This is another review that was on my Web Hosting Reviews lens on Squidoo. Moved here to make the lens less lengthy.
1and1 is this UK based web host that was branching their services out to the US. During their US launch, they offered to give FREE Professional Package Previews for 3 years. Everyone kept on saying how it was a scam and possibly another Cyberwings. But, really, what did people have to lose? They weren’t asking for any credit card information… all they asked for was a name/address/phone number.
They took signups for their professional package until early 2004. People who were lucky enough to get in got 500 MB of space and 5 GB of bandwidth, MySQL database, SSH access, and lots of free software to go with it. Also a free $25 Google AdWords voucher. Not bad for a freebie.
I barely ever used my 1and1 account. All I used it for was to upload huge files so that I wouldn’t use up my normal host’s bandwidth.
Their control panel could use some work. It’s easy to use, but takes a lot of clicks to get to where you want to be and sometimes spawns new windows when it could have easily just opened a page in the same window.
Their MySQL database server has a completely separate login/password and even domain name that it’s on. So you have to remember all kinds of different login details with a 1and1 account. Your username for the control panel, your other username for your FTP access, and a different user/pass combo for MySQL. It’d be nice if they let you create your own username so that you wouldn’t have to remember a whole bunch of different numbers.
Their uptime has been very reliable. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my website down at all, but then again, I never used it much.
The plans they offer now seem decent and include some nice bonuses like the different advertising credits/vouchers you can get for AdWords, adCenter, Citysearch, and Yahoo Search Marketing. I would recommend them just for that right there.
But as a web host, they’re not one of my favorites because of their control panel. But most people probably wouldn’t spend much time in the control panel anyway.