Need recommendations for a good .com hosting site

[alfaniner]

I'm looking to get a couple .com web pages started. I already have one on GoDaddy and absolutely hate their interface - horribly designed and non-intuitive even for a computer-savvy person like me.

I'd like to know of reliable places that can host the websites I plan to create, to get the domain names, and with a simple way to update the pages. Not interested in free ones like Yahoo (already doing two on there).

[Cavemonster]

Most hosts, including GoDaddy, give you access via ftp. You can always use a 3rd party ftp program like Fetch to do your updating. Most of them are very intuitive.

[Jaxe]

i quite like Surftown

[Zax63]

I switched both my work and personal sites to lfchosting.com (http://lfchosting.com) about a year ago and have been pleased overall. Here is a demo of their control panel. (http://demo.lfchosting.com/) There were two times, once last October and again in November, that e-mail got delayed for several hours. I was not thrilled with the support response of "We are aware of the problem and we're working on it." but that is exactly the same thing I got out of my previous 2 hosts. Other than that it's been problem free. I like that you can host multiple sites with a single account. You just create directories for the different sites and use the control panel to point each domain name at a different directory.

As Cavemonster suggested I prefer an FTP program for transferring files. I use Filezilla.

For domain name registration I've been using namecheap.com lately.

[TheThinker]

I have been using DirectNIC (directnic.com) and have been satisfied. The user interface is nothing to write home about, but I can get around in it all right.

[Cleon]

I'm a big fan of GoDaddy. They're inexpensive, reliable, and...this is the best part...If you have a problem, you can call them up on the phone and talk to someone about how to fix it.

I've been in web development for a long time, and let me tell you, 24x7 sales and technical support is extremely rare. Phone, even rarer. Most require you to submit a ticket with a web-based "help ticket" system, to be addressed when they get around to it.

The only thing about GoDaddy that I don't like is that their web-based system for maintaining your various accounts, hosting packages, domains, etc. is rather convoluted and not particularly user friendly.

If that's not a major concern for you, though, I can't recommend them highly enough.

[Alareth]

I've been using site5.com for several years.

The prices are good and as far as I'm aware, none of my sites have had a minute of downtime.

[wafonso]

I am very happy with dreamhost.com

[nimzov]

I have been with http://registerpol.com/ for 7 years and I am very satisfied.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

http://www.1and1.com (http://www.1and1.com/)

[GreNME]

Look up Hostgator. My better half is currently using a dedicated server package from The Planet hosting, and is thinking of moving to Hostgator.

As for updating the pages on a website, if you're using the stuff they give you bundled in the hosting package then you're not going to be happy with any shared hosting site (I'm assuming you're using shared hosting and not a dedicated server). That's all you get for so little money. It's up to you to get your own tools to do the creation and updating with more features and functionality if that's what you want to do. I don't mean that in a rude way, it simply is what it is-- you're not going to get something as effective as Dreamweaver on a $7.95/mo hosting package. The fact that you can get FTP access and even Frontpage extensions in some cases pretty much covers the server side of the deal, the rest is up to the person who is leasing the shared hosting space.

[alfaniner]

On to part II -- I am on GoDaddy and have several .com sites set up using the free WordPress. But these are mostly blog-type sites for band and such.

I now want to get to setting up my professional sites, where on one people can make entries and search a database, and on another set up a shopping cart. I see a lot of free applications that GD provides to install, but it's all pretty much noise at this point. I can handle the programming but don't want to get locked into some software that's obscure.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

On to part II -- I am on GoDaddy and have several .com sites set up using the free WordPress. But these are mostly blog-type sites for band and such.

I now want to get to setting up my professional sites, where on one people can make entries and search a database, and on another set up a shopping cart. I see a lot of free applications that GD provides to install, but it's all pretty much noise at this point. I can handle the programming but don't want to get locked into some software that's obscure.

So what exactly are you asking? I think just about every major hosting company supports mySQL, PHP, etc, which is pretty much all you'll need for database/shopping cart. And there are lots of free/cheap shopping carts out there, although I've never really looked into them.

[Almo]

www.omnis.com

They let you use php and mysql for backend stuff.