Webhostingstuff.com – A Hostgator.com Affiliate

This is an open letter to Hostgator.com in regards to their affiliate webhostingstuff.com.

According to your Affiliate Terms of Service:

http://www.hostgator.com/tos/affiliate-tos.php

“HostGator expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and HostGator any time you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services, in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission guidance as outlined here. Such disclosure should be clear and prominent, meaning close to the endorsement or testimonial.”

In short they must disclose that they get paid for every referral.  Through my screen shots you can clearly see there is no disclosure.

Webhostingstuff.com does not disclose on any page that links to Hostgator.com that they get paid for their endorsement of your site.  For which they put your company on the number 1 positions for Top Best Hosting and Hot Deal list.

Instead they have what is called WHSRank, where supposedly they base ranking off of customer feed back.  Regardless of this there are two hosts with more positive reviews then your company.  After years of reviewing their site I can tell you that they do not base any ratings off of WHSRank, but off of what they are panning off as PPC, which really is bidding on positions.  In Hostgator.com’s case they signed up as one of your affiliates.

I have suspected for a while now that webhostingstuff was an affiliate of Hostgator.com. That Hostgator.com may not be involved in the ruse called PPC (pay per click) which is no where evident on Webhostingstuff.com’s site or other sites.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=1015

All it took to find out if they were a Hostgator.com affiliate was a simple cleaning out my cookies going to webhostingstuff.com and clicking on the HostGator.com  link and ta da, sure enough a Hostgator.com affiliate cookie shows up in my cookie folder.

But in short here is what I did to look at the cookie:

Firefox seems the best way to watch cookies.

  1. Go to options
  2. Click on Options
  3. Select Use custom settings for History
  4. Show Cookies

From there you get a window to watch cookies as they come in.  You can also clean out all cookies from here for Firefox.

What I did next was go to webhostingstuff.com, clicked on the hostgator.com link.  Where for some bizarre reason I have to select from three sets of characters which one has an actual word. After sending me to Hostgator.com I find an affiliate Cookie for Hostgator.com.

No surprise that Webhostingstuff.com has Hostgator.com at the top of both Top Best Hosting and Hot Deal lists.  After all that $50 – 125 per sign up is hard thing to resist.

In short I am asking that you have webhostingstuff.com put up a disclosure or that you remove their affiliate access.

Regards,

Benjamin of Hosting-Reviews-Exposed.com

Hostgator.com and FTC Compliance

A few months ago Endurance International Group announced FTC compliance; it appears that Hostgator.com has also done the same. In the middle of last month I had wrote a post and emailed Hostgator.com in regards to their upcoming black Friday promotion.

I challenged them to take on the spam which had gotten pretty bad as I was getting it in emails, YouTube comments, and blog comments. While I don’t approved of the method which they choose to deal with it, I can say I only got one comment spam for Black Friday.

A simple challenge to Hostgator.com

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2743

My other challenge was for them to do the same FTC compliance that EIG was doing with their affiliates.

My mistake in writing to back to them was I had just woke up when I had gotten the email early in the morning. I missed the part where they stated that they had sent out FTC compliance emails to their affiliates. I was told after my last response I could personally contact one of their staff if I had any additional questions. Which I waited till after Thanks Giving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, to ask for the FTC compliance email (last Tuesday to be exact). I realize the next part I could have found on my own by reviewing their terms of service, but I wanted an email that stated in short that if you do a review and get paid you had disclose that fact.  Right now there is someone that I had always thought that was making money as a Hostgator.com affiliate, turns out I was right. I should have looked at the cookies, pretty simple clear my browsers cookies out and then go to the site to see if any affiliate links come up. Sure enough this process showed an affiliate cookie, and not just for Hostgator.com. Tomorrow I will revel which review site it is, and if you read my blog it should not be to figure out who it is.

Part of the reason I am sending this post out as a email is in hopes of getting other people to email Hostgator.com once I expose the review site for not following FTC guidelines. While Hostgator.com can ignore me, it’s a little harder for them to ignore other people.  I plan to have the post up tomorrow.

A brief examine of their affiliate terms of service revels that reviews for profit must be disclose.

Hostgator.com’s terms validates the FTC requirement

http://www.hostgator.com/tos/affiliate-tos.php

5. Responsibility for Your Site.

HostGator expressly requires you to disclose that there is a “material connection” between you and HostGator any time you offer an endorsement or testimonial on our services, in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission guidance as outlined here. Such disclosure should be clear and prominent, meaning close to the endorsement or testimonial.

http://business.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/bus71-ftcs-revised-endorsement-guideswhat-people-are-asking.pdf

Stay tuned for updates in regards to the review site I plan to expose that is not FTC compliant with Hostgator.

4 years and counting, reviewing hosting review sites

I can honestly say when I first started in the hosting industry I never thought about doing anything with hosting review sites. But not everyone who shared control of the hosting sites with me, was not thinking of how to monopolizing on hosting review sites.  I had a business partner that wanted to start a fake review site, where our hosts would appear on top. An idea he got from Featureprice. There are other hosts that practice this today such as siteground. He did not have the conscience I have, one that can cause loss of sleep.  Despite winning the argument of staying out of the review industry, I lost the war to stay out of the cheap hosting industry.  That and several other factors would lead to me selling my controlling shares. Being  against starting a fake review site had caused a rift between me and my business partner for a few years.  Up to the point webhostingstuff.com decided to delete our positive feed back.   The rift quickly dissolved when he found I was making this site, and then he wanted to know what he could do to help me with it.

A short re-introduction of the history of reviewing hosting review sites

My start in the hosting industry was about 15 years ago, when I was introduced to the guy that would later be my business partner in the hosting industry. At that time I had been hired because I was pretty good with data bases, and later I would transition over to graphics.  At the time we both worked for a so called “I can make you rich if you buy my book” guy, or in short a guru.  Even before that my business partner had ideas of running a hosting company.  By the time we had gotten out of the “give me money so I can tell you how I got rich” industry we had partnered with someone else that would ultimately lock us out of our first hosting operation, this host would ultimately die 2 weeks after we were locked out.   Which set us back 8 months in getting another host started up.  Ultimately this host would take off and it still is active to this day.  Despite some other failed business relationships one with a tech who did not believe in virus protection.  Details given in one of my early posts.

By the time webhostignstuff.com came into the picture we had 2 hosts running, a third in production.  This was the point where they decided to delete the positive hosting review feedback of one of my companies.  My company was not the first, nor was it the last.  The big difference is those other hosts did not have someone like me.  I am not saying I am special, far from it. It’s the whole thinking outside the dimensions of a box and not just out of the box. Simple put I am really weird.

The reason webhostingstuff.com deleted my positive feed back was because they were using the negative hosting reviews for my site to encourage others to buy from their top 25, and the same for any host that was not paying for a spot in the top 25. After all its not profitable for people to come to their site and find out that people were happy with the service my company provided or the company they were looking into.   That and the less new customers that flow in from webhostingstuff.com to those that paid for top 1 – 25 positioning will be less likely to pay for a spot, or in the case of Michael Lows hosting review site hostaz.com, people would be less likely to sign up for the hosts that are set up with affiliate links.  Despite saying they don’t delete feed back, they do.  They even give reasons for deleting it such as you closed your account and got a refund.  Never mind the reasons for closing your account may very well justify you creating a hosting review.

Seeing (a) positive review(s) would not give the possible customer a reason to review the so called top 25 list. At the same time people who paid for the top 25 have had their negative hosting review(s) deleted.  Something I witnessed with Infinite Networks.   When I first reviewed them they had 6 reviews with a 2 out of 5 star rating.  Then they had 4 reviews so it was 3 out of 5 stars.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2117

This site started as a way to vent my anger in my scant free time.  After launching the one page site and the video, I contacted many of the hosts that appeared in these so called hosting review sites.  None of them responded back to me. By the end of December 2007 my anger had long cooled down, and I thought this site would go no where.

I of coarse debated on advertising my hosting company on the site, but it seemed like a conflict of interest.  In many ways I think this would work to my advantage as many smaller hosts would point people to my site.

Right before the 4th quarter of 2009 several factors lead to me deciding it was time to get out of the hosting business among them  was zero vacations/weekends and  long hours.  Not to mention I had wanted to finish up school for a career in biology.  I was not too thrilled dealing with a cheap hosting industry as the less a customer paid the more they expected.  They were more likely to put in support tickets.  On top of that others in our company infrastructure wanted to do what EIG (Endurance International Group) was doing (several hosting companies while using the control panel as a advertising platform), and already had two more companies planned for release in early 2010.

By the end I sold my shares for 60 – 70% of their value, in hopes of getting out as fast as possible (a decision I would regret later as that was a lot of money). I had to sign a non-disclosure agreements and non-compete clause (ncc) agreements.

In early 2010 after finalizing the sales Google contacted me to put AdSense on the site.  Also someone in Singapore was trying to buy the site off of me (Which so happens to be where Michael Low is from).

I thought it was a bit odd, here is a site that for two and half years I did nothing with, it was tied to two videos on YouTube.   One with no sound which is the most popular, and has people saying I should add sound.  Another with sound (thanks to a volunteer) that gets less traffic.  I approved or declined of comments and responded to them.  That was the most I did to maintain this site.  So why the heck did Google want me to put AdSense on it?

I decided to see what a search of Google would find.  The first was a blog for a host.  It pointed to my video and actually did a review of some of the hosts on this hosting review site that were on the top 25, one was hostdawgs.com (Which later went out of business).   They showed based on numbers that the system made no sense.  Hosts with a high amount of negative reviews or no reviews at all were on the list. They also had proof that webhostingstuff.com was deleting negative feed back. I also found that other hosts were referring people to my site such as this one.

This was the point I had decided that I need to start reviewing webhostingstuff.com on a regular basis to find their inconstancies.  I would also soon find out the site was losing traffic due to be on a shared environment with Godaddy and would soon move off to MediaTemple.

A summary of 1.5 years of looking at hosting review sites

One of the biggest inconstancies with this so called hosting review site, was a site called i7net.  The problem with i7net was it had not been online for months at a time.  Worse yet webhostingstuff.com stated that because of the frequency of downtime they were no longer keeping track of the up time   So on this wonderful top 25 you could see a very clear 0% for up time next to the zero stars for zero hosting reviews. Despite that it appeared off an on in the top 25 list from June – November 2010.  Until Webhostignstuff.com finale figured it out, and deleted the site’s listing from their data base.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=586

A better summation of the problems I found on this so called unbiased hosting review site can be found at:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2121

As my reviews intensified I had to start asking friends around the globe to get me screen shots because I was being blocked.  Which in turned my friends started being blocked.  They probable would not have been blocked if I had not sent emails to Michael Low telling him what countries and ISP my friends were in. Seriously if his site was legit why block people?

By May 2011 Webhostingstuff.com went through a face lift making the top 25 list obscure.  As I had to tell a very angry Jixhost.com (who happen to argue with me on webhostingtalk.com) that it may not be profitable to have to pay for a position that is now 9 clicks away from the main page when it was only 1.  Plus risk the chance of  losing people who are blocked.  At which time I have stopped reviews.  Though I can say I am not done with webhostingstuff.com. Despite these changes the only PPC going on with their site is from Google.

Fun on Webhostingtalk.com

I also got exposed on webhostingtalk.com:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2207

I learned about Endurance International Group

Its funny how a chat can tell you things you never knew.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=771

One of the big problems with this company is it does not fully disclose the list of hosts that are with them.  One of their former employees as you can see from the comments on that last post claimed that justhost.com was not added the BBB record (the only place I know that has a list of their sites) as it was a fairly new acquisition.  Which is not true as netfirms was acquired after that by atleast a year or 2, appeared just weeks after someone notified me that Netfirms had a been acquired.  I think had something to do with it being a Canadian host versus a U.S. host.  As EIG went out of its way to notify people and actually had a page dedicated to the transfer of the customers.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=1964

A few months ago they may have given me an edge with hosting review sites on FTC guide lines.  Which in short means if you profit by a review, you have to have a disclaimer up.  Which another site called hostingsthatsuck.com did not have until after I did a post on them.  I had planned on doing a review of every review site with an Alexa score below 1,000,000 that I came across based on these guidelines.  Time permitting I will start that process up again.

If you are a host, hosting review site, or anyone else I am the last person to spam.

I decided to take on certain elements in the hosting / web site industry.  The first of which was mindshark.ca.  A so called SEO company.  They harvested my email (they claim a third party did it, after I called their bluff on so called opting in), by going to my contact form and sending me an email.  I of coarse trying to not be rude responded.  Next thing I know I got spam.  Never mind the only purpose of that email was contacts from the contact form, blog updates, and YouTube. They claimed that I opted in, having been a previous hosting provider I know full well what opted in means.  In short I wrote two posts that stay at the top of their search engine results to prove they don’t know diddly squat about SEO, which says a lot as I don’t know a lot about SEO.  Did I mention my two posts appear in the top page of mindshark.ca review for Google?

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2037
https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2055

Fake hosting review comments by Unlimitedgb.com

This is an on going drama, and one that I never thought would have gotten a lot of attention.  My former business partner thought it was a waste of time for me to do posts on hosts that spam unless they were like hostgator.  But a post on Unlimtedgb.com was the first host to get in trouble with me for posting fake positive reviews on my posts.  Seriously I am try to find the worst things about a host, and this host comes along to create fake feed back while bashing a host. Did they not think that maybe if I did not like fake reviews, I am really not going to like spam.  Not to mention its poor taste to try and make a buck off another hosts expense.

The worst of it was yet to come.  After I wrote a post:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=1240

Which in turn they decided to post positive comments, big surprise as this is strategy they do on other sites to drown out negative feed back (in a few cases some of these commenters came from the same IP).  But the worst of it was this page appeared on the first page of their search engine results. So he tried to bribe me.  I had to see how much he would pay, so before I contacted him I stated on Twitter and Face Book that some host was trying to bribe me and that I was going to soon bust them for it.

Clearly he did not read my Social Media for this site.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2436

This is where he had the nerve to question my ethics for posting his email after not responding to the above post.  Never mind he spammed my blog, created fake feed back, and then tried to bribe me.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2461

Despite a third post they decided to start spamming fake comments again on my site. Despite calming they had stopped that.

Bottom line if your going to spam my site, be prepared for me to do a post so I can get traffic off your site.

Another hosting company that has my interest is Gogvo.com, after one of their affiliates decided to spam my personal YouTube account. Which brings me back to the point where I worked for a “give me money and I will tell you how I got rich” guy.  Frankly this is worse than most review sites.  It not even so much the promise of good hosting, as it is the promise of income.  Never mind half the so called gurus have a disclaimer that states that results are not typical (translation stay away).

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2679

Those are some the highlights over the past few years I thought were interesting.

A few answers to questions I get in regards to hosting-reviews-exposed.com

For those that wonder what hosts I ran.

The answer is I cannot say, granted even if I was not legally bound by a non-disclosure agreement I have no desire anyway.

For those that wonder if I will start new hosting company.

Despite having a little more than 3 years left in the non-compete agreement. I ultimately have no desire to get back into hosting.  Perhaps that will change in the future.  But I have no desire to get back into nickel and dime hosting.  No offence, but the cheap plans are fine to start out with, but they are not a viable long term solution for a serious site.  If I get back in it would only be with hosting solutions for those that want serious solutions.  Otherwise called overpriced hosting to those that think unlimited hosting is the key to success.  Even if I did I would not involve that company with this site.

My site is against hosting review sites making money / I hate affiliate programs?

I never stated that I hate affiliate programs.  I have at many points expressed concern over affiliate programs that pay out more than a customer that clicks on an affiliate link may pay for in a year.  I am concerned with quality of service / support.  When 100% or more of a customer’s payment goes to the affiliate, none of it goes to service.

With that said, this is not my only site.  Far from my only source of income (I would be living in a card board box, with a card board iPad).  All of my sites, including this one are involved in an affiliate program or a program like Google’s Adsense.  I am not telling people that they should not use affiliate programs or that making money of referring people to a host is a bad thing.  It’s a bad thing when a review site makes so called top lists based on how much they get paid.  That means they don’t have a hosting customers interests in mind with a false hosting review site.

The problem is I have yet to see a hosting review site that does not manipulate the system to make a gain.  Which is why I have turned away many hosts review sites that have asked for my endorsement.  Often by giving them email of what the post would look like.

Having ads on my site is hypocritical of since I am going after hosting review sites that make money?

This is an argument I don’t understand. I am not telling you what hosts to use (though books, music, video games, or electronics just ask I will refer you).   I don’t have some so called review site with hosts I have never used, telling you their the best while getting  secretly paid out for referals.  For that matter there is no host I am willing to put my name behind.  I admit I have tried some of the same writing  style of sites I find on the first page of “(host name) + sucks” on Google to formulate posts in the beginning.  Many of these affiliates were not even hosted with the hosts they recommend.  One example is webhostingstuff.com which as far as I have seen has never had softlayer.com on their top 25 list.

In short the argument does not focus on the real issue.  Even if I had affiliate ads for hosts every where and made large commissions on referrals I would not be doing the same thing they are, and that is telling you a host is the best.

For over 2 years I have debated on any form of advertising let it be my own hosting company, or like my reviews of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch. Now that I think about it, its not so bad advertising non-hosting related stuff.  I also enjoyed writing up a review of my two new tech toys:

Kindle Fire: https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2799

Kindle Touch: https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2757

Which those reviews ended up paying for my two Kindle’s.  Well the Kindle Fire review paid for both.  I have yet to see any one buy a Touch (come on readers its better than a color device for reading).

Ultimately I think it would have been bad to advertise my own hosting company, while going after other companies.  Simply because this would have been just as bad as a creating a review site.  It would be like telling you my host is best, without actually telling you why.

I can say lately I have been debating about removing Google Adsense and going purely with advertisers that I control.  After all I had one ad come up a few days ago about Hot Thai’s, and I am not referring to cuisine.  That and I have blocked a lot of hosts.  Though I may very well restore every host back to appearing in Adsense.  I have been debating the fairness of blocking hosts while allowing others.  Which is why it would be easier just to stop using Google Adsense and have no hosts appear.

I am now a hosting customer like most of the people that visit here. Being a former hosting provider gives me some insight in what to expect.   I can’t say I am not bias, as there was a standard for the service I gave people when I was in the business.  Ultimately any host I recommend will have to be up to those standards.

Is there a host that I recommend?

Sorry to say but no, the list has grown shorter of hosts I am using which is MediaTemple and Rackspace.  However there are two new hosts that I am in the progress of trying.  Expect reviews this month.

So What will Hosting Reviews Exposed.com be doing next?

It’s a bit difficult to say where this site will go next.  It mostly depends on my free time.

One thing is for certain this site is getting slow again, and that means it needs to be moved to a more powerful system.  Which may mean I move from MediaTemple.

I defiantly plan to find if review sites are following the FTC guide lines and work with the hosts that appear on hosting review sites.  I also plan to post more reviews of hosts that I am using (I added a few) or ones that customers make me set up sites on (some good, most bad).  Not to mention hosts or web site related services that decided to spam me.  Honestly if they cannot afford real advertising they are not worth hosting with.  Perhaps next year I may recommend hosts, but I would not count on it me starting a hosting review endorsement.

My review of the Amazon Kindle Fire

After almost a week of play I have to say my original assumption of the Kindle Fire is pretty much the same.

The first thing that came to mind with the Kindle Fire was not so much a productivity tablet, and after weeks of viewing the app store I can’t say it even looked like a gaming platform.  My thoughts were a mobile media extender.  After all I have purchased as of this date 435 mp3 albums from Amazon and Amazon is allowing free unlimited music storage for those that purchase 20 gigs or more (Just $20 a year). Which means I will have an online library of 3,000 albums. Then I have Amazon’s Instant videos (formally Amazon Unboxed) if there is a Doctor Who episode for sale I own it (one can only hope that those up for rent only will be purchasable).  Then there is my Kindle library that I have been building up for the last 2 years of 432 books as of last count. All of which is available via the Kindle Fire.

But there is more, after all I also have Amazon Prime.  In the past that meant I could get orders for free in 2 days, whereas without the membership I had to get $25 in a order to get free regular shipping.  But now it means a sort of Netflix like video access.  Plus as of October the ability to borrow a Kindle book each month. Which gives the Kindle Fire a bit more, I can only wonder if Apple will have a similar offer.

With my last review I compared the Kindle Touch against the Kindle 2:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2757

This time around I will compare the Kindle Fire against the iPad 1 (64 GB).  Most of my friends that know me, know I am not big fan of Apple.  From Apple’s “I’m a Mac” commercials to their cult like stores (yeah I said it). To date iPad is the standard for tablets, hence why I have one.  But I gladly welcome another company.  Last year I had hoped that it would be HP, but they post phoned till this year and then jumped ship.  Fortunately a few months ago Amazon announced they were going to get in the tablet business.  Amazingly they released a day early, and not to mention a full 8 days early on the Kindle Touch.  If only a certain game company would release things early (*cough* Blizzard *cough* Diablo 3).

Full Disclosure about my Endorsement of the Kindle Fire

I have placed affiliate links thru out this post, which means if you buy a Kindle Fire or other recommended item via any of the links I placed I get paid a commission.   Unlike the review sites that I rail against I actually use the product(s) I listed. I will not tell you that a product is good just to get a payout. I actually stand behind a review of a service or item that I provide affiliate links to.

The Amazon Kindle Fire

I can honestly say I am not disappointed in the Kindle Fire, despite its short comings.  After all this is Amazon’s first attempt in the tablet industry.   With my experience of the Kindle 2, there was only one short coming and that was it did not have any pages numbers.  The Kindle 2 was not bad for a second generation device.  I am willing to bet with the second generation of Kindle Fire the short comings will be far less than they are this time around.  Never mind that a lot of the short comings could be remedied by updates and more apps becoming available. Despite what I have read from other reviews I have not had any crashes.

The only software with the Kindle Fire that I have had issues with is Comics, I have had two Doctor Who comics that I purchased and had to contact this third party who has no access to my order information. It took 5 days for them to correct the issue. I was going to go hog wild and order all of the Sand Man series.  One problem is there is no direct link to purchased items, hopefully they fix that later.

I am not too happy about 8 gigs of space, or the lack of a memory card slot on the Kindle Fire. But then again its only $199, compared to $900 I paid for my first tablet. But it would be nice to store more for periods I may not be near an internet connection.

Battery life on the Kindle Fire seems to be about 4 hours when playing games (more like 4 hours of Plants versus Zombies), but as far as checking email, reading books or magazines, listening to music and browsing the internet I get about 8 hours.

The Kindle Fire‘s Browser (silk) is the best tablet based browser that I have encountered. The Kindle Fire‘s Browser loads smoother if not faster than Apple’s Safari or the HP’s Web OS browser.

While browsing the software I found interesting software that allows me to see the strength of my Wi-Fi connection.  But I am still playing with some of the productivity software such as Documents to Go.  Not really much of an opinion on what’s available for the Kindle Fire, I’ll comment later on an opinion. What notes software I have found does not auto save, it requires you to manually save unlike with my iPad and iPod touch that allows me to write a note and close the app to open back up where I left off.

I also subscribe to a few Magazines Men’s Health that are only available to the Kindle Fire (which I unsubscribed from once I saw it was almost 90% ads), Rolling Stone (which lead to me buying a book called Free Ride, a review on that at a later date as it has reverence to this blog), PC Magazine, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics.  The neat thing is you can switch between page view and text view.  Page view gives you that glossy magazine as you would see it on the stands, where as Text view gives you a view that focuses just on the text of the magazine.

The Positives of Amazon Kindle Fire

  • Access to Cloud Storage of Music files bought through Amazon or your private collection with the Unlimited music storage when you purchase the 20 gb or greater storage plan ($20 a month)
  • Smooth integration with Amazon Cloud music files
  • Crisp graphics
  • Mostly Earth Friendly packing limited plastic covering (too bad no soy ink)
  • Large array of videos, music, books, newspapers, and magazines (some with a 90 day trial) available for purchase or rent
  • Despite listing not coming with a Power adapter it came with one
  • Awesome video quality

The Negatives of Amazon Kindle Fire

  • Limited Productivity and Gaming software (though this could change with time)
  • No Skype App (or Skype integration in Trillian which is available)
  • 8 gigs of storage
    e
  • No USB computer cable
  • No memory card slot
  • No integration with Cloud storage files (i.e. personal files such as pictures, documents, video (perhaps changed at a later date).
  • No VPN App/Capability (perhaps an update later)
Despite not being a direct by product the Amazon Cloud still needs work:

Amazon Kindle Fire faces the Mom Test (or the Skeptic’s test)

Perhaps its reverse psychology, as my mother can often take the counter point of any argument.  But my recommendation to her is that she go with an iPad.  After all she has a iPod Touch, with a lot of software.  She is also someone that can be cheap on a lot of things. But after handling the Kindle Fire she wants a Kindle Fire now.  Maybe it’s me recommending something familiar (reverse psychology), or perhaps just the weight of the device versus the iPad.  Not to mention the cover I have on the iPad seems to double the weight.

Recommended for Amazon Kindle Fire

On my iPad I have an Otter Box casing:

I swear it doubles the weight of the iPad, however it is the best case that I have had.

Unfortunately I cannot at this time recommend a Kindle Fire cover that is not leather (As I am a vegan) that is up to the standards of the Otter Box cover.  I can only hope that they will come out with a better one later.

For now I can recommend a cover that can provide some protection.  Which is by Marware, but in my opinion the cover for the Kindle Fire is overpriced.  But some protection is better than none.  Another thing that bothers me is that while the outer packing is paper printed with soy ink, the divider they inserted in the cover is not an earth friendly option as you can see from the gallery I posted.  It could have been cardboard, corn starch peanuts, or some other bio-degradable option.  Especially for a company that states: “At Malware, we are committed to providing innovative and affordable products that create customers for life, promote environmental  awareness and enhance the communities we serve.”  So why not so earth friendly packing inside the envelope?

However Marware does provide the best screen cover for the Kindle Fire, and with zero bubbles.

If you are looking for a screen protector for the iPad I recommend:

Finale thoughts on the Kindle Fire

Despite draw backs like the limited memory, no memory card slot, and a limited amount of apps.  If the Kindle Fire follows the same rate of progress as the Kindle eReader it is bound to be a good substitute for Apple’s iPad.  Especially considering the cloud storage with Apple is more expensive (Amazon is $1 a gig, and Apple is roughly $2 a gig).The next review will be on iPad 3, and hopefully Kindle Fire 2.

A Call to Redemption: Hostgator.com

This is an open letter to the staff at Hostgator.com.  Please note that all responses will be posted as blog comments.

With Black Friday fast approaching, I feel that your company needs to address a problem, that it is a part of.  That problem being spam.  Last year I received both comment and email spam from your affiliates during your Black Friday event. In short spam being either sending to a non-opted in email address or posting unwanted comments which generally have nothing to do with content they are posted on for the purpose of monetary gain.  This year I have been getting spam well in advance of November.  Of all places my first video.  This was a video I had emailed you and several other companies at the time of release 4 years ago from this month, hoping that you and other hosts would deal with the so called “review” industry.

Here is just a sample of Hostgator.com related spam I received on one of the many videos on YouTube.com.

‘That does not include my email or my blogs.

Just to be clear, I am not against you having affiliate program or making money. But I believe in doing it ethically, and I can respect creativity in bringing in customers.  But spam i.e. unwanted solicitation, is not a form of creative marketing.  I realize with your affiliate doing spam and in some cases “review” sites, its to your advantage as you make money off their actions.

With Black Friday around the corner, I challenge you to contact your affilates before you send out your Black Friday Promotion to stop them from spamming.  Not to mention seeing you practice the same FTC policy that Endurance International Group.

My review of the Kindle Touch

On September  28, 2011 I bought the Kindle Touch as well as the Kindle Fire. The Kindle Touch arrived on November 15, 2011 and the Kindle Fire arrived on November 16, 2011 both less than 24 hours after Amazon announced they shipped (under free 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime). The joys of having a Amazon shipping facility in Phoenix Arizona.  For the next few posts I am going to forgo the usual smashing of hosts that use review sites, hosts that appear in review sites, and the hosts that spam in one or another for the next 7 days to do a few posts on one of my favorite subjects which is tech toys.  After all I got to play with a few since Early October, another such item being the HP Touchpad.

Full Disclosure about my Endorsement of the Kindle Touch

I have placed affiliate links thru out this post, which means if you buy a Kindle Touch or other recommended item via any of the links I placed I get paid a commission.   Unlike the review sites that I rail against I actually use the product(s) I listed.  I actually stand behind a review of a service or item that I provide affiliate links to.

The Amazon Kindle Touch with free life time 3g

The version of the Kindle Touch I got was the free 3g, without “special offers”.  Those special offers include advertising on your Kindle. I was not really interested in turning my Kindle Touch into an advertising platform. My Kindle 2 has 3g, which I have enjoyed not having to set it up when I take it any where. After trying the Kindle 3 with Wi-Fi I decided I would rather have the free 3g because I am not always near a Wi-Fi connection.  Even when I am near a Wi-Fi connection some can be painfully slow (even by free 3g standards) or disconnect a lot.  That and I may be a bit lazy on connecting my device.  I wanted to be able to synch my library as I like to synch often when traveling, rarely do I buy books outside of home.   Not to mention both the Kindle 2 and Kindle Touch have a browser which while being very slow, can some times helps out when there is no Wi-Fi or if I want another source to see if a web site is down.

Why did I buy a Kindle Touch when I also bought the Kindle Fire?

Most of my friends that don’t read or rarely read don’t understand the appeal of a black and white screen. They did not quite get why I would buy a Kindle 2 or Kindle Touch when I had an iPad or now the Kindle Fire.  After all they are color.  These being friends that will never read Lord of The Rings and other page heavy books, but they had no problem borrowing the deluxe version of the DVDs from me.

For any one that reads as much as I do or more knows It’s not so much the black and white screen, as the long battery life.  Anyone I know that likes to read, and like myself may get less sleep because of staying up longer than usual because of a good book, understands well that a device with a long battery life is better than a tablet that lasts 4 – 10 hours on a charge.

On my Kindle 2 I recharge about every 3 weeks to 6 weeks; whereas I recharge my iPad about every 1 – 2 days.    Not to mention most of the books I read are mostly text and not a lot of pictures.  So there is no advantage of having a color screen to read on. That and while I can read the iPad outside, it is no where near as clear as my Kindle 2 or Kindle Touch in direct sun light.

So after 2 years the Kindle 2 is no good?

Back when I was selling off my shares in 4 hosting companies in 2009, I decided in November to get a Kindle 2, since then I have added over 400 books to it. To be honest I really had no justification for buying the Kindle Touch. Other than a fancy new tech toy, I had no reason to validate a new eReader. The Kindle 2’s battery life shows no signs of decline. With a Speck cover and a proper screen cover my kindle is in the same condition I bought it in. Despite getting a new device I will not be retiring the Kindle 2, and will continue using it at home, while using the Kindle 3 when I travel.  I will not be sending back to Amazon for what amounts to a small percentage of the $280 I paid for it.  They pay $25. Especially when the extended warranty is still in effect for another year or two.

Generally if I avoid leaving the 3g connection on I can go almost a month or longer before having to recharge.  But I wanted one that fits easier in my pockets, even when I am not wearing cargo pants / shorts.

My biggest gripe with the Kindle 2, is that Amazon seems to have abandoned it this year after they put my model up for less than $100 last year for Black Friday which I bought for a friend last year.  I had hoped that like the Kindle 3, they would release a patch that would provide page numbers.  I am bothered by the lack of updates this year.

Despite the lack of updates, the Kindle 2 is still a good eReader which I have had zero issues with.

The positives of the Kindle Touch

  • More of the screen is dedicated to text
  • Smaller then Kindle 2 or 3, with a screen that’s a bit wider than a the Kindle 2
  • Lighter then Kindle 2
  • Longer battery life then previous models (I have yet to see the battery life and will update this post in a month).
  • 3g model also includes Wi-Fi
  • Pocket Size
  • Touch Screen, and you can just tap to turn a page
  • Holds up to 3,000 books
  • Comes in earth friendly / recyclable packaging (minus a piece of plastic that covers the screen), would be better if printed with soy ink

The down side / quirks of Kindle Touch

  • No page numbers (perhaps a new patch, as Kindle 3 has page numbers per a patch)
  • Text to Speech is no better than the Kindle 2
  • I was unable to copy my collection / folder options from the Kindle 2 (perhaps another fix with a patch)

My recommendations for the Kindle Touch

At this point there are no covers that I can recommend.  Being a very strict vegan I refuse to buy any cover made of leather.  I will at later date post a cover that I find practical for the Kindle Touch.  Currently the one I have on my Kindle 2 is made by Speck which is a snap on shell that has been very effective.

The best screen covers I have found are:

Grantwood Technology Premium Anti-Glare Screen Protector for Kindle, 2-Pack Fits Latest, New Kindle (4G), Kindle Touch, Kindle Keyboard, Kindle 2nd Generation

They are a good anti-glare cover, however I find that they are near impossible to get the bubbles out.  Despite that flaw they are a good protection for your Kindle 2, Kindle 3, or the Kindle Touch.

My personal thoughts on Kindle Touch

There are many reasons I went from paper books to an eReader.  One of which is that I did not want tree to be cut down to provide me with reading material.  Then there is that part of me that that is a tech geek / data hoarder. On top of that I have not exactly gotten a permanent residence yet.  I would dread having those to lug another 400 plus books, another reason I stopped buying cds and went to buying mp3’s.  I can’t say saving money was the reason that went with an eReader.  The Kindle Touch is a tech toy I recommend if you like to read a lot.

Hostthenprofit.com – The Guru Approval Video

Per one of my earlier posts, I had recieved spam from a mlm front for GVO called Hostthenprofit.com.

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=2706

In short its a bunch of self proclaimed gurus that tell you:

“GET STARTED IMMEDIATELY BY LOCKING IN YOUR POSTION AND EXPLODE YOUR PROFITS NOW!“

I wish I could claim for some level of exaggeration here, but that is an actual quote from their site right down to the all caps.  It’s all intended to lure you in.  But I can assure you results that they choose to show case are far from typical.  More about the package they offer you at a later date.

When I first looked into this site I found it had just started back in September, despite the domain being bought early this year.  The traffic statistics are very impressive.  I am most wager it was in part to the spamming on places such as YouTube (where they spammed my personal account), forums, blogs, and where ever else they could find a voice. GVO notified so called gurus with large mailing lists in regards to hostthenprofit.com.  After all this was how my first company got started, even though ties with a certain guru out of Utah that will remain nameless (though now that I think about it there was no non-disclosure agreement).  Something about variable flows of cash, well not those words but pretty close.  Other links were still available to these so called gurus.  Some of the stories I have about these gurus would make any normal person cringe.  Perhaps I may go into that at a later date.  But it’s really off topic.

Hostthenprofit.com – Results not Typical

That of coarse is what they should have in bold writing.

What I find interesting is that the original video at the top is no longer there, no worries a quick search of YouTube and I found it as well as tons of other people pushing hostthenprofit.com. The video software these guys claims to offer makes me wonder if it’s nothing more than a re-brander.  Considering YouTube is not too found of multiple copies of the same video.  I have to wonder if it changes the timing of sequences and other things to trick the system.

Here I find several gurus.  Tons of affiliates have been flooding search engine results for hostthenprofit sucks, hostthenprofit scam, and hostthenprofit review.  I noticed the same was not true for all the gurus.  Though some guru’s affiliates have flooded the results in regards to their domain.  At this time it’s not even 2 months since the site started.

Hostthenprofit.com videos with Guru approval

Mike Filsaime – HostThenProfit.com video testimonial

I have checked through several of the gurus but this one stands out the most.  The thing that bothered me was this guy claimed to have been with GVO for 5 years, and that he would not run his business with any other data center. Problem is he does not tell you what his sites are; you have to rely on search engine results to find his site(S).  One of which appears to be mikefilsaime.com, and it’s hosted on Road Runner apparently since its creation 2004.  Where is hostthenprofit.com’s main host site gogvo.com network wise and how old is this domain?

network:Org-Name:Road Runner Commercial

Creation date: 18 May 2009 23:28:00

Funny thing is they are supposed to own their own network center. I have to say I am curious to why they are hosted with Road Runner.

Of coarse if I am wrong about GVO  and Hostthenprofit they should be more then happy to provide proof of success.

Manashosting.com – Email Spammer, and now Comment Spammer

Manashosting.com is a company that found its way on my blog because they choose to spam my personal email.  Their response was for me to give them my email so they could remove me off their list. Since I never gave them my email address, I did not see the point in giving it to them.  I did not respond to their request. Instead I advised them to delete their list and start from scratch. Any email list that you do not obtain on your own, and through a double opt in is not a viable list. They also wanted me to remove my post:

https://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/?p=1040

“Hi, It looks like we have sent emails to your personal mail id. This could have been amicably settled because we also give links for DND which we update on a regular basis. We request you to mail your email id so that in near future you would not receive any emails from us. And we also request you to take the content off your site. I hope that you would surely do the same.

Regards,

Antony John“.

I of coarse declined their request.

This is a post that has been sitting on the back burner, and yet I think I need to get this out of the way before I start my review of gogvo.com. I want to get this out of the way because spam does inspire me to write, but my rage has an expiration date.  Yes I suffer attention deficet disorder, and shinny things such as the Kindle Touch and the Kindle Fire do distract me.  So if I don’t do this now, I probable will not do it later.

So that was the end of my dealings with Manashosting.com?

I thought Manashosting.com learned their lesson as I did not get any more spam to my personal email account.  But in the middle of last month this came in:

Email spam did not pan out so Manashosting.com choose to comment spam my blog.  After all what does a Indian host have to do with an American host like Hostgator.com.  Not to mention the 5000 rupee unlimited Linux plan is about $101 so its not that much more then Hostgator.com. This is not the first time I have received spam from some host that is a bit ridiculous.  One that stole the Android logo tried to spam on my Youtube account:

“Bot agrees, all Bot wants to do is offer affordable web hosting to the regular person. Not everyone is a major corporation that can afford $200 a month, which is what some of the other hosting companies out there charge 
And thats why we are slowly gaining popularity. We do what all the rest can do, but MUCH cheaper. ”

Then of coarse I basically told him this was his chance to be honest, as frankly with his traffic rank it really was not worth my time to review them.  He then went into this whole spill about free hosting for those in the militarty, and donations to a charity which was according to the way back machine police officer charity site, and now a soldier charity site.  But it was that $200 figure, which really makes no sense.  Most people who come to my video are not going to pay $200 a month.  Nor was this guy role playing as a bot, as he  was hosted with one of Endurance International Groups hosts.

This manashosting.com positive comment,  is not the first I have seen that looks a little too good to be true.

Manashosting.com a Host for India?

At the start of my business I wanted to market to people in my country.  Not because I did not want money from other countries, far from it I will take as much money from anyone that will not have me tossing and turning at night over something that bugs my conscience. I probable would be a far richer man if my greed was stronger then that pesky thing called a conscience.  In the beginning I just figured people would rather do business with their own country.  After all you see enough “Buy American” bumper stickers, never mind a lot of the cars with them are parked at Walmart.  To them I have to ask is it okay to buy from Brazil?

The United States, unlike India is a mixing pot of every nation. Meaning any pictures of people were varied, though mostly with people wore business attire.  Not dressed in shorts, t-shirts and sandals with my Beatles style / bowl hair cut so no skater looking guys like myself. Which interestingly enough I don’t see a lot of stock images that show case the people of India.  A little odd for a No 1 host of Southern India..

Manashosting has 30 different methods to obtain to contact them

A lot appears to have changed when I last looked at this host, as it used to have a blue background.  But the thing that truly bothers me despite not really having pictures of the local populace.  Is that while claiming to be the Number One host in South India, they do try to get international customers.  Most of which are offline or away during what amounts to bankers hours in the U.S.  How can any company that wants business from my country not offer support during my hours?

Manashosting.com a ISO 9001 company?

I am not to sure of that as there is nothing to validate it.  A search of Iso.org reveals nothing on this Manashosting.com.  Perhaps like much of the fake positive reviews this is another lie told by Manashosting.

Hosting-review.com contains malware

Hosting-review.com was one of the review sites featured in my first video.  The reason for a post on this site is a bit of an accident.  After Fatcow (an Endurance International Group) host contacted me to let me know hostingsthatsuck.com had a disclosure notice up.  Which happen some where around the time after I wrote Fatcow, and I was 2 days late from sending my notice.  I thought I would check a few other hosts that were in my sights for for reviewing, Hosting-review.com was one of them.  They do have a disclosure, which I had plan to review.  But the weird thing is their site was okay last night, but this morning without even refreshing their site I get this:

Now this is only for Google Chrome not on Internet Explorer, Opera,  and after having to re install the rather buggy Firefox it was not found there.  Safari is acting buggy on my machine

According to Google in regards to Hosting-review.com

What is the current listing status for hosting-review.com?

Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 45 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 3 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2011-10-12, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2011-10-12.Malicious software includes 5 exploit(s), 1 trojan(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 4 new process(es) on the target machine.

Malicious software is hosted on 3 domain(s), including 32hdtydjrdjhfgf.ce.ms/, 31ahflawigilajlif.ce.ms/, 24sjegohmjosee.ce.ms/.

1 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including opienetwork.com/.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS26788 (BLINK).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, hosting-review.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.“

intermediaries for the infection of 1 other site(s) including, for example, hosting-review.com/.

It appears Hosting-review has a Tim Thumb Exploit.

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