 months sign-up period.
I can understand this to some extent, we did agree to the terms and conditions after all, but given that it was a problem with their domain registration service that caused the issue, I asked if there was any room for flexibility. "No" was the very clear answer.
This hosting package costs just under £10 per month, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're not using the service, it's just money down the drain. I also have an ongoing hosting package with them which is around £4 per month.
I made a second attempt to put the hosting package on hold, with an assurance that we would start it up again as soon as possible, but still the answer was "No". I thought this would be better for them as they have already had three months' worth of payment for nothing, plus my guarantee of continued business in the future. Because of the inflexibility, I've asked to cancel my other hosting package as it's over the 12 month tie-in period. Okay, they'll still be getting £10 per month until we've reached the 12 month mark but after that they'll get absolutely nothing, instead of a minimum of £14 per month indefinitely. They'll also be losing the word-of-mouth recommendations that they've been getting from me in the past.
Oh, one final thing. When I asked, by email, to cancel my ongoing package, they said I had to call customer services. After listening to muzak for more than 5 minutes, I sent another mail and got a reply saying that I'll still have to call customer services if I want to cancel. Another 5 minute muzak session later and I'm not getting anywhere.
Advantages: Great account structure Disadvantages: unreliable email, very erratic tech support
We've been account holders with Fasthosts for some time. We took the account because they have by far the best account structure and value for money that we could find: with their "reseller" accounts you pay a fixed fee (around £500 p.a. for Windows 2000) and can add as many domains and sites as you like. You administer all of your sites and email via a control panel and can also pay extra for such things as Statistical analysis on a per-site basis. ... ...cheap too - £6 something for a .co.uk and £10 or so for a .com per year and all accounts are fully manageable by you - no charges for moving the dns or adding a redirector.
The downside with Fasthosts is the reliability. This applies to the mail servers especially - they've recently upgraded but I still can't download my mail about 10% of the time. Also our sites are occasionally "not found" or - worse - "no website configured at this address" for ...
madlucy 14.03.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of fasthosts.co.uk
Advantages: Nice prices, good support, not a bad service Disadvantages: More than one hiccup along the way
Fasthosts is generally a very good hosting provider. Their packages are very good value and there's plenty to suit all. SIGN-UP
A bit of a hiccup as to where to eneter what, but I called them and they cleared it up dead easy. Transferring a domain wasn't quite as easy and again a couple of phone calls had to be made. That said, it was my previous registrar's fault and the support was helpful and straightforward.
RELIABILITY
I've been with Fasthosts ... ...issues:
> Once my site was down for six-odd hours in the middle of the night, which I was a bit annoyed about but really didn't mind that much
> One day my Outlook said 'POP3 server couldn't be found.' I disconnected and reconnected my Internet connection and it worked fine
VALUE-FOR-MONEY
I got 100MB webspace and various other features (see their website) for £19.99 /yr plus VAT plus domain (.co.uk £5.90, .com £9 +vat) which I think is quite ...
mdm708 10.02.2004 (11.02.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of fasthosts.co.uk
Advantages: free . co . uk domain with . com domain Disadvantages: Price, SQL costs most, Features, FTP speed
I had previously never heard of fasthosts however my dad went and brought the first domain and hosting package he found when setting up his new company.
Fasthost have a site builder for people who do not wish to code their own site, however the program is very restricting and it is much easier to either use another program such as frontpage or just write the HTML in a text editor.
The management of the website is quite good, with a choice of either ... ...that a lot of options that you may wish to add to your website will cost you an additional premium, such as creating a SQL table.
Fasthosts pricing is not overly expensive but definitely not the cheapest company around. Given the choice I would probably seek an alternative, however it has already been paid for a full year that option is not available.
On the plus side if you buy a .com domain with fasthosts they will provide you with a free .co.uk ...
gothicbob 18.09.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of fasthosts.co.uk
Quick review of fasthosts.co.uk
Fasthosts are an absolute nightmare.
They might have 24 hour customer service, but they employ rude and very unhelpful people.
They're very quick to take your money, but if anything goes wrong with their service, which puts your website out of action they go into complete denial.
Take my advice and avoid them like the plague. ...
Diane_W 25.04.2007
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of fasthosts.co.uk
Advantages: Fast, Reliable, Excellent Value Disadvantages: Non found so far
Over the last few years I have been with quite a few of the big web hosting companies but none has ever come so close as 1&1.
They offer all the usual services i.e. domain names for as little as £1.99 per year ( .co.uk) and free domain parking until you are ready to go live etc. but they excel in the packages and prices they offer - plus there is no permanent and binding contract or penalties if you want to move elsewhere.
All the usual email address ... ...and forwarding -all easy to set up and maintain.
Packages are from £1.99 per month up to hosting for the big boys that you probably don't need to know about, and there is a price and package to suit everyones needs
They also offer an easy to set up "E-Shop" which comes in around £9.oo per month for everything - not an expensive business to start up.
With the package comes about £400 of free sotware which is yours to keep! This includes NetObjects ...
krugerpark 27.03.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of fasthosts.co.uk
