Near the end of April, we went through and discovered there was 8 web hosts that went out of business during this short time frame. I don’t think we had any idea how volatile web hosting really is on new startups.

As of today, May 6th, 2008, we have 561 web hosting reviews and 344 active web hosts indexed. This is way more than we expected for our first eight months. Thanks everyone who has submitted their reviews!

During this time, we also launched a sister site dedicated to virtual private server web hosts at VPS Host Reviews. Of course, we don’t expect nearly as many reviews there since VPS popularity is still warming up. However, we saw the need for a dedicated VPS review site, so we went ahead and launched it.

At this time, we would like to hear from you. Whether you have interest in web hosting or own a web hosting company, we would like to hear what you have to say about our site. Submit suggestions, questions, or other comments at our contact us form here. We will respond to everyone that asks questions, promise!

Want to help us? Please submit a review of your web host. We’d appreciate it!

The attackers appear to be breaking into the sites with the help of a security vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) Web servers. In an alert issued last week, Microsoft said it was investigating reports of an unpatched flaw in IIS servers, but at the time it noted that it wasn’t aware of anyone trying to exploit that particular weakness.

On Thursday, Spanish anti-virus vendor Panda Security said that it had alerted Microsoft that a flaw IIS was the cause of all the break-ins. When I asked Microsoft whether they’d heard from Panda or if the hundreds of thousands of sites were hacked from a patched or unpatched flaw in IIS, a spokesman for the company didn’t offer much more information.

According to Finnish anti-virus maker F-Secure, the number of hacked Web pages serving up malicious software from this attack may be closer to half a million.

“The attacks are facilitated by SQL injection exploits and are not issues related to IIS 6.0, ASP, ASP.Net, or Microsoft SQL technologies,” said Bill Sisk, a communications manager at Microsoft, in a blog post. “SQL injection attacks enable malicious users to execute commands in an application’s database.”

Sisk said that to defend against SQL injection attacks, developers should follow secure coding practices.

SQL injection attacks involve insufficiently filtered code submitted to SQL databases through user input mechanisms.

On Friday, U.S. CERT issued a warning about SQL injection attacks that have compromised a large number of legitimate Web sites. Affected Web sites contain injected JavaScript that attempts to exploit several known vulnerabilities. U.S. CERT recommends disabling JavaScript and ActiveX.

In addition to the default store, resellers have the opportunity to create up to three more, entirely independent of each other, free reseller web hosting stores, configured according to their specific marketing strategies. They can get a unique domain name, choose a different website template and activate a separate DNS cluster for each of the stores, which will drive brand recognition and significantly increase their reseller anonymity.

The new multi-currency billing solution, on the other hand, gives the resellers the possibility to offer web hosting and domain registration services in the five most widely used online transaction currencies and directly address the demands of a particular target audience or a specific local market.

This special Resellers Panel anniversary coincides also with the introduction of several important updates to Resellers Panel platform, such as a new file manager, which will enable the clients to handle the content of their websites more easily and efficiently, and new multi-store and multi-currency options, which will dramatically expand the marketing reach of the resellers themselves.

The new file manager, which has been integrated in the web hosting control panel, boasts an entirely new, easy to navigate user-friendly interface. Beside the ability to manage multiple files and folders at once, the users now have an unprecedented opportunity to edit their files using a WYSIWYG editor and to view the changes they are making directly in a web browser in real time.

The new Resellers Panel file manager also gives the clients the opportunity for the first time to upload .zip, .rar, .tar.gz and .gz archived files and folders, which are being automatically unpacked in the selected directory, and visually keep track of the process by means of a progress bar. Pop-up tooltips, which contain essential information about a given file or folder and display the actions that can be performed on them, self-evident file type icons and image file thumbnails have been introduced as well.

Related Resellers Panel Links

Resellers Panel Web Hosting Reviews - Submit Resellers Panel Review
Visit Resellers Panel Now

The Automated Rescue Environment (ARE) allows customers to self-restore and repair their servers directly from The Planet customer portal in the event of a critical software failure.

Urvish Vashi, Director of Product Management with The Planet noted, ”The hosted IT infrastructure provides significant cost savings for customers compared with a do-it-yourself approach, an even more important factor in challenging financial markets. Many of our more technically proficient customers have asked for direct management capabilities, so for these companies we want to provide the option of unfettered access. As always, our skilled technical support team is available 24×7x365 for all of our customers.”

ARE enables customers with the option to self-manage their servers in the event of a system crash or failure. By rebooting from a safe zone on The Planet’s network, customers simply download a light OS, which provides the necessary tools to diagnose and recover data. The ARE:

• Allows customers to safely diagnose configuration errors without resorting to data losses associated with reloading the operating system
• Provides a significant self-service advantage so that customers can recover deleted files, replace corrupt files, manage and backup data, and remove harmful programs in a safe mode
• Adds additional value to The Planet’s hosted solution by providing the ability to self-restore and manage servers.

Related The Planet Links

The Planet Web Hosting Reviews - Visit The Planet

The new HostMySite website presents web hosting solutions to four key audience segments: personal website creators, professional developers and designers, small business website owners, and those needing enterprise scale hosting solutions. The site also builds on the strong markets that HostMySite has served in managed dedicated servers and VPS hosting. The managed dedicated sections of the website have been updated to present a complete online data center tour, vastly increased detail on the dedicated server offerings at HostMySite and tools for determining which dedicated server solutions best match a client’s needs.

HostMySite Related Links

HostMySite Hosting Reviews - Submit a HostMySite Review - Visit HostMySite

Lunarpages is providing the first 100 customers to purchase any Windows Dedicated Server plan for 12 or 24 months with a copy of WYSIWYG HTML and website editor, Microsoft Expression Web, and a one-year subscription to Expression Studio Training from Total Training, which provides instructions on how to use the editor and how to build a website using Windows products and services.

Also, by signing up with Lunarpages for 12 months, you’ll qualify for our $50 off dedicated server coupon promotion. Use coupon 50offded during your order and you’ll save $50 instantly.

Check out what Lunarpages offers for dedicated servers. Click here.

Related Links:

Lunarpages Dedicated Server Reviews - Visit Lunarpages

Did you know there’s a day for honoring newspaper carriers? It’s September 4. There’s also Cartoonists’ Day (May 3), Doctors’ Day (March 30) AND Hairstylists’ Appreciation Day (April 30). So why shouldn’t there be a Webmasters’ Day?

On April 29, GoDaddy.com will send out special eCards thanking Webmasters around the globe for their tireless efforts to keep us all up and running. To make sure your Webmaster gets thanked on Webmasters’ Day, send an eCard now.

Go Daddy says it wanted to recognize the importance of Web masters by officially honoring these professionals with their own celebratory day. According to the press release, “if newspaper carriers, cartoonists, doctors and hairstylists all have their own day, it’s time for Web masters to receive the same recognition.”

We at Customer Hosting Reviews appreciate the effort on behalf of GoDaddy. Excellent idea. Finally, a holiday I can take seriously!

GoDaddy Related Links

GoDaddy Hosting Reviews - Submit a GoDaddyReview - Visit GoDaddy

For a limited time, you can save $48 instantly when you purchase Lunarpages Basic Hosting Plan for 24 months.

Use coupon spring during checkout and you will save $48 instantly.

After the coupon, your rate will be $4.95 a month instead of $6.95.

Don’t want to order Lunarpages for 2 years? Use coupon Lunar28 to save $28 off any Lunarpages annual (12 month) plan.

To use coupon spring, just change the default “Lunar28″ to “spring” during checkout.

Related Links:

Our LunarPages Review - Lunarpages Hosting Reviews - Visit Lunarpages
Save $28 Instantly using Our LunarPages Hosting Coupon!

SimpleScripts is a one-click installer of the web’s most popular applications for Blogs, Photo Albums, Online Stores, Forums, Wikis, and more. No technical experience is required!

SimpleScripts Smart Installer automatically checks to make sure your webhost is compatible. Version control lets you select a script that fits your needs. SimpleScripts works with almost any web site that uses CPanel or Plesk.

Although this service originally launched on Bluehost and Hostmonster, it is not exclusive to our hosting service only. SimpleScripts itself is a hosted application so web hosting companies can license it and integrate into their own control panels for the benefit of their users. It isn’t even tied to Cpanel only. It will work with VPS and dedicated servers, as well as other control panels such as Plesk.

Visit SimpleScripts

BlueHost Related Links

BlueHost Hosting Reviews - BlueHost Full Coverage
Submit a BlueHost Review - Visit BlueHost

HostMonster Related Links:

HostMonster Customer Reviews - HostMonster Full Coverage
Submit a HostMonster Review - Visit HostMonster

But did you know our special coupon will save you much more?

Instead of saving 20% on HostICan, save $50 instantly using coupon Take50-12. Use this coupon on any HostICan annual plan and you’ll save nearly 53% off!

During the order process, you’ll notice HostICan automatically enters “springtime-12″ in the coupon code field. All you need to do is replace that code with Take50-12 and you’ll be given a whopping $50 off instantly.

HostICan Related Links:

HostICan Customer Reviews - HostICan Hosting Updates
Submit a HostICan Review - Visit HostICan