Reviews of Netfirms Web Hosting
Netfirms Web Hosting : User ReviewsWeb Host Site: http://www.netfirms.com/
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Netfirms Web Hosting web hosting plans listed at Best Host Ratings:
- Plus
$4.95 / month, 250 MB Space, 5.0 GB transfer - Advantage
$9.95 / month, 1000 MB Space, 50.0 GB transfer - Business
$14.95 / month, 2000 MB Space, 100.0 GB transfer
Netfirms Web Hosting average Uptime 99.771%
Based on 2233 days of uptime monitoring of 1 web sites hosted with Netfirms Web Hosting
Click here for complete reliability report
Never ever sign with them
posted on Oct 11, 2011 by UnsatisfiedUser email:
Web site: www.dontusenetfirms.com
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: 1 month - 3 months
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Oct 11, 2011): Less than 3 months ago
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: advanced
Customer support rating: 1
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 2
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
Horrible, is the only word I can use.
I had a client come to me with a domain on a netfirms plan, and wanted a complicated cms social networking site. I looked over his plan specifics, and contacted netfirms to ensure that they could live up to what they advertised. Of course they said they could, so I got to work.
Within 3 hrs of dev, the site goes down server disconnect, over, and over. I go to live chat, and start running a web console on all domain commands. The guy tells me that their is nothing wrong, and that he just logged on site, and everything seems to be fine.
I have traffic tracking software installed, and can clearly see that he did not log on to site, and considering that the site was locked to the public it would have been inaccesible to him if he had, and yes I would still see his attempt. So I let him know that he is lying, and that I deserve better from customer service, no deal he says.
This problem escalates and while building I experience server reponses longer than a minute. I contact the client, and say that his present host can simply not handle the load. He tells me that his other 7 sites have been hosted with netfirms for years with no issues. I jump over to his other domains to find that 5 are completely non functional, and the other 2 are loading the same as the one im working on. News to the client.
I than transferred a copy of the build to another domain on one of my hosting plans, and have less than one second complete loads, show netfirms, and ask them what they are doing wrong. They responded by telling me that a domain name similar to the one I am working on is available for purchase, and that I may find things better there.
I lost it on them, and pulled all of the clients sites off their network free of charge. He is much happier, I got a tip, site works great.
Don't waste your time with these guys, take your business somewhere else, I suggest hostmonster for similar pricing, and much better service as well as load times.
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Never use netfirms
posted on Sep 11, 2011 by John smithUser email: n/a
Web site: n/a
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: 1 year - 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Sep 11, 2011): N/A
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: n/a
Customer support rating: 1
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 1
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
This company is hands down the worst host out there.
Lost hundreds of emails of mine and continued to automatically delete emails. Said it was a bug and sorry.
Said things were fixed when they weren't
Made transferring to new host a living hell
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netfirms are the worst hosting company on the planet
posted on Sep 01, 2011 by HiddenUser email: Hidden
Web site: Hidden
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: over 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Sep 01, 2011): Less than 3 months ago
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Hidden
Customer support rating: 1
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 1
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
I was with Netfirms for many years
and they were good.
Then they were sold, and started migrating accounts.
They are now rubbish, in every way.
Leave before they destroy your sites/email and your business.
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MIGRATED NETFIRMS SUCKS!!!
posted on Aug 16, 2011 by HiddenUser email: Hidden
Web site: Hidden
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: over 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Aug 16, 2011): Current customer
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Advantage
Customer support rating: 1
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 1
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
They used to be awesome, now they dont give a shit about you, all they want is your money and they give you ZERO service.
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Netfirms Rating
posted on Sep 06, 2010 by AnonymousUser email: n/a
Web site: www.17latimer.com
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: 3 months - 1 year
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Sep 06, 2010): Current customer
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Advantage
Customer support rating: 4
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 4
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
I can't believe how often my sites on Netfirms are down and how this company continues to advertise a 99.9% up-time. I can typically only find time to work on the web sites off-hours and its rare that Netfirms is up on Sundays or holidays. In fact I'm finding time right now to post this review because its Labour Day and Netfirms is down.
If you count on your sites for income, don't count on Netfirms.
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Netfirms is just horrible
posted on May 10, 2010 by NetfirmsSucksUser email: Hidden
Web site: http://tinyurl.com/NETFIRMS-IS-BAD
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: over 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of May 10, 2010): Current customer
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Netfirms Advantage
Customer support rating: 1
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 1
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
I've been with Netfirms since 2006 and I've given them a lot of chances, but I had enough and I decided to go with a dedicated server instead. The hosting
package I am subscribed to is Netfirms ADVANTAGEâ„¢ Web Hosting.
Here is a list of major problems YOU WILL ENCOUNTER:
=SUPPORT=
* Their support is horrible (assuming it exists). And I don't mean not calling back only - they don't fix jack sh**!!! I called and opened a ticket about
being unable to view my mysql DBs (just disappeared from my DBs management page in the control panel) about a week ago and I didn't even get an e-mail
confirming that they opened the ticket! The guy on the phone told me that he simply has no idea when they it will be fixed and that he can e-mail me when
it's done.
* There hasn't been a month without issues. I have some inside information regarding their practices from a friend worked at a relatively high position at
Netfirms Canada - in a nutshell: they just don't give a fu** about their customers anymore and they will even be rude on the phone if you PUSH ON GETTING
WHAT YOU PAID FOR.
* A year ago you'd get somebody on the phone right away even during regular business hours. Now, you call at 5am and you wait at least 15 minutes - seems
their volume of calls greatly increased!
=UPTIME/RELIABILITY=
* Another, very annoying thing is that they will randomly take your website down without a prior notice and just show a message on your site that it is
undergoing maintenance, which puts bad light on your business - especially since you are not doing any maintenance.
* The networks they use might be semi-decent but on average the sites load supers slow - and that's simple HTML files only - with Joomla installed it is even
slower.
=ACCOUNT/BILLING=
* They will try to auto-renew your hosting a week or so before it is due, so be careful with leaving your credit card info on file.
* If the prices of the package you use drop down, you won't be notified - you will be billed the same amount you paid last year, unless you call them and say
"Hey, don't you think it's a di** move to charge me $150 for something you list now for $125?"
=OBSERVATIONS=
* They have recently introduced design + SEO services (with typos on the page), which in my opinion proves that they are not making enough money with their
current services - reason? They suck and more and more people are starting to realize it!!! (I am glad that you're becoming one of them!)
* They spent over a million dollars in 2009 on improving their infrastructure and rolling out the VPS offer, but it seems as if things went down a steep
slope in the past 2 years anyway.
* Quite often (once every 2-3 weeks) your e-mail will stop working for a day or so. You will get prompted (in Outlook/Outlook Express) for the password over
and over again and although you insert the correct password it is just not accepting it. Then you have to go to webmail (which is very obsolete-looking) and
try to respond to e-mails - in my case it is a major headache, since I have to be copying and pasting a lot of addresses and signatures.
=SECURITY=
* Another very big issue I have with them is that they allow maximum 8 characters password on anything!!!! That includes all e-mail accounts, main control
panel account, ftp accounts, etc.
* My account got hacked once and ALL OF MY DATA WAS REMOVED. I didn't have a fairly current backup, because I was swamped with work and had created A LOT of
content in a form of 4 new, fairly large Joomla websites. So, one day I try to view one of my websites and there is a default Netfirms page showing. I call
them and tell them THAT I GOT HACKED, which I was able to prove and the response I get is: well, sorry to hear that, but we can't do anything! So I spend
another week or so going through multiple "escalation" trying to talk to different people, including the manager and all I'm being told is that "we don't
have backups of particular accounts - we only do entire server backups, so we can't help you". Very frustrated, with 4 months of my 40h/week work being just
gone I decided NOT TO GIVE UP. Another week passes, more hours spent on the phone/email and they finally put "enough effort" to get a backup copy for me...
from 7 months before!!!!! They said they couldn't restore anything more recent, because their most recent backup of my site contained MALWARE!?!?!?!?! WTF,
right? If there really was any malware in my directories, how come it wasn't a problem for them before? Isn't there an antivirus running on the entire
server? Interestingly, my databases were restored too and they were very recent. Nevertheless, after 2 weeks of literally begging, 10 packs of smokes, a few
fights with people around me I got a 7 month old backup and a week old mysql backup - and that was their fix for an issue that was caused by poor security in
their own system.
=ANNOYANCES=
* Something that also became annoying at one point is inability to create your own mysql usernames/passwords, so if you import a website/application with DB
configuration hardcoded, you are screwed.
* FTP accounts - forget about setting up your own username/password. If you want to setup an account for John Smith, jsmith for example, you can't. Instead
you will get something like yourdomain.1 as the user and a random password.
* Their control panel doesn't work in Chrome - it will randomly freez, show blank errors, etc.
=CONCLUSION=
* I would NOT RECOMMEND this company to anyone - there is many, many more options out there that are a) better b) cheaper c) more customer-care oriented. I
am an IT specialist and I've analyzed hundreds of internet businesses and Netfirms places on the bottom of the list, so do yourself a favour and stay
away!!!! Netfirms is just horrible - the worst hosting company I used in my life. Not worth your time, money and nerves...
Webhost can reply to this review here
Netfirms works for me... so far
posted on Dec 17, 2009 by RobertUser email: Hidden
Web site: http://sinhawk.com
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: 3 months - 1 year
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Dec 17, 2009): Current customer
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Business
Customer support rating: 8
Webhost Technical quality rating: 8
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 7
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 8
So I understand that people ask too much from their discount hosting and companies over promise so im leaving this review before I start breaking things or expect too much. My established site works fine and coming from Startlogic, Netfirms is a much better host.
Now with that said, when I ask Netfirms database to do allot, they can under preform and crash... "You get what you paid for right" comes too mind though... The servers and SQL seems to rebound quickly so that works. Gotta love 60 databses with the around $100 plan, lots of space too play. Customer service seems friendly enough, their knowledge on the phone pertaining to common stuff is sharp; I have yet had to ask them anything more than "wheres this button located" and "how do I rename my database".
Now in a few weeks after I start playing around and spidering stuff while editing back-ends with 15 windows open and the SQL crashes, ill come back and complain.
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You get what you pay for
posted on May 12, 2008 by Brian SullivanUser email: Hidden
Web site: Hidden
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: over 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of May 12, 2008): Hidden
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Hidden
Customer support rating: 5
Webhost Technical quality rating: 3
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 5
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 5
The limits on SQL db's are annoying--you get only one with the basic plan. They claim they can host Joomla or Drupal, but just try doing SEF url's and you quickly run into huge issues with their shared server configurations. It's aggravating trying to get credit for downtime, too. There's no IMAP support for emails. Lately, the host servers time out a lot. My sites frequently become inaccessible, and that's really the last straw.
When all I needed was a simple FrontPage site, they were great, and their upper tier support was very helpful. Now that business has grown, though, they can't seem to scale up with us. I'd tough it out with them if their uptime was better or you didn't have to call Canada on a toll call for tech support, but it's begun to be a huge pain in the butt to deal with this company. We won't renew.
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it is one of the best
posted on Apr 08, 2008 by AnonymousUser email: n/a
Web site: n/a
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: over 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Apr 08, 2008): Current customer
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Hidden
Customer support rating: 10
Webhost Technical quality rating: 10
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 10
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 10
I don't know why some people are writing bad reviews about it.
I used it for a long time, and it is one of the best that I have tried.
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So Extremely Bad Now!
posted on Feb 23, 2008 by AnonymousUser email: Hidden
Web site: Hidden
Used the services of Netfirms Web Hosting for: 1 year - 3 years
Date when last hosted by Netfirms Web Hosting (as of Feb 23, 2008): Current customer
Netfirms Web Hosting Web Hosting Plan used: Hidden
Customer support rating: 1
Webhost Technical quality rating: 1
Netfirms Web Hosting Web hosting services Cost/Value rating: 1
Web hosting provider Overall rating: 1
I'm writing this review because my site is again inaccessible, as it is so often. Netfirms provided good service when I first hosted with them, but the last few months have been excruciatingly bad. My site is often down. Their customer support has been utterly useless. If they reply at all, it's with a few standard form letters. They never actually solve my problem. Most of my service requests don't even get a reply. I'm writing anonymously because I don't want them screwing with my site while I move to a new host. Use this host if you like extreme frustration.
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