[chbot] Web Hosting

Volker Kuhlmann list57 at top.geek.nz
Thu May 20 07:42:13 BST 2021


On Thu 20 May 2021 09:33:54 NZST +1200, Marshland Engineering wrote:

> I currently have 2 providers, Freeparking my original, and Crasydomains, one I
> took over.

Freeparking clearly says "a division of dreamscape" which is an American
cloud hoster whatever. There always was Freeparking UK so I have some
doubts as to whether they were ever a local kiwi company. Local
franchise maybe? It doesn't matter now, they're American Seychelles or
some such now.

Crazydomains have a PITA website that every second click pops up with
"would you also like to buy" - no and f... off.

I came across this 3 weeks ago when mailboxes at Domains4less were
migrated to Crazydomains. Call centre in the Phillippines, servers
wherever is world's cheapest, so who knows who has access to my private
data, like emails - no thanks.

For email in NZ there seem to be basically Net24 and 1st Domains, both
owned by Voyager, which as far as I can work out are a NZ company.
Perhaps all smaller providers and hosters consolidated, and Voyager
might be the only kiwi ones left. All their domain handling is done by
1st Domains - makes sense to only own one place doing it. 1st Domains
servers are in several cities, all in NZ, with call centre in
Christchurch. I asked.

I didn't look at web hosting, but your choice of local kiwi might be the
same.

Alternatively I'd consider something European, and I mean European, not
pseudo-European on the other side of the channel. For hosting, have a
look at netcup.eu[1].

For email, definitely at least glance at both posteo.nz and mailbox.org,
both grassroots activists companies which really care and for that
reason alone are worth supporting with the small sums they're asking.
Both have calendar and address book included, mailbox is more extensive
with cloud drive sharing (their own, of course), meetings (jitsi based)
and collaborative group features, but is also a little more expensive.

Posteo has real transparency reports, not just some marketing joke, have
a read to see the difference. They btw also were the company which
single-handedly trashed European encrypted email. From memory it went
like this: Coordinated press release of a number of large European email
etc providers: "After a lot of complex work, we now have a system to
send emails only encrypted, it works with all the participating
companies and you can sign up in a month when it's rolled out.". Hours
later, press release from Posteo: "We have encrypted email, it only uses
published open existing standards, and you can sign up tomorrow.". The
proprietory crap of the other providers was quietly never heard of
again. Everyone is using open standards now.

> PS I got phoned on Easter Friday by Crasydomains with some sales deal as they
> didn't realize, our local time was a holiday.

Wow. Plonkers.

Volker

[1] They have an RSS feed with specials that often run for one day's
business hours (CEST). Huge discounts are not uncommon, and the
discounted price is permanent. Sometimes you may have to be an existing
customer - register a domain first, on special the other day for
2EUR/year.

-- 
Volker Kuhlmann
http://volker.top.geek.nz/	Please do not CC list postings to me.



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