NEWBIE Soooo sloooow... (?) Why?

[mothzart]

Hi,
 

I have a server (johnny) since 24h but, so far it is ...well, unusable.

 

I know that this service is free and gives options which are unavailable anywhere else FOR FREE - and for that KUDOS!

 

But the problem is that I tried to install Wordpress ...and I cannot even go through installation process

 

And now my question is - is that "normal" on HELIO or are there some problems right now that are being solved...

Thanks.
R.

[wolstech]

That's normal for Johnny. Johnny is meant for testing and experimentation, not hosting an actual website. If you're trying to host an actual website, you'll be much better off on Ricky or Tommy instead.

 

Also, some advice: Don't use Wordpress. It's terribly coded...extremely inefficient and full of security holes. It causes more issues than any other piece of software we see, and is the #1 cause of load suspensions and hacked accounts.

[mothzart]

Thanks for a quick response

 

Yesterday I've been waiting till 0200 (utc+2) so that i could sign up for a server. I clicked Tommy, but a few seconds later that option was "grayed" and I could only choose Johnny or Ricky - i chose Johnny because i want to use MySQL/JS/PHP and as far as I rememeber Ricky did not support some of those (might be wrong - middle of the night ).

Now... to solve this problem - should I just request a different server (Tommy) - will it work?

And about WordPress - I'm kind of stuck with it. What I am trying to build is 100% public site + unique passwords.

...and WordPress is the only platform I feel comfortable with - I'm too fresh for Drupal/custom HTML (not to mention that a "non-CMS" would be "a pain in the A")

I will try switching to Tommy - we'll see

R.

[wolstech]

Tommy fills in seconds every day because almost everyone wants an account there. We have to limit the sign ups to prevent overcrowding.

 

Ricky is a good alternative if you don't need Java or node.js, and he's actually really fast at the moment since he was just rebuilt and doesn't have a lot of accounts yet.

[mothzart]

Ok... so... I didn't manage to sign in for Tommy, although I was spot on with the time, but (as you advised) I signed with Ricky - and now everything works nice, pretty (decent speed) fast and without any ping delays/downtime etc.

I set up WordPress (manually, not via cPanel built-in installers) and I plan to build my own portfolio (graphic design + electronic music [FL Studio])

 

Now, a few questions:

1) How does Ricky limit me vs. Tommy? ...what things I might want are impossible on Ricky?

2) What domains HelioHost can provide?

3) Do you know any free "friendly" domain (third party) provider? ...although rr.helionet.us isn't that bad

4) You said that WP has "holes" ...what should I avoid (plugins? themes? etc.) to minimize the risk?

 

Thanks in advance

[wolstech]

Good to hear the speed is more to your liking.

 

[Krydos]

1) How does Ricky limit me vs. Tommy? ...what things I might want are impossible on Ricky?

Ricky doesn't have node.js, java (.jsp, or .war) support. Ricky is also on older, slower hardware so he has a tendency to be a bit slower. Right now Tommy is a little overloaded and Ricky has hardly any accounts though so Ricky is faster, but when the number of accounts balances out a bit Ricky will probably be a bit slower than Tommy.

 

2) What domains HelioHost can provide?

HelioHost can provide free something.heliohost.us domains. We are not a registrar so we can't provide .coms etc, but we can host anything that you can buy. We recommend using Namecheap as their service works great with us. We register all of our domains through them.

 

3) Do you know any free "friendly" domain (third party) provider? ...although rr.helionet.us isn't that bad

Free domain registrars are honestly pretty bad. Freenom is kind of a scam. I used to have krydos.tk through freenom, and as soon as I started getting a little traffic to it they replaced my website with spammy porn ads and stuff and tried to charge me like $30 to buy it back. They don't give you any warning either, just poof one day your website is gone. I just waited them out, and eventually they made krydos.tk available for free again. So I registered it again and started using it again. Same thing happened again. I still refused to pay for it, so they finally just flagged my entire freenom account as abuse so I couldn't register any domains anymore. When I tried to contact support to get my account unlocked they just sent a canned response saying that abuse accounts couldn't be unsuspended. A lot of other people have had similar experiences. You could try a free domain provider like afraid.org or eu.org, but they have kind of wonky systems and sometimes you can only use their domains as your main domain. It won't work as an alias or addon.

 

4) You said that WP has "holes" ...what should I avoid (plugins? themes? etc.) to minimize the risk?

In my experience, most free wordpress plugins and themes are simply backdoors for hackers. As soon as you install it the plugin or theme phones home to the hacker, and they have backdoor access to install a phishing site or send spam emails through your account. Not only that, but the internet is flooded by bots constantly probing for wordpress vulnerabilities, of which there are a lot. If that wasn't enough wordpress is really bloated and slow, and it causes tons of load. Most plugins make the load increase by a ton too. Wordpress is the leading cause of high load suspensions, and accidental phishing suspensions, and accidental spam suspensions. It's really terrible software. Literally anything you can find would be better.

[robertzo]

If softaculous doesn't work you can install WordPress manually. In my past experience installing it manually was actually faster than doing it by softaculous surprisingly. To do it just go to wordpress.org/download and download the latest version of WordPress in a zip file. Then go to your cPanel and create a new MySQL database and MySQL Database User (give it all permissions). Upload the zip file to your cPanel and unzip it to the website root or subdirectory. Go to the URL you installed it on and just fill in the database info (don't worry about anything else, just the database name and user). Then fill in your login info and website name. Done, you installed WordPress and can log into the dashboard. 

 

BTW, if you are on Johnny or Ricky try using Joomla, PHP fusion, craftcms, subrion, or expressionengine. But my favorite (besides WordPress) is Ghost, however you can only use ghost if you are on Tommy since it requires node.js.

Edited May 23, 2021 by robertzo