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lpc_3

Hi

I have been involved with domain names for almost 8 years now and I could say that I have some experience as it is part of my every day work life.

1and1.co.uk has the best prices for .uk domain names. It is a good registrar, providing a very well structured control panel so anything that you will probably want to do is just in front of you.

One day I made a mistake and bought by mistake a domain name from 1&1. I called them and they refunded me immediately. This is something that you don't get from any registrar! I never heard any registrar doing something like this and I wouldn't expect anyone being so helpful and generous.

If you are interested in buying .com or .net (or similar) domain names I would suggest godaddy, I use them for a couple of years now (for hosting also) and I have to say that they are really good. Again nice control panel, frequently improved, great prices, very good support.

None of these refer to what we call in my work sector "mission critical hosting companies" so I wouldn't use them to host an e-commerce web site for a business worth anything more than 10,000 GBP but for anything else, they are just PERFECT.

If you have any doubts, questions or you need any kind of IT help, don't hesitate to ask me, I'll be glad to help you (I don't read the forums daily but I always answer emails).

BTW I was surprised to see this post on MSE forums as 123-reg is NOT the best solution (or even the cheapest). I suppose that MSE is only human after all

lpc_3

And BTW, domain prices for .uk haven't changed for the last few years so I wouldn't file it under "Bargain Buys, Sassy Shopping and Fantastic Freebies"

pezza88

Although 1and1 are very cheap and I do use them, about a year ago they 'detagged' my domain (i.e. stopped me being able to use it) despite them making a mistake. This left me facing a £30 fee to retag it. Fortunately I discovered that it was cheaper to cancel and repurchase it, but it cost a lot of time and some additional expenditure.
I have heard that their customer service has been at fault before as well. Heart Internet are similarly priced and a good company.

A-Wing

At the end of the day I find the smaller independent companies much better for support and not much more expensive.

I used to run the servers and support for one such company (30,000 domains) which charged around £10 for a domain. We always bent over backwards to help and if something went wrong (such as detagging a .uk) we would pay the cost.

I have also designed the systems for 2 more nominet TAG holders, both of which are a little more expensive than the bulk registry companies, but provide excellent service and usually same day support responses.

I don't know if I would trust Heart Internet as it has big ties with 123-reg and I have heard rumors Pipex might buy it. Anything Pipex buy (including 123-reg and Webfusion) they tend to wreck. In fact they are shortly making a load of their already small support teams redundant to merge them.
Although I have heard that Pipex's broadband is still OK.

mooncalf

A-Wing wrote:

I don't know if I would trust Heart Internet as it has big ties with 123-reg and I have heard rumors Pipex might buy it. Anything Pipex buy (including 123-reg and Webfusion) they tend to wreck. In fact they are shortly making a load of their already small support teams redundant to merge them.
Although I have heard that Pipex's broadband is still OK.

123-reg was bought by pipex and CS has gone down the drain (been using 123 since 99.

And don't touch pipex broadband with a barge pole! can't wait for my contract to end.

Chuffy

eposmike wrote:

set your reply address in outlook/outlook express to your domain email address.

I'm probably being super dumb here, but I can't find the settings in Outlook to set my reply from email address as the same as my catch all email address. As it's not a pop account, I didn't think I could.

Any advice on how to set it up greatly appreciated.

lpc_3

Chuffy wrote:

I'm probably being super dumb here, but I can't find the settings in Outlook to set my reply from email address as the same as my catch all email address. As it's not a pop account, I didn't think I could.

Any advice on how to set it up greatly appreciated.

Hi there,

POP3 is used to receive email (using Outlook).
SMTP is used to send email (using Outlook).

Your account doesn't have to be a pop account in order to send using this your catch all email address and your own personal domain name.
Your account has to be allowed to sent using SMTP.

An example: Godaddy provides SMTP but not POP3. So, if you have a domain registered with godaddy, you setup your catch all email address to forward to everything to your email@isp.co.uk and then you setup godaddy to enable SMTP. Then you setup your Outlook to send emails using Godaddy's SMTP servers and that's it.

I fear that I didn't make myself very clear here, let me know if there is anything more that you need (and let's move the discussion into a more appropriate forum if necessary

Regards,
Panos

eposmike

Chuffy wrote:

I'm probably being super dumb here, but I can't find the settings in Outlook to set my reply from email address as the same as my catch all email address. As it's not a pop account, I didn't think I could.

Any advice on how to set it up greatly appreciated.

Using Outlook 2000 (in my case) click on Tools. Then click on Services and then highlight the email service you want to update and click Properties. The Properties dialog box appears with several tabs. On the General Tab the last entry is reply address. Enter your domain email address there and click OK.

Chuffy

Brilliant - found it. Under Office XP Pro, it's in the account settings on the general settings tab under more options. Thanks Mike.

Mr_Gordon_2

lpc wrote:

Hi

1and1.co.uk has the best prices for .uk domain names. It is a good registrar, providing a very well structured control panel so anything that you will probably want to do is just in front of you.

One day I made a mistake and bought by mistake a domain name from 1&1. I called them and they refunded me immediately. This is something that you don't get from any registrar! I never heard any registrar doing something like this and I wouldn't expect anyone being so helpful and generous.

I'm pleased you have found 1and1 helpful, but wish I could say the same lately.

I've been a customer with 1and1 for almost three years, with no major problems besides some rather direct replies, or no reply at all to questions I've emailed about. One thing you aren't allowed to do is downgrade unfortunately, so if you choose the home hosting package or higher and wish to go back to the email package, you can't!

A couple of weeks ago I took up the offer of a low interest rate on balance transfers with my credit card company, which means any new transactions would be charged at the higher rate and wouldn't be paid off until the lower one was. This was fair enough, and I changed any recurring transactions to another card, including 1and1.

This week I discover a transaction has been taken from my card well after my details were changed with 1and1 so I informed them of their error. They have been totally unhelpful and rather rude about it and say they are not at fault in any way, I will not receive a refund (which I didn't ask for). The only thing I've asked them to do is charge this to the correct card and do so in the future. I've been left having to deal with this transaction as a dispute through my credit card company.

I'm now in the process of moving 18 domains and hosting to Fasthosts (UK Reg) and can't get there quick enough.