CyberWings -- for Resellers?

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 2:59 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

I won't deny that Cyberwings (CW) has some of the lowest prices, and I'm also well aware that they're the sponsor for this site; however, I believe they may well be a "bad host" for some people. After trying them for a few months, I really got the feeling they were more for resellers. Now it seems they'll soon be offering new accounts ONLY to resellers -- see this link for CW's official announcement and explanation about their "Last Hosting Sale."

When asked to recommend a hosting service, I haven't been able to honestly recommend CW to anyone for two reasons. One, because most people asking me aren't ready to buy in bulk and aren't resellers. And two, my own needs were modest (only two 100 MB accounts with subdomains), but weren't supported when CW changed its DNS settings a couple of months back (early March 2002). Somehow the DNS changes screwed up access to many of the subdomains, and not only was CW either unable and/or unwilling to fix them, but they eventually decided to stop supporting subdomains altogether. Surprised

Since I didn't want to buy several domain names (which was the only "solution" CW offered me), I was pretty much forced to close both of my two useless (inaccessible) accounts and start over with another service.

My advice, if you don't plan on buying a lot of accounts or becoming a RESELLER, would be to shop around.

And as a sort of footnote, if you're interested in the problems CW had supporting subdomains (which they no longer offer at this date), check these four threads:

"DNS Setting Changes to Subdomain - How Long to Wait?" Rolling Eyes

"My Sites Down on Both Accounts..." Crying or Very sad

"Changing DNS on Cyberwings.com" Sad

"faqs.cyberwings.com" Rolling Eyes

Anyway, good luck shopping, and I sincerely hope you'll find a better hosting experience than I did with CW! Smile

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

verto wrote:

My advice, if you don't plan on buying a lot of accounts or becoming a RESELLER, would be to shop around.

Why do you say that?

I do understand your frustration, but as to the subdomain issue, Shawn did say he would reimburse people who did not want to buy a TLD. Also, very few hosts actually offer subdomains off their TLD, so it is not surprising Cyberwings isn't anymore.

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Put it this way, Cyberwings is nowhere near as good as my $6 per month hosting, but you get what you pay for, and it does the job that I need it to do, although I wouldn't host a corporate or a important site on cyberwings.

And I hate plesk.............

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

I agree that Cyberwings isn't as good as some more expensive hosts, but for the price you pay (I can't really afford more Smile

), it's great.

I have an account with 34SP, and they charge £15/year. All I get for that, which I wouldn't get with CW, is better support. CW gives me way more transfer, and unlimited email addresses.

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 4:15 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

Daniel, to be honest, the couple of other times I asked for support or service that didn't involve sending CW money, I didn't really feel the service I got was that friendly or prompt.

I wanted to keep my post short, and not go into a laundry list of detail, but maybe the best other example was when I switched one account from COBALT to PLESK panels. Just after I signed up for a COBALT account, PLESK became available at no extra charge, and when I asked, Shawn told me he'd switch me over to it for free whenever I was backed up and ready for it. That was also just before the announcement of CW's upcoming move to the new Data center, and that helped confuse things a bit for Shawn, according to him. Anyway, after it was announced that the switch would become mandatory, I began backing up my site, and when I was backed up and ready to roll, it'd become "unmandatory" (postponed, actually) so when I asked him to switch, he questioned it right away until I reminded him. Then he promised to get to it, and I had to remind him a few more times (one time he apologized that he wasn't feeling well, and would try to get to it the next day, but didn't), so it took about a week altogether to get done.

Anyway, right after the switch was finally made to PLESK and I'd started sending out links to my site, the CW DNS settings were changed, and my site was suddenly inaccessible. There was no notice about this, and it was a complete surprise. Surprised

For all the time I spent changing links, trying to get my site setup and ready to roll, and then waiting for DNS stuff to resolve itself, and running this stuff by more knowledgable folks (for the DNS), I got zero use out of my accounts and wasted tons of time (especially when I was backing up and restoring my sites on a slow connection at first -- one of the comps I was using was on an ancient and unreliable 56K frame relay connect, which was sometimes slower than a 26.6K connect Rolling Eyes

).

I also had to ask at least a couple of times for the refund -- personally, I think Shawn should've sent out an e-mail offering the refund to all the subdomain users with problems. And as far as I know, he didn't follow up on his promise (in my thread) to check into the DNS problems -- he basically just seemed to deny there were any problems for the first week or so. Most of the people I've asked about DNS changes have said that if they don't work within about 36 hours that someone's screwed them up. Embarassed

I fully realize that a lot of this would've been much easier if I'd had my own domain names, but I really didn't count on needing them up front, if you know what I mean. I guess that I just expected too much from CW. Altogether, I spent a few months without being able to use my sites, busting my butt trying to get them established (first on that slow connect, then trying to figure the DNS problems, etc.), and then ended up starting all over again. Razz

On the other hand, if I'd continued buying new accounts, had my own domain names up front, had as much free time for posting and keeping up with these boards as people like you and Justin, with CW chat rooms, and the like, then I can imagine I might've had a much more positive experience. Laughing

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Wow, what a long post!

Anyway, I understand that you were disappointed with Cyberwings, and I'm not questioning you. However, I have never had any problems with my personal account (on a TLD).

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 4:34 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

anyway, what's the deal with SK? Is it still really free? No strings, no ads, banners? Idea

I checked a few of the threads in the good hosts board, but didn't find any posts by you there about getting a bill for their hosting... Question

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

It's free, but uptime isn't great, and it's so slow!

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 4:40 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

now you've got me confused, Daniel -- I actually was looking at SK -- are they still good? Cool

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 4:41 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

Justin wrote:

Put it this way, Cyberwings is nowhere near as good as my $6 per month hosting, but you get what you pay for, and it does the job that I need it to do, although I wouldn't host a corporate or a important site on cyberwings.

And I hate plesk.............

Just wondering in what way they arent as good...... Maybe support wise but other than that?

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

verto wrote:

now you've got me confused, Daniel -- I actually was looking at SK -- are they still good? Cool

Do you mean host.sk?

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Plesk Five is being slow, like it was last time just before they upgraded their datacentres bandwidth, if you ask me, it needs doing again, MYSQL is also being quite slow lately, I get a lot better support on my ecommercediscovery domain, also get CPanel Control panel, also the SMTP servers on plesk five sometimes take forever to respond after you get to connecting in Outlook.

Also I get the odd silly error on Cyberwings, downtime happens every day (Not very much, but internetseer always comes back with around about, on average 96.12% per day, where as if I don't get my 99.9% at my other host, I get a months free hosting Smile

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 4:52 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

Quote:

Do you mean host.sk?

yea, that was it -- they don't sound too bad from quickly skimming the "good ones" board... but it sometimes sounds as if you might need to shack up with a slovak-speaking gal to stay on top of what's going on there? Rolling Eyes

Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2002 4:53 pm (21 years, 12 months ago)

Odd, not had any such problems with plesk2...

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Ben wrote:

Odd, not had any such problems with plesk2...

You're lucky, count how long it takes for www.koponline.cc/forums to load, the MYSQL is overloaded, I don't care what anyone says, it's simple to see.