Dead Pool February to July 2012

It’s been a while since the last dead pool! Forgive me if I’ve missed anyone; sorting through 6 months of data isn’t easy.

Aerovps

Current Status: Redirects to Racklot.com
AeroVPS first, and only, appearance on Lowendbox was in December 2010 when they offered a $5 128MB OpenVZ VPS in Phoenix Arizona. There was speculation at the time that Areovps was related to accuratehub, however the relationship wasn’t explored further. Up until March this year, Aerovps were still advertising at webhosting talk.

AxisNext

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

AxisNext was an Indian-based hosting company who were also featured in December 2010 (unlucky month, huh?). They sent in a special three year openvz offer which included: 256MB Ram, 10gb Storage and 5TB of Bandwidth on a gigabit connection. The offer worked out at $54 for three years, $1.50 monthly, obviously this wasn’t honoured as three years later would be around November 2013. At the time, their servers seemed to be with Netdirekt in Germany.

In 2011, the original lowendbox thread was bought back to life with claims the owner had scammed his customers. Subsequently, the owner was banned from kidswiththeirbooters.com wjunction. Fast-forward to Decemeber 2011, they posted their final offer at webhostingtalk. A few months later, in February this year, former clients created a thread on webhostingtalk reporting that their service was down and that axisnext were not reachable by email or telephone.

BoostVPS

Current Status: Redirects to www.topdll.com (a site for downloading .dlls)

In December 2010, BoostVPS, an Australian vps provider, posted a special offer at webhostingtalk which caught the eye of fellow Australian, lowendadmin. He went on to repost the special xen offer, which included 256mb ram, 10gb storage and 100gb bandwidth, which was hosted with GNAX in Atlanta. It was also highlighted in the same post that BoostVPS had acquired ZoomVPS, which itself was listed on lowendbox in March 2010.

BreatHost

Current Status: Redirects to http://twitter.com/breathost

Breathost, a German based entity, were featured on lowendbox twice. Firstly in December 2010 when they promoted a 256MB openvz based vps with 500GB bandwidth located with wholesaleinternet in Kansas City. The plan was $4.95 per month and the thread received a sour response. Sebastian, the owner, had previously operated another vps company called SynHost.eu, who had also appeared on lowendbox before. The company received some criticism because his ‘company’didn’t have a tax id, which supposedly german law requires you to have, and claims that his previous company had scammed people. More recently in February this year a customer replied to the thread stating that he was still a customer, after a year, and was very happy.

Please note: this isn’t the first time Breathost have been in the deadpool. In July 2011 they were featured after their website ip stopped resolving. However, they lived on. In January 2012, lowendadmin admitted he had received some offers from “Daniel Serjey”, the new owner of BreatHost, who emailed him in November 2011 telling him that they were resurrecting the brand and were offering LowEndBox customers a discount (he never posted their offer). He blamed the old owner Sebastian for previous problems.

Centicero

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

Centicero’s first and last appearance was way back in June 2008 when they offered a $6 64MB OpenVZ VPS in Scranton, PA courtesy of a post on webhostingtalk. There’s not really much more information on them.

DashingHost

Current Status: Domain Parked

Michael from dashinghost sent in a total of three offers during 2010. Their first offer was a 128MB ram vps for $6.99 a month and their final offer came a similar plan with 128MB ram but with an additional 10GB of storage for $5 a month. All the vps were run on the OpenVZ platform in a datacenter in Los Angeles.

In June last year it appears the owner of Dashinghost made a last ditch attempt to sell up.

DMBHosting

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

DMB Hosting, a UK based provider, was initially featured on lowendbox in August 2011. Daimon, the owner of DMB, was an active community member until supposed personal problems happened, which resulted in Daimon subsequently vanishing of the face of the earth. Their first thread on lowendbox was for a £2.99 vps with 256MB ram, 5GB Storage and 500GB of Bandwidth located in Kent, United Kingdom. The final offer which got listed included 256MB Ram, 20GB HDD and 200GB bandwidth which was hosted of their own hardware in Burstnet’s Manchester datacenter.

Customers began reporting issues in February and subsequently were unable to get in contact with Daimon.

ElicitServers

Current Status: IP address not resolvable
Way back in December 2010, LowEndAdmin reposted a Montreal based offer from Webhostingtalk. The $5.09 openVZ offer featured 128MB ram, 5GB storage and 50GB bandwidth. Their last post on webhostingtalk was at the end of March this year. Shortly afterwards, clients began complaining that their service was down and they were unable to get in contact with ElicitServers.

FuseVPS

Current Status: Website displaying a message stating they’ve closed

During 2011 Fusevps were featured 3 times. The first package listed on lowendbox included: 512MB Ram, 10GB Storage and 150GB Bandwidth for only $5.95 a month. Their servers were hosted with Softlayer. The same offer returned three months later in April of that year. However their final offer listed at lowendbox in October of 2011 was slightly cheaper at $5.06 for the same specifications. They offered an interesting SLA, for every hour the network was down, the customer would be reimbursed 10% of their monthly hosting bill.

They blamed Softlayer for the decision to close stating “You may have noticed other OpenVZ providers discontinue their service at Softlayer over the last 12 months. While we cannot say this with certainty, we would not be surprised if they found the same difficulties we have.”.

GetMyVPS

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

Getmyvps was a sub company of the Australian based web hosting provider, Alfrahosts. The first offer from Getmyvps was listed in August 2010 via a webhostingtalk advertisement. This included 128MB Ram, 15GB Storage and 150GB Bandwidth for $3.95 month. Servers were with HostNOC in Scranton, Philadelphia. However the brand was short lived surviving possibly only one day before they refunded everyone and closed their doors due to ‘fake signups’. That wasn’t the end of Getmyvps, after appearing in the deadpool, in July 2011 they sent in an Xen based offer which included 256MB Ram, 15GB HDD and 150GB Bandwidth for $4.95 per month. This time though servers were with DataShack/Wholesale Internet in Kansas City. The same offer returned in September with double the bandwidth but the same specs and price.

Green River Web Hosts

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

In July 2011, Chris of, Green River Web Hosts emailed in a Chicago based lowendbox special. The openvz special came with 256MB Ram, 10GB Storage and 500GB Bandwidth. A month later in August, Chris signed up to lowendtalk and promoted a similar plan but now in Phoenix, Arizona. Their last post on webhostingtalk was a Christmas special in December 2011.

Host90

Current Status: Blank page

Host90, a Cyprus based provider, made a total of two appearances on lowendbox. Their first was promoting the ‘baby vps’ an openvz based package which had 128MB ram, 10GB Storage and 50GB Bandwidth. The servers were located with Burstnet at their Scranton facility. Their second, and final, post was in August 2010 when they offered the exact same plan but this time in Chicago or Scranton and for 75p cheaper at $4.24/month.

Subsequently in August 2011 Host90 listed themselves for sale. It is unknown if this was a Constantinos Coudounaris / HostRail enterprise.

Itsjusthosting

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

itsjusthosting.com were featured twice in 2009, first in August and secondly in October. Their initial listing was for a Fully Managed $6.99 OpenVZ vps. The plan featured 128MB Ram, 10GB Storage and 100GB Bandwidth. Servers were located in Dallas and came with some sort of DDoS Protection. Their second, and final, offer listed a month later came with 64MB Ram, 5GB Storage and 45GB Bandwidth for $5.99 a month. It came with considerably less resources than their former plan, considering it was only a dollar less. Clients started to report that their services had gone down and they were unable to contact support in late April.

Just295

Current Status: Redirects to http://www.silverknighttech.com/specials/vps-special

Just295’s first, and only, listing at lowendbox came in August 2011 when their 256MB Ram, 5GB HDD, 1TB bandwidth openvz package appeared on lowendbox. Just295 were, at the time, a division of Ruby Ring Tech, a Nevadan Based company who themselves had previously marketed a similar plan but in Dallas on lowendbox. Their servers were with VegasNAP in Las Vegas. Considering they were trying to sell the domain at webhostingtalk a while back, it looks like they consolidated all three brands into one: SilverKnightTech.

Rubyringtech, their former owner, now also seems to redirect to silverknighttech.com.

Meteorvps

Current Status: Domain Parked

Meteorvps were first, and only, featured on lowendbox in November 2011. At the time they were promoting a 1GB, 15GB storage, 1TB Bandwidth openvz deal which was hosted with Redstation in Hampshire, UK. There was a bit of controversy in the thread as it turned out Chris, the owner, was 17 years old which some argued meant he couldn’t enter a legally binding contract.

I managed to speak with Chris, he stated “the idea of MeteorVPS was a short-term thing, possibly leading long-term; I decided that I would take advantage of some cheap providers, offer solid performance and services/support for a cheap amount”. After being given the run around by their dedicated server provider, which made things increasingly more difficult, Chris took the noble decision to close shop, to prevent further problems from affecting his clients. He also states that: “Customers were given one months notice, and no payments were taken for the final month. Many e-mails were sent out and personal messages were given to server owners on minecraft through the use of multicraft.”

NixDot

Current Status: Domain Parked

In January 2012, Nixdot emailed in a 256MB Ram, 30GB storage, 500GB bandwidth openvz based offer with 2 ipv4 addresses, something of a rarity these days. The servers were with Servers PhoenixNAP in Phoenix Arizona. You could either pay $4.49 monthly for this vps or $30 yearly. In February accusations of scamming started to appear, including on the original offer thread. An employee admitted the owner had ‘pumped and dumped’ and advised clients to file disputes to reclaim their money.

Odishahosting

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

Odishahosting, were a New Jersey based hosting business operating out of datacenters in both Philadelphia, PA and Hyderabad, India. Their Virtuozzo based offercame with 128MB Ram, 5GB HDD and 50GB of Bandwidth. This special was located in Philadelphia. Odisha’s last hosting related post was in 2010, so this host may have been dead for a while.

PingVPS

Current Status: Server Index

In July 2010, UK based, pingvps emailed in a 64MB ram openvz offer for $1.59 a month. The plan also included 5GB storage and 10GB bandwidth and was hosted with OVH in Roubaix, France. In April 2012 pingvps website, and possibly more?, was supposedly hacked. Clients complained they couldn’t contact the owner.

RhinoRack

Current Status: Acquired by Errantweb

Rhinorack were listed on lowendbox in January 2012. RhinoRack was owned by a Nick Perkins, who had previously owned Rackmountain, which had only just been sold a few months earlier. Rhinorack offered a $7 512MB Ram OpenVZ plan equipped with 30GB HDD and 200GB of Bandwidth. Servers were colocated with HostDime in Orlando Florida.

Less than a month later, Rhinorack had been sold to Errantweb.

VirtuPulse

Current Status: Default cpanel page

In July 2010, Virtupulse, spinoff brand of Virpus, were featured on lowendbox. Unlike Virpus, Virtupulse had more customisable options which let you build a VPS to your needs. Servers were in Kansas City. I assume Ken, the owner of Virpus, merged the brand into Virpus.

Vmport

Current Status: Acquired by FTN Hosting

Vmport, an active member in the lowendtalk community, had a total of four offers listed on lowendbox. Their first offer, in August 2011, was a £2.33 256MB Ram, 20GB HDD, 250GB Bandwidth OpenVZ vps located in either Kansas City, MO or Düsseldorf, Germany. They later expanded to further locations and toyed around with XEN. Vmport even started a short-lived kvm subsidiary called kvmport, but after facing many problems with their provider, they were forced to cease kvm operations. After this, vmport tried to refocus on offering KVM vps servers in England, but this proved to be in vein after other sides of the business dragged this profitable section down.

On May 2012, FTN Hosting announced they had acquired vmport and that it would be migrating vmport’s existing infrastructure to FTNHosting’s fully owned equipment. The previous owner of VMport, Ashley, subsequently launched another company ‘GetKVM’ which would focus on the profitable KVM side of the industry.

VpsOne

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

Canadian based Vpsone, appeared on lowendbox in July 2010 with a $5 128mb Ram offer. The offer featured 10GB HDD and 200GB of bandwidth. The vps were openvz based and hosted on a softlayer server in Dallas, Texas.

VpsVillage

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

Vpsvillage.com marketed a 64MB Ram XEN vps way back in February 2008. The offer at the time was for 64MB Ram, 4GB HDD and 50GB Bandwidth. The servers were located in Philadelphia, PA. Vpsvillage was a part of GrokThis.net. Their last advertisement on webhostingtalk was in May 2010, so they may be long dead and buried.

WhiteLabelHosting

Current Status: 502: Bad Gateway

Whitelabelhosting, were featured twice during their existence. On their first post, they were promoting a $20/year 256MB OpenVZ VPS in Seattle. The plan also came with 25GB HDD and 250GB Bandwidth. They also had a 512MB OpenVZ plan which came with 50GB HDD and 500GB Bandwidth for $35/year. A month later they sent in a New Years Eve special which consisted of 512MB Ram, 25GB HDD and 500GB Bandwidth for $5 monthly. This time the servers were located in Kansas City, MO.

Clients began to report their servers were down and they couldn’t contact whitelabelhosting in February this year.

ZoomVPS

Current Status: IP address not resolvable

Zoomvps were listed on lowendbox in March 2010. At the time they were running a 50% off recurring discount which meant that their 256MB OpenVZ plan equated to $5 monthly. The plan also came with 50GB HDD and 250GB Bandwidth as well as 2 IPv4 Addresses. Customers had a choice between two locations: Chicago or New Jersey. They stopped advertising at webhostingtalk in November 2011.

That’s it for now! If I have missed anyone, please do bring it to my attention.