Couple(??) of problems with big hosting companies and newbie IMers.

(sorry for the rant)

These big hosting companies (one example is like 1and1) all they do is spending big bucks on advertising ... both offline and online advertising. So newbie IMers don't know the hosting headaches if they go with them ...

Some of their tactics and how it become a problem later:

1. These companies offer domain registration first year free. So most of the IMers buy the domain with them and later will have trouble transfering it as the host don't like to lose the domain and client.

2. They offer yeary or two yearly plans. For monthly hosting if they have to pay $7.00/month, for two year hosting package it will go to $3.00/month. Most people are stuck with this reason for years and years with them.

3. These hosting panels are so weird, nothing will work there. Basic html page hosting is OK but if the IMer wants a little functionality like cron, script installations etc they just can't seem them work it out.

4. Even they allow some functionality, too many restrictions like if you redirect a web page couple of times, you will see '500 internal server error' or stoping the script executions.

But still so many people sign up with them. To be honest there are many better hosts that provide good functionality for $7.00 per month. In the IM forums there are many posts regarding these problems ...

Your thoughts?

.