Doteasy Domain Name Registration & Hosting Service

Domain registration through Doteasy is a few bucks more expensive than some other registration services, but the free hosting they provide compensates for this increased fee. One year domain registration costs $25, while two year and five year registration terms will run $45 ($22.50/yr) and $90 ($18/yr) respectively.

Doteasy provides free web hosting that will fit the needs of a basic startup website. Free hosting provides 100MB of space for storing your website's content and 1GB of bandwidth per month. Free hosting, however, lacks support for scripting languages such as PHP, MySQL, Perl, and ASP. In addition, if you wish to develop a secure website for e-commerce, you will need to upgrade hosting as free hosting lacks support for secure web pages using SSL. 10 email accounts with 5MB of storage are provided with your freely hosted website. Your personal email "whateveryouwant@yourwebsite.com" can be accessed via POP3 using a program such as Outlook Express or Mozilla's Thunderbird, or online using Doteasy Webmail. Each time a user logs into either Webmail or the "member zone" - where the account's website features are accessed - he is prompted with a mildly annoying ad to upgrade hosting - however, the free hosting is well worth this inconvenience in my opinion. The member zone provides access to a variety of features including your disk storage as well as a bandwidth monitor so you can ensure you don't exceed your monthly bandwidth limit.

Despite the scripting restrictions of the free hosting service, Doteasy provides free Javascript-based web plug-ins to help build your website. The eight plug-ins include web directory, web polls, tell-a-friend, guestbook, FAQ, mailing list, hit counter, and email form. These tools are fairly well designed, however, you will have to settle with a small "doteasy.com" graphic displayed at the bottom of each tool displayed on your site.

For more demanding users, Doteasy provides two upgraded hosting options: Ultra Hosting ($7.95/mo) and Unlimited Hosting ($9.95/mo). Ultra Hosting provides 1000MB of web storage a monthly data transfer limit of 20GB. 100 email accounts are provided with Ultra Hosting, each with 10MB of space. Unlimited Hosting, as the name suggests, provides unlimited bandwidth per month and a whopping 20GB of disk space. Unlimited Hosting also includes the ability to create an unlimited number of email accounts with 100MB of space per mailbox. Both of these options include support for scripting languages, however, ASP requires a separate Windows-based server which increased the upgrade fee further (Ultra - $15/mo; Unlimited - $20/mo).

As a user of the free hosting service, Doteasy's technical support has been prompt and extremely helpful. Each time I've placed an inquiry through their online form, I've received a helpful reply within 24 hours. Doteasy resolved a problem with one of their web tools for me quickly and easily. It's comforting that even though I'm subscribed to the free hosting, Doteasy still provides quality support.

In addition to great tech support, Doteasy provides a large database of FAQ's and tutorials to help the user access all functions of the Doteasy service. For example, setting up email access via POP3 is a breeze - just select your email client from a list of seven (5 Windows compatible, 2 Mac compatible) and follow the onscreen graphics and instructions. For those new to web design, several tutorials are also provided to assist in publishing a website via FTP. A glossary of technical web terms also serves to educate the average computer user.

Overall, Doteasy is the perfect solution to anyone wishing to develop a basic website without complex coding. Users of more advanced web languages may wish to investigate other web hosts or pay the increased fee for Ultra or Unlimited Hosting. Doteasy has excellent tech support and tutorials to help along beginner and advanced users alike.�