Interland Blue Halo plans

[BlueHaloSucks]

We recently purchased a BlueHalo 200 plan from Interland. The server is located in Georgia, USA.

There are a number of issues with this server and we hope that others will benefit from our troubles prior to using Interland.

1) This is a "shared" server on which they do not allow you to install your own SSL certificate. This is because the plan is not IP-based. For those of you who don't know, that means your visitors will be prompted with a security alert window asking them to approve the fact that the SSL certificate does not match the domain name of your website (since the shared SSL is affiliated with *.registeredsite.com). In my opinion, why confuse or frighten your visitors. If that isn't bad enough, read issue 2.

2) Regardless of issue 1, in order to use Interland's shared SSL, you will be forced to re-program your webpages so that any hyperlinks you want secured begin with a predefined value that includes your internal user-id!! For instance, a URL prefix of

https://wx17.registeredsite.com/user12345678/

will be required as a prefix to your hyperlink's full address. This is horrible and will surely confuse your visitor's when they look at the address in their browser window and see that they're no longer at your domain/website .. but somewhere called "registeredsite.com". While this method does alleviate issue 1 (visitor will not see the security alert since shared SSL is affiliated with *.registeredsite.com), it is cumbersome and sloppy.

3) We've been uploading source changes to our website, but notice they don't show up in the browser .. even after a refresh or clearing the browser cache. A call to Interland tech support revealed that they cache FTP uploads -- across the entire shared server -- and do not post updates until that cache is full. We were forced to log into our Administration Panel and force an Application Pool "cycle", in order to see our recent source changes. This is double the work for a developer and just plain silly.

4) Server response time is horrible. We consistently get image placeholders on pages where we know an image should be. Performing a browser refresh merely causes other images to disappear while their counterparts re-appear, in a seemingly random order. A call to tech support ended in a "nothing wrong on our end" excuse.

All in all, Interland's Blue Halo plans need a lot of work. They suggested we upgrade to their "True Advanced" plan, but we're losing faith in their abilities rather quickly. Interland provides unusually quick tech support, but the heart of their business -- their servers -- have a lot of improvements to do.

[Martie]

Maybe since you've posted that you've hosted their recently, then you may be entitled to a refund.
There are many reviews on Interland on various forums.
Most of what I have read they seem to "lack" in the support dept.
For awhile I think their service did improve, however Ive never used their services so do not have any first hand experience with them.

[BlueHaloSucks]

Got the following email from Interland today. Be reminded they swore nothing was wrong on their end. Apparently, "nothing" needs some serious repairs!!

This notice is to advise you that Interland will be performing planned maintenance over four consecutive weekends to upgrade the Operating System (OS) and configuration of four routers in the Data Center. Following this network upgrade, you should have increased reliability.

Phase I of the upgrade will occur in the overnight hours between 12:00 am and 6:00 am Eastern U.S. time on Saturday, March 20, and Sunday, March 21, 2004. Maintenance on the three remaining routers will continue in the overnight hours between 12:00 am and 6:00 am Eastern U.S. time over the next three weekends: March 27 & 28, April 3 & 4, and April 10 & 11.

During this upgrade, you should encounter limited downtime. However, you may notice reduced Web site loading speed or temporarily be unable to access your Web site or e-mail for your domain.

To assist with this upgrade, our network equipment partner, Cisco, is generously providing us the necessary hardware to test its new OS and configuration, as well as the staff to help with the verification of the new configuration. Following the upgrade, you should experience full restoration of service, and all of your mail, which will be held in queue during the maintenance window, should be delivered.

We are committed to providing you superior network and hosting performance. Therefore, if you have further technical issues, please feel free to visit your online support center.

[Interland_Woes]

We are no longer hosting with Interland for many reasons, including Interland's deficiency at support, service and (most importantly) security. Take this for example:

We were working with an SQL process one particular day and noticed that the server allowed us to view other Interland clientelle's SQL databases. We were using Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager at the time.

This is obviously a flaw in Interland's configuration and security. Out of respect to the other patrons, we didn't try to change the data.

In short, Interland shows their ineptitude at managing customers and data. We finally exhausted our patience with Interland and made the wise decision to leave. Interland never owned up to the security flaw.

We've since moved to Verizon. Had some initial glitches, but they were eventually resolved. From a technical standpoint, they are far superior to Interland.

There's a bit of irony, however. When Verizon's help desk gets bogged down, they use Interland's help desk. Can you believe that?!

[InterlandCrash]

Please read this updated post on many reasons that Interland is a very bad choice in hosting services:

http://forums.webhostdir.com/showthr...ight=interland

[HostNews]

It's a funny story with Interland. It seems they've had a lot of problems, I mean some of you guys have dedicated your entire usernames to that of bashing Interland.

I remember back in the day they were great. They had that friendly "farmer" type feel to it and those amazing packages. Then they merged into what seems like hundreds of companies and have had some real image problems, and as it seems from people like you service difficulties as well. I'm somewhat fascinated by this and wouldn't mind doing a story on it.

I've done some interviews with Joel Kocher in the past I want to do another and this time a real in-depth look at the company as whole. Its stock value its services, the mergers, etc.

Send me your stories: contact@hostnews.com. I think there could be something very interesting to this.