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Welcome to a2z.org!
Windows vs Unix
Why Does Unix Hosting Cost Less?
Microsoft's products offer many features that are important to our customers. This list includes .NET, ASP, FrontPage Extensions, SQL Server and MS Access databases, and more. Microsoft's policies and practices have landed us in a bad place. Microsoft has placed poorly-written code on the market. They have rushed to monopolize market segments by including features in their operating systems that were immature and insecure. Those of us who purchased their expensive software and who depend on it have paid an extra price. Insecure code has cost us time, lost data, needless upgrades, down-time, and we have had to purchase other products to protect ourselves. Microsoft issues free hotfixes but keeping track of those is time-consuming and a given patch can break something else. We hope Microsoft's new products will deliver on their promises to take this situation seriously. We are migrating to Windows 2003 based on that hope.
Unix and Unix-like operating systems lack many of the desktop features our customers need. However, most of the internet runs on these operating systems. They are stable, secure, and mature (and faster on less expensive hardware). They are perfect for most servers on the Internet. Plus, they are free.
We have moved our entire E-mail system to Linux. We are retiring all Windows 2000 servers. We are moving non-Windows web sites, stats reports, and our monitoring system to FreeBSD. Web sites that require Windows to function properly will be hosted on Windows 2003 if possible.
Windows 2003
There are many good reasons to use Windows 2003 as the platform for your web site.
It is required for customers using Microsoft's technologies:
- FrontPage Server Extensions
- .NET technology
- Active Server Pages
Microsoft 2003 Server
- higher rates reflect the higher cost of security and Windows software.
FreeBSD 4.10
Unix Web hosting is by far the most popular.
Unless you have a compelling reason to use Windows, you should consider Unix hosting for security and speed.
It is recommend for customers using open-source technologies:
- PHP (discussion forums and guestbooks)
- Perl (Movable Type Blogs or other CGIs)
- Simple HTML-only sites with FTP maintenance.
- Data stored on MySQL Server
FreeBSD Server
Essay on Open Source
- lower fees reflect our savings with FreeBSD-hosting.
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