Cheap and Reliable ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting Recommendation

Microsoft has renamed its next-generation web application framework ASP.NET Core 3.1.6, previously known as ASP.NET 5. In addition, the forthcoming Entity Framework 7, a database framework, will now be called ASP.NET Core 3.1.6.

Entity Framework Core 3.1.6 (EF Core) is Microsoft’s reboot of Entity Framework for the new “mobile first, cloud first” world. According to the roadmap, EF Core will become the official version at some point in the future when the team feels that they have a critical mass of important ORM features implemented. Entity Framework is Microsoft’s recommended data access technology for new applications.

Are you looking for Best ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting? Finding a high quality Best ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting provider is crucial for your web application. Your ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 application can only run smooth if it will be hosted on a server which can provide a higher up time & plenty of computing resources. There’re thousands of web hosting providers which offer asp.net hosting, but choosing Best ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting provider is a time consuming task. To make your buying decision easy we’ve concluded 3 Best yet Cheap ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting providers which are reliable and offer affordable ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting so that every one can afford it.

Best ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 / EF Core 3.1.6 Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal	HostForLIFE.eu	UKWindowsHostASP.NET
$1.0.10/month	€3.1.60/month	£3.1.60/month
Host 1 Site	Host Unlimited Site	Host 5 Sites
1 GB Disk Space	Unlimited Disk Space	1 GB Disk Space
10 GB Bandwidth	Unlimited Bandwidth	20 GB Bandwidth
Dedicated Application Pool	Dedicated Application Pool	Dedicated Application Pool
Support UTF-8 Domains	Support UTF-8 Domains	Support UTF-8 Domains
30-Days Money Back	30-Days Money Back	30-Days Money Back
Latest ASP.NET	Latest ASP.NET	Latest ASP.NET
Plesk Control Panel	Plesk Control Panel	Plesk Control Panel
Windows 2008/2012	Windows 2008/2012	Windows 2008/2012
SQL Server 2008/2012/2014	SQL Server 2008/2012/2014	SQL Server 2008/2012/2014
Latest MySql version	Latest MySql version	Latest MySql version
Visit	Visit	Visit

How to Choose Cheap ASP.NET Core 3.1.6 Hosting Recommendation

Reliability and Speed of Access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low — it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end — especially if the host denies there was any downtime. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.

Don’t believe any commercial web host that advertises “unlimited bandwidth”. The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exorbitant bill for having “exceeded” the “unlimited bandwidth”. Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises “unlimited transfer”, even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine “unlimited” to be limited in some way.

In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits.

To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don’t provide video or music on their site use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known, so you will need to also check their policy when you exceed your data transfer limit: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.

Disk space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those “unlimited disk space” schemes. Many new sites (that don’t host videos or music) need less than 20 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 100 GB (or “unlimited space”), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don’t let the 100 GB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there.

Technical support

Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up with a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.

Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding

If you have your own site, you will probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like [email protected], etc. Does the host allow you to set up whatever email addresses you want on your domain, so that mail can be forwarded to your current email address, or placed into a mail box on your web hosting account itself? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software?

Control Panel

This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I will not sign up with a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such tasks are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.

Web Server and Operating System

Is the type of operating system and server important?

In general, most people will want to sign up for a web host offering a Unix-based system (like Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD) and running the Apache web server. Most web-based software assume your website is running on such a system, and you will usually experience fewer compatibility issues with it. There are also a lot of guides available on the Internet on configuring such systems, so finding help when you need it is easier as well.

In my opinion, the only time when you will want to use a Windows server is if you’re running Windows-specific programs, like ASP scripts. But even then, you’ll probably be better off looking for a PHP-equivalent, and using a Unix-based system.

Price

I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it’s futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise (“realize” in US English) that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I’m assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I’m not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I’m dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after a couple of years), when I’m satisfied with the host, I may change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.

Resellers?

Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don’t know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.

International

If you don’t stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.

Best SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting Recommendation

Best SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting Recommendation

Founded in April 2004, SugarCRM has become one of the highest growth CRM software publishers in the world. As of May 2012, the Cupertino, CA-based company has received approximately $80M in venture financing, and has amassed over 11M downloads, 1M users in over 80 countries, 170K paid subscriptions, 30K registered developers, 1K projects on SugarForge, 400 VARs on five continents and 100 products on the new SugarExchange

The company is showing traction in both customer acquisitions and business performance. Revenue growth maintained high double digit figures throughout 2011 and Q1 2012 began with triple digit growth. In addition to its business performance, SugarCRM’s brand and reputation are unique in the CRM industry. The company has built a passionate and loyal following of partners and customers.

In an industry of innovators or fast followers, SugarCRM is one of the few innovators. The company was born with the SaaS incarnation and has since pioneered commercial open source within the CRM software industry.

What’s New in SugarCRM 10.1.0?

CRM Editions

SugarCRM offers five editions. All editions include the core suite of sales, marketing and support and can be deployed on-demand or on-premises.

The free Sugar Community Edition has achieved over 9 million downloads and offers basic sales, marketing, and service tools without company help. It possesses basic dashboards, simple queries and primitive packaged reporting, however, lacks flexible access to information and assignment of precise security permissions.

The Sugar Professional Edition expands upon Community Edition with an upgraded user interface, deeper CRM feature sets, more integration options, Sugar Mobile, workflow and more administrative management options.

This Sugar Corporate Edition builds upon the Professional Edition with Mobile Plus, additional storage allocation, increased customer support and a faster response time Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Sugar Enterprise Edition extends upon the Corporate Edition and includes additional feature sets such as Offline Client, Enterprise Reporting, Customer Self Service Portal, support for MS SQL and Oracle databases and a Sugar Plug-In for Lotus Notes as well as additional storage allocation and increased levels of customer support.

Sugar Unlimited Edition is the final tier and extends upon the prior edition with a Sugar Connector to Lotus Domino Server, additional storage, 24 by 7 customer support with 1 hour response time SLA and various professional services programs.

Are you looking for Best SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting? Finding a high quality Best SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting provider is crucial for your web application. Your SugarCRM 10.1.0 application can only run smooth if it will be hosted on a server which can provide a higher up time & plenty of computing resources. There’re thousands of web hosting providers which offer asp.net hosting, but choosing Best SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting provider is a time consuming task. To make your buying decision easy we’ve concluded 3 Best yet Cheap SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting providers which are reliable and offer affordable SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting so that every one can afford it.

Best SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal	HostForLIFE.eu	UKWindowsHostASP.NET
$1.00/month	€3.00/month	£3.00/month
Host 1 Site	Host Unlimited Site	Host 5 Sites
1 GB Disk Space	Unlimited Disk Space	1 GB Disk Space
10 GB Bandwidth	Unlimited Bandwidth	20 GB Bandwidth
Dedicated Application Pool	Dedicated Application Pool	Dedicated Application Pool
Support UTF-8 Domains	Support UTF-8 Domains	Support UTF-8 Domains
30-Days Money Back	30-Days Money Back	30-Days Money Back
Latest ASP.NET	Latest ASP.NET	Latest ASP.NET
Plesk Control Panel	Plesk Control Panel	Plesk Control Panel
Windows 2008/2012	Windows 2008/2012	Windows 2008/2012
SQL Server 2008/2012/2014	SQL Server 2008/2012/2014	SQL Server 2008/2012/2014
Latest MySql version	Latest MySql version	Latest MySql version
Visit	Visit	Visit

How to Choose Cheap SugarCRM 10.1.0 Hosting Recommendation

Reliability and Speed of Access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low — it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end — especially if the host denies there was any downtime. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.

Don’t believe any commercial web host that advertises “unlimited bandwidth”. The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exorbitant bill for having “exceeded” the “unlimited bandwidth”. Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises “unlimited transfer”, even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine “unlimited” to be limited in some way.

In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits.

To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don’t provide video or music on their site use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known, so you will need to also check their policy when you exceed your data transfer limit: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.

Disk space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those “unlimited disk space” schemes. Many new sites (that don’t host videos or music) need less than 20 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 100 GB (or “unlimited space”), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don’t let the 100 GB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there.

Technical support

Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up with a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.

Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding

If you have your own site, you will probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like [email protected], etc. Does the host allow you to set up whatever email addresses you want on your domain, so that mail can be forwarded to your current email address, or placed into a mail box on your web hosting account itself? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software?

Control Panel

This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I will not sign up with a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such tasks are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.

Web Server and Operating System

Is the type of operating system and server important?

In general, most people will want to sign up for a web host offering a Unix-based system (like Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD) and running the Apache web server. Most web-based software assume your website is running on such a system, and you will usually experience fewer compatibility issues with it. There are also a lot of guides available on the Internet on configuring such systems, so finding help when you need it is easier as well.

In my opinion, the only time when you will want to use a Windows server is if you’re running Windows-specific programs, like ASP scripts. But even then, you’ll probably be better off looking for a PHP-equivalent, and using a Unix-based system.

Price

I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it’s futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise (“realize” in US English) that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I’m assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I’m not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I’m dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after a couple of years), when I’m satisfied with the host, I may change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.

Resellers?

Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don’t know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.

International

If you don’t stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.

Best, Cheap and Reliable PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting Provider

PrestaShop is an open source e-commerce solution that is used freely by more than 120,000 online stores worldwide. It comes with over 275 features being carefully developed in order to increase business owners’ sales with minimal efforts required. All the software features are absolutely free.

PrestaShop is free software as it’s specified in the GNU General Public License and officially started in August 2007 for small and medium-size businesses. The software, based on the Smartly template engine, nowadays is used by more than 100,000 shops all over the world.

PrestaShop has a good record and even was awarded the title of the Best Open Source E-Commerce Application in the Packt 2010 Open Source Awards and the Best Open Source Business Application in the 2011 Open Source Awards.

It supports various payment systems such as PayPal, Google Checkout, Payments Pro via API, Authorize.net and Skrill. It is used on Apache web server 1.3 or later, with PHP 5 or later and MySQL 5 running on it.

About 41 languages are available to different degrees, but only English and French have full support in all the versions. In the admin panel AJAX is used extensively in the software. Module blocks can be added easily to the online store to supply with extra functionality.

Think of managing a dynamic product list at the PrestaShop back-office: administrative interface helps you manage with one-click most complex inventory updates. PrestaShop has a one-page checkout, provides customers with a great number of options to view the chosen products, reliable shipping options along with control logistics ( fees, shipping restrictions, weight and many more) and the ability to attach custom messages. So you can see that PrestaShop will do its best to simplify and make more comfortable customers’ work. When speaking about defying taxes according to customer’s localization, PrestaShop has an advanced tracking system as well as customizable exchange rates. The customers can also choose the preferred currency.

New Features in PrestaShop 1.7.6.6

The ongoing work on security for PrestaShop software continues. We have identified and fixed new minor security issues and since we don’t expect PrestaShop 1.7.7.0 final to be released before a few weeks, it has been decided to deliver a new maintenance release for 1.7.6.X branch.

Similarly to 1.7.6.5, this maintenance release fixes not only regressions found on versions 1.7.6.0 to 1.7.6.5, but also a few security issues from 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7 versions. This is again a result of the huge work on security going on in 2020 to make PrestaShop software safer. PrestaShop will continue focusing more and more on security to ensure that no security breaches, even minor ones such as permission issues, are left out in the core.

As this patch fixes several security issues, we highly recommend to upgrade your shop as soon as possible. Of course, as always, don’t forget to backup before.

Reminder: the 1-Click Upgrade module’s latest version is v4.10.1, don’t forget to upgrade it.

Main fixes

Below are listed the 6 regressions that were found and fixed in this version:

Front-office regression:

• A BC break was mistakenly introduced in 1.7.6.5 on some selectors in the front-office #18509

Back-office regressions:

• It was not possible to use Stocks page without the rights for Translation page #19713
• Bad button color in Modules pages modal window #9699
• No success message in Customer page after editing a voucher #18842

Other regressions:

• It was not possible to update currencies using the Webservice #18865
• There was an error at the end of the upgrade if it was run manually #18723

Security fixes

7 security fixes have been included in this patch version:

• External control of configuration setting in the dashboard (security advisory)
• Improper access controls in Carrier page, Module Manager and Module Positions (security advisory)
• Improper authentication (security advisory)
• Reflected XSS in product page (security advisory)
• Stored XSS in AdminQuickAccesses (security advisory)
• Information disclosure in release archive (security advisory)
• Information exposure in upload directory (security advisory)

More information about why it is important to update:

• External Control of System or Configuration Setting
• Improper Access Control
• Improper Authentication – Generic (CWE-287)
• Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
• Open Redirect (CWE-601)
• Information Exposure Through Directory Listing (CWE-548)
• Information Disclosure (CWE-200)

Notable change

In order to correctly handle user session expiration, two new SQL tables have been added to PrestaShop MySQL schema: ps_customer_session and ps_employee_session. These SQL tables are used for security purposes.

Breaking or risky changes

Dashboard modules can no longer use AdminDashboardController::ajaxProcessSaveDashConfig() to save values. This is not possible anymore in PrestaShop 1.7.6.6 in order to enforce the shop’s security.

A bug fix included in 1.7.6.5 required changing a CSS selector in the Front Office’s product page and rendering it more specific. However, this new selector did not work with some third party themes which were based on Classic. In 1.7.6.6, a new generic selector has been added: .product-container. If you are a theme developer, make sure to add this class to the appropriate container on your product page in order to allow your product page to be refreshed on changes.

Are you looking for Cheap PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting? Finding a high quality Cheap PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting provider is crucial for your web application. Your PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 application can only run smooth if it will be hosted on a server which can provide a higher up time & plenty of computing resources. There’re thousands of web hosting providers which offer asp.net hosting, but choosing Cheap PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting provider is a time consuming task. To make your buying decision easy we’ve concluded 3 Best yet Cheap PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting providers which are reliable and offer affordable PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting so that every one can afford it.

Cheap and Reliable PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting

How to Choose Cheap and Reliable PrestaShop v1.7.6.6 Hosting?

Reliability and Speed of Access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low — it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end — especially if the host denies there was any downtime. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.

Don’t believe any commercial web host that advertises “unlimited bandwidth”. The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exorbitant bill for having “exceeded” the “unlimited bandwidth”. Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises “unlimited transfer”, even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine “unlimited” to be limited in some way.

In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits.

To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don’t provide video or music on their site use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known, so you will need to also check their policy when you exceed your data transfer limit: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.

Disk space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those “unlimited disk space” schemes. Many new sites (that don’t host videos or music) need less than 20 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 100 GB (or “unlimited space”), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don’t let the 100 GB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there.

Technical support

Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up with a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.

Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding

If you have your own site, you will probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like [email protected], etc. Does the host allow you to set up whatever email addresses you want on your domain, so that mail can be forwarded to your current email address, or placed into a mail box on your web hosting account itself? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software?

Control Panel

This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I will not sign up with a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such tasks are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.

Web Server and Operating System

Is the type of operating system and server important?

In general, most people will want to sign up for a web host offering a Unix-based system (like Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD) and running the Apache web server. Most web-based software assume your website is running on such a system, and you will usually experience fewer compatibility issues with it. There are also a lot of guides available on the Internet on configuring such systems, so finding help when you need it is easier as well.

In my opinion, the only time when you will want to use a Windows server is if you’re running Windows-specific programs, like ASP scripts. But even then, you’ll probably be better off looking for a PHP-equivalent, and using a Unix-based system.

Price

I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it’s futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise (“realize” in US English) that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I’m assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I’m not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I’m dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after a couple of years), when I’m satisfied with the host, I may change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.

Resellers?

Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don’t know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.

International

If you don’t stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.

Best Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting Recommendation

Joomla is one of the most popular free content management systems (CMS) in the world that allows you to easily create and manage a dynamic website. It has an intuitive management interface to control all the features and functionality this powerful CMS possesses. Furthermore, there are hundreds of free extensions written for Joomla that allows users to extend its functionality and customize it to their own objectives. Joomla Content Management System is supported by a large and friendly community where newbies could really rely on assistance from more experienced members.

The Joomla Web CMS is considered to be a popular choice for many types of websites, including corporate sites, news or blogs, government applications, small business sites and sites where secure logins are required. The ecosystem of Joomla developers and users provide products and services to the Joomla community which has more than one-half million members and more than 20,000 developers.

Joomla! 3.9.19 is now available. The Joomla! Project and the Production Leadership Team are proud to announce the release of Joomla! 3.9.19 as the latest in the 3.x series. Introducing 34 new features, including support for the recently released PHP 7 scripting language, which significantly increases web site speed.

Joomla 3.9.19 is now available. This is a security release for the 3.x series of Joomla which addresses 5 security vulnerabilities and contains over 40 bug fixes and improvements.

What’s in 3.9.19?

Security Issues Fixed

• Low Priority – Core – XSS in modules heading tag option (affecting Joomla! 3.0.0 through 3.9.18)
• Low Priority – Core – Inconsistent default textfilter settings (affecting Joomla! 2.5.0 through 3.9.18)
• Low Priority – Core – XSS in com_modules tag options (affecting Joomla! 3.0.0 through 3.9.18)
• Moderate Priority – Core – XSS in jQuery.htmlPrefilter (affecting Joomla! 3.0.0 through 3.9.18)
• Low Priority – Core – CSRF in com_postinstall (affecting Joomla! 3.7.0 through 3.9.18)

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Fix incomplete utf8mb4 conversion since 3.9.17
• Backport jQuery 3.5 security fixes
• Frontend: Removal of the create/edit menu item buttons
• Extend the checks to make sure only real user admins can create accounts
• Mail: Support of dotless domains
• Codemirror updated to its latest release
• Improve translation system supporting better pluralization for languages like Welsh

Are you looking for Best Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting? Finding a high quality Best Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting provider is crucial for your web application. Your Joomla 3.9.19 application can only run smooth if it will be hosted on a server which can provide a higher up time & plenty of computing resources. There’re thousands of web hosting providers which offer asp.net hosting, but choosing Best Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting provider is a time consuming task. To make your buying decision easy we’ve concluded 3 Best yet Cheap Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting providers which are reliable and offer affordable Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting so that every one can afford it.

Best Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal	HostForLIFE.eu	UKWindowsHostASP.NET
$1.00/month	€3.00/month	£3.00/month
Host 1 Site	Host Unlimited Site	Host 5 Sites
1 GB Disk Space	Unlimited Disk Space	1 GB Disk Space
10 GB Bandwidth	Unlimited Bandwidth	20 GB Bandwidth
Dedicated Application Pool	Dedicated Application Pool	Dedicated Application Pool
Support UTF-8 Domains	Support UTF-8 Domains	Support UTF-8 Domains
30-Days Money Back	30-Days Money Back	30-Days Money Back
Latest ASP.NET	Latest ASP.NET	Latest ASP.NET
Plesk Control Panel	Plesk Control Panel	Plesk Control Panel
Windows 2008/2012	Windows 2008/2012	Windows 2008/2012
SQL Server 2008/2012/2014	SQL Server 2008/2012/2014	SQL Server 2008/2012/2014
Latest MySql version	Latest MySql version	Latest MySql version
Visit	Visit	Visit

How to Choose Cheap Joomla 3.9.19 Hosting Recommendation

Reliability and Speed of Access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low — it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end — especially if the host denies there was any downtime. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.

Don’t believe any commercial web host that advertises “unlimited bandwidth”. The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exorbitant bill for having “exceeded” the “unlimited bandwidth”. Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises “unlimited transfer”, even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine “unlimited” to be limited in some way.

In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits.

To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don’t provide video or music on their site use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known, so you will need to also check their policy when you exceed your data transfer limit: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.

Disk space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those “unlimited disk space” schemes. Many new sites (that don’t host videos or music) need less than 20 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 100 GB (or “unlimited space”), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don’t let the 100 GB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there.

Technical support

Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up with a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.

Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding

If you have your own site, you will probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like [email protected], etc. Does the host allow you to set up whatever email addresses you want on your domain, so that mail can be forwarded to your current email address, or placed into a mail box on your web hosting account itself? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software?

Control Panel

This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I will not sign up with a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such tasks are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.

Web Server and Operating System

Is the type of operating system and server important?

In general, most people will want to sign up for a web host offering a Unix-based system (like Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD) and running the Apache web server. Most web-based software assume your website is running on such a system, and you will usually experience fewer compatibility issues with it. There are also a lot of guides available on the Internet on configuring such systems, so finding help when you need it is easier as well.

In my opinion, the only time when you will want to use a Windows server is if you’re running Windows-specific programs, like ASP scripts. But even then, you’ll probably be better off looking for a PHP-equivalent, and using a Unix-based system.

Price

I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it’s futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise (“realize” in US English) that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I’m assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I’m not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I’m dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after a couple of years), when I’m satisfied with the host, I may change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.

Resellers?

Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don’t know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.

International

If you don’t stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.

What’s New in Umbraco 8.6.3 and Umbraco Hosting Provider Recommendation

Umbraco

Umbraco is a fully-featured open source content management system with the flexibility to run anything from small campaign or brochure sites right through to complex applications for Fortune 500’s and some of the largest media sites in the world.

Umbraco is easy to learn and use, making it perfect for web designers, developers and content creators alike.

Umbraco is strongly supported by both an active and welcoming community of users around the world, and backed up by a rock-solid commercial organization providing professional support and tools. Umbraco can be used in its free, open-source format with the additional option of professional tools and support if required.

Why Should You Use Umbraco?

The award winning, responsive CMS

Umbraco  is one of the most deployed CMS systems on the Microsoft stack.

Umbraco CMS offers the power and flexibility to run anything from pure publishing sites and large media sites, to complex applications for Fortune 500 companies. Massively extendable, there is no limit to what you can do.

It’s FREE & Open Source

Umbraco is a completely free and Open Source CMS built upon Microsoft’s .NET Framework.

With no ongoing license fee Umbraco is both a powerful and cost effective CMS solution.

Umbraco Cloud Hosting

Umbraco can be hosted on any Windows Server but if you’d prefer to remove the stress of managing and setting up your own website hosting then Umbraco offer an amazing hosting solution called Umbraco Cloud.

Let Umbraco manage your website hosting so you can concentrate on your website and business.

Website Owners

Managing your website couldn’t be easier than with Umbraco CMS.

• Multiple Site Management, run and manage multiple websites from a single Umbraco installation.
• System Integration, easy integration with any 3rd party tool.
• Cross-Platform, manage not only websites but also mobile apps, intranet sites, rich-media and e-commerce.
• Responsive CMS, manage content on the go with your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
• Out-The-Box Features, 301 redirect management, health check dashboard, device preview and lots more features to help you with your website.

Content Creators

Creating content couldn’t be easier than with Umbraco CMS.

• Easy to Learn & Use, super simple CMS interface, a wealth of documentation, training videos and the famously helpful Umbraco community.
• Multi Lingual, in built support for multi-lingual sites.
• Role Based Access Levels, easily assign different publishing rights for your website administrators.
• Media Library, manage all your media assets from a single location. Scale and crop your images directly within Umbraco.
• Schedule Content, automatically publish and unpublish content whenever you want.

Designers & Developers

Extending your website couldn’t be easier than with Umbraco CMS.

• Integrate with Business Systems, open and flexible architecture allows for easy integration with any existing system.

• Easy to Use API’s, Umbraco API gives you programmatic access to everything in the Umbraco CMS.

• Performance Boosts, with image and content caching built in, your Umbraco powered websites will be lightening fast.

• Custom Code, using Razor, User controls or XSLT you can develop with whatever approach you prefer.
• Design Freedom, Umbraco places no restrictions or set frameworks to your front-end giving designers maximum freedom for their design creations.

Umbraco Hosting Provider Recommendation

Are you looking for cheap Umbraco hosting? Finding a high quality cheap Umbraco hosting provider is crucial for your web application. Your Umbraco application can only run smooth if it will be hosted on a server which can provide a higher up time & plenty of computing resources. There’re thousands of web hosting providers which offer asp.net hosting, but choosing cheap Umbraco hosting provider is a time consuming task. To make your buying decision easy we’ve concluded 3 best yet cheap Umbraco hosting providers which are reliable and offer affordable Umbraco hosting so that every one can afford it.

Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting Recommendation

Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting Recommendation

MediaWiki is free server-based software which is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It’s designed to be run on a large server farm for a website that gets millions of hits per day.

A Wiki is a web application that allows users to create and edit web page content using a web browser. The term wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website. Mediawiki is a wiki software package licensed under the GNU General Public License, making it free and open source software. This Mediawiki software is used to run the popular web encyclopaedia Wikipedia, besides all projects of Wikimedia, wikis hosted by Wikia, and many other wikis.

What is MediaWiki Used for?

Collaborative wiki software has revamped how we as Internet users approach content on the Internet. Whereas previous content was bundled into either static information added by a webmaster or a discussion board-like format, wikis allow any user to contribute their knowledge to the entirety of the Internet.

Here on campus, Kennesaw State University uses Mediawiki, which is the web software behind Wikipedia. When thinking about a particular project and the role a wiki can have in it, please consider that wikis can be beneficial in some areas and detrimental in others.

Beneficial areas for wikis include:

• Course-collaborative data or research – Wikis allow for grouping and organization of data into categories and topics and allow each page to be editable by any of the permissable users.
• Department-specific tasks or guidelines – Guidelines or tasks allow for guidelines to be always up-to-date, being updatable by any employee who accesses the page.
• Project Details – Wikis provide a central area for users to update information, meeting details, tasks, and knowledge regarding departmental projects.

Detrimental areas for wikis include:

• Message boards – Message boards do not naturally fit in a wiki system, as any message or shared item can be edited or removed by another user.
• Sharing portals – As with message boards, shared items can be edited by any user after posting.
• Public facing site – As all wikis hosted on campus are authenticated through netID, the wiki pages are not readable by non-authenticated users.
• File hosting – Wikis are not acceptable sites for hosting files such as video, images, and documents.

Are You Looking for Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting?

Finding a high quality Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting provider is crucial for your web application. Your MediaWiki 1.34.2 application can only run smooth if it will be hosted on a server which can provide a higher up time & plenty of computing resources. There’re thousands of web hosting providers which offer asp.net hosting, but choosing Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting provider is a time consuming task. To make your buying decision easy we’ve concluded 3 Best yet Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting providers which are reliable and offer affordable MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting so that every one can afford it.

Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting Recommendation

How to Choose Cheap MediaWiki 1.34.2 Hosting Recommendation?

Reliability and Speed of Access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low — it really should be 99.5% or higher. The host should provide some sort of refund (eg prorated refund or discount) if it falls below that figure. Note though that guarantees are often hard to enforce from your end — especially if the host denies there was any downtime. However, without that guarantee, the web host will have little incentive to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)

Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site.

Don’t believe any commercial web host that advertises “unlimited bandwidth”. The host has to pay for the bandwidth, and if you consume a lot of it, they will not silently bear your costs. Many high bandwidth websites have found this out the hard way when they suddenly receive an exorbitant bill for having “exceeded” the “unlimited bandwidth”. Always look for details on how much traffic the package allows. I personally always stay clear of any host that advertises “unlimited transfer”, even if the exact amount is specified somewhere else (sometimes buried in their policy statements). Usually you will find that they redefine “unlimited” to be limited in some way.

In addition, while bandwidth provided is something you should always check, do not be unduly swayed by promises of incredibly huge amounts of bandwidth. Chances are that your website will never be able to use that amount because it will hit other limits, namely resource limits.

To give you a rough idea of the typical traffic requirements of a website, most new sites that don’t provide video or music on their site use less than 3 GB of bandwidth per month. Your traffic requirements will grow over time, as your site becomes more well-known, so you will need to also check their policy when you exceed your data transfer limit: is there a published charge per GB over the allowed bandwidth? Is the charge made according to actual usage or are you expected to pre-pay for a potential overage? It is better not to go for hosts that expect you to prepay for overages, since it is very hard to forsee when your site will exceed its bandwidth and by how much.

Disk space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those “unlimited disk space” schemes. Many new sites (that don’t host videos or music) need less than 20 MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 100 GB (or “unlimited space”), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don’t let the 100 GB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there.

Technical support

Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Note that I will not accept a host which does not have staff working on weekends or public holidays. You will be surprised at how often things go wrong at the most inconvenient of times. Incidentally, just because a host advertises that it has 24/7 support does not necessarily mean that it really has that kind of support. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, etc. Check out how long they take to respond. Besides speed of responses, check to see if they are technically competent. You wouldn’t want to sign up with a host that is run by a bunch of salesmen who only know how to sell and not fix problems.

Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding

If you have your own site, you will probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like [email protected], etc. Does the host allow you to set up whatever email addresses you want on your domain, so that mail can be forwarded to your current email address, or placed into a mail box on your web hosting account itself? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message (called an autoresponder)? Can you retrieve your mail with your email software?

Control Panel

This is called various names by different hosts, but essentially, they all allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself. Typically, and at the very minimum, it should allow you to do things like add, delete, and manage your email addresses, and change passwords for your account. I will not sign up with a host where I have to go through their technical support each time I want to change a password or add/delete an email account. Such tasks are common maintenance chores that every webmaster performs time and time again, and it would be a great hassle if you had to wait for their technical support to make the changes for you.

Web Server and Operating System

Is the type of operating system and server important?

In general, most people will want to sign up for a web host offering a Unix-based system (like Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD) and running the Apache web server. Most web-based software assume your website is running on such a system, and you will usually experience fewer compatibility issues with it. There are also a lot of guides available on the Internet on configuring such systems, so finding help when you need it is easier as well.

In my opinion, the only time when you will want to use a Windows server is if you’re running Windows-specific programs, like ASP scripts. But even then, you’ll probably be better off looking for a PHP-equivalent, and using a Unix-based system.

Price

I was actually hesitant to list this, but I guess it’s futile not to. However, I would caution that while price is always a factor, you should realise (“realize” in US English) that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans

Most web hosts allow you to select an annual payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. My current personal preference is to pay monthly with all new web hosts until I’m assured of their reliability and honesty. Paying monthly allows me to switch web hosts quickly when I find that the current host does not meet my requirements: this way, I’m not tied down to a bad web host because I have prepaid for an entire year. I do this even if the new web host guarantees that they will refund the balance if I’m dissatisfied, since at the point I sign up, I have no assurance that they will honour their guarantee. Later (usually after a couple of years), when I’m satisfied with the host, I may change payment plans to the discounted annual plans.

Resellers?

Not all hosting companies own or lease their own web servers. Some of them are actually resellers for some other hosting company. The disadvantage of using a reseller is the possibility that you are dealing with people who don’t know much about the system they are selling and who take longer to help you (they have to transmit your technical support request to the actual hosting company for it to be acted upon). However, this also depends on both the reseller and the underlying hosting company. It is thus wise not to rule out all resellers; there are a number of reliable and fast ones who are actually quite good and cheap. In fact, a number of resellers sell the same packages cheaper than their original hosting company. If you find out that a particular company is a reseller, you will need to investigate both the reseller and the real hosting company.

International

If you don’t stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.