FENNEC: Virtual & dedicated servers, SSL certificates & domain registration

[Luceo]

Fennec Internet Services is a provider of virtual & dedicated server hosting, domain name registration and Comodo-signed SSL certificates. The company started in early July 2012, but is built on a knowledge base of system administration & hosting experience of over 5 years.

We've re-launched our company website this week, and to celebrate our grand reopening, we're running some promotional offers (valid for new customers and renewing existing customers) which include free uptime insurance, free SSL certificates, free domain names and free dedicated server hosting.

We do not cut corners - this is our mantra. All of our servers are Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron-based machines, with RAID data redundancy. The datacenter, based in Coventry, UK, has n+1 cooling & UPS, utilize high-end fibre lines with diverse entry points and multiple gigabits of connectivity, and is patrolled by security 24/7 with camera coverage inside & outside the facility.

Our domain names come with full anonymous domain registration. This isn't like domain privacy, where your details are simply hidden behind fake whois details and given over at the first whiff of a lawyer, neither is it fake registration details, which can lead to your domains being seized. Our domains are registered and held by a registered Malaysian company and we do not require your details at all.

Our SSL certificates are signed by Comodo, one of the biggest issuers of SSL certificates worldwide. They come with 99% browser recognition, 2,048-bit signatures and at least a $10,000 warranty by default. We offer everything from the simplest anonymous registration through to full business validated EV certificates.

We only accept cryptocurrencies, because we support the movement towards free money, and value that over convenience. You won't see Fennec Internet Services selling out and taking PayPal, VISA or Dwolla.

We don't aim to be the cheapest provider, we strive to offer the best value for money. Some competing companies will trade off anything for a lower price, whether that's shoving 10 VPS servers on a single IP, hosting on their old desktop machine on home broadband or filling in fake details on their 'anonymous' domain registration. We regard these practices to be incompatible with our way of thinking.

Virtual servers start at Ƀ1.50 per month...
Dedicated servers start at Ƀ12.00 per month...
SSL certificates start at Ƀ1.50 per year...
Domain names start at Ƀ2.50 per year...

[Greedi]

I use this services, really the best provider i ever had, fast support, good OP, i've been there for a bit over 2 months new, paid 3 months up-front, and i'm for sure gonna pay for 3 more months up-front

FIS gets a BIG +1 from me!

[Luceo]

I use this services, really the best provider i ever had, fast support, good OP, i've been there for a bit over 2 months new, paid 3 months up-front, and i'm for sure gonna pay for 3 more months up-front

FIS gets a BIG +1 from me!

^^ Thanks for that testimonial.

What other providers have you used out of interest? (Interested to know who we're so much better than)

[Greedi]

I use this services, really the best provider i ever had, fast support, good OP, i've been there for a bit over 2 months new, paid 3 months up-front, and i'm for sure gonna pay for 3 more months up-front

FIS gets a BIG +1 from me!

^^ Thanks for that testimonial.

What other providers have you used out of interest? (Interested to know who we're so much better than)

bitvps ( you muuuch better ) .. homeno.de, CrownCloud, server4you, what i remember right now

[Luceo]

Yes I am totally going to buy a Server from someone who couldn't even script a pipe and he tried to scam people by starting a "vanity generator". sounds legit

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87371.msg960433#msg960433

Oh hi gweedo, thanks for the free bump you give all of my threads. ^^

In case anyone can't be bothered to click his link, I was offering vanity address generation services. I could have run these on my computer through as many pipes as I wanted, but it would still require trust from the user to me that I was doing so. Therefore, there was no difference between doing it this way or just running vanitygen so I opted for the simpler option. Of course, to gweedo, the only possible explanation is that I am a scammer.

If I was a scammer I'd probably have stolen the ~$260 from my last ASIC raffle (verifiable), or the $200 from the one before (verifiable), or the ~$650 usagi sent me yesterday to be escrowed with EskimoBob (verifiable).

In case anyone's wondering, this guy trolls all of my threads since I made his friend butthurt (sadly, he removed most of his posts from that thread, including one where he promised to troll all of my threads and make sure no one bought anything from me). I don't usually respond to pond-life like gweedo, but it's getting really boring when -- without fail -- he's one of the first in my thread to spout his crap. Sorry for the drama.

bitvps ( you muuuch better ) .. homeno.de, CrownCloud, server4you, what i remember right now

Nice to know we're outperforming other Bitcoin providers in the eyes that truly matter: those of the customer. ^^

[Luceo]

You keep bringing this back, about this vanity generation service which I offered in my fledgeling days on the forum. Whether or not I scripted a pipe into a script was irrelevant, as either way the user would submit a request ('1something') and get a response by e-mail, IM or whatever.

If I were a scammer, I could have said I put the pipe into the script, not actually done so, and sent them an e-mail.
If I were not a scammer, the pipe would have achieved nothing because I would never have planned to use the private key myself anyway.

The pipe did not remove trust from the equation, so I elected not to do it as it was an investment of time for no gain.

Where I come from, to be a scammer, you have to scam somebody and I have not ever done that despite having had numerous times where I've been in control of other peoples' money and in no small amount. Could whoever Gweedo alleges I have scammed please step forward and say something?

I have never planned to scam anybody.
I have never scammed anybody.
I will never scam anybody.

Please either substantiate your claims or stop harrassing me. It doesn't do your reputation any good for you to go around hysterically finger-pointing with no evidence whatsoever.

Thanks.

[Greedi]

If you running a web hosting service, I would hope you know the basic of basic scripting tools to get automation and simple scripts/commands to run how do you do backups, how do you migrate servers around. That puts little faith in your business. I am not harassing you, I am pointing out facts, otherwise sue me.

dam, stop being an ass!!

Luceo or FIS isn't a scam, i've been using it for over 2 months, and its the best i ever have used..

just because you didnøt like what he did, or wtf you are trying to say ( nothing makes sense of what you write ) doesn't mean he a scammer, he need to scam first, i as far i know, he haven't..


so i'll like to see some prof from you, else.. fuck off..

[Luceo]

If you running a web hosting service, I would hope you know the basic of basic scripting tools to get automation and simple scripts/commands to run how do you do backups, how do you migrate servers around. That puts little faith in your business. I am not harassing you, I am pointing out facts, otherwise sue me.

I know enough scripting to run these processes and have run UNIX-based web servers since 2006. Backups are not within our remit but they'd be done with rsync on cron if they were; we migrate VPS's by mounting the old logical volume and the new logical volume and copying across with permissions preserved. Neither of these operations require me to be a master programmer (which is not something I've ever claimed to be).

Those things which need to be automated have been. Amongst these:
- Bringing up all VPS's on a reboot
- The setup processes for new VPS's
- Downtime detection & traffic monitoring

I don't believe in automation for the sake of automation, and if the scripting wouldn't save any time (as in the case of vanity generation) compared to the time it takes to automate and doesn't offer any other benefits, it doesn't get automated.

I'm glad we can now have a clear and open discussion without hysterical accusations and hope that this reply satisfies your curiosities.

[Morranr]

@gweedo: Luceo has publicly asked for someone to step up and tell everyone that they were scammed by him.  The lack of this happening seems to indicate either that a) he hasn't scammed anyone, b) the person he scammed is no longer active or hasn't seen this request, or c) is for some reason scared to do so.  The fact that you are trying to label him a scammer but not giving any details of any actual scamming that has occurred indicates to me that it is neither b nor c, therefore the most likely scenario is a.  Either back up what you claim or stop harassing people - just going around saying that everyone that isn't extremely well known in the community is a scammer if they can't prove that they didn't scam anyone (which is impossible to prove) isn't cool; it doesn't help the community unless there is evidence that something illegitimate has happened.

Back to topic: I talked with Luceo about ordering a server about a month, month and a half ago (not sure exactly when) and he was very friendly and answered all of my questions professionally.  He also didn't pressure me into ordering anything; when I said I wasn't ready yet he accepted that and let me take the time I needed to make the decision and to prepare for the transfer from my previous VPS.  I ordered a server from him a little over a week ago and have had no significant issues.  He has been helpful and reasonable in all transactions (I also bought a couple of anonymous domains and upgraded the server since initial purchase) and has been willing to help with anything I requested.  FIS has so far been a very nice and usable service that I'm happy to be doing business with, with better support and cheaper prices than many of the other VPS hosts I have used in the past (including ScopeHosts, HostAVPS, Softsys Hosting, and NQhost).

You may be wondering about the phrase "no significant issues" I used above.  Nothing is perfect, but so far the only issues I've had at all with this service is some non-urgent communication lags (playing IRC PM tag) as we are in very different timezones, etc, and one downtime of the VPS yesterday for a short time which was out of Luceo's control and he has made significant efforts to make up for it (crediting everyone that was affected extra time for their services, etc).  None of these "issues" come close to overcoming the positive things FIS has to offer.

[Morranr]

Yes, I read the thread in its entirety in fact.  There still is no evidence of any scamming having occurred and it is still uncool to try to smear someone because their logic doesn't exactly coincide with your own.  You are more than welcome to have any opinion you like of anyone here, Luceo and myself included, but to be purposefully derailing topics and throwing around accusations with nothing behind them is just rude.

[Luceo]

Wow, did you really just judge someone's post on his post count...?

[paraipan]

Yes, I read the thread in its entirety in fact.  There still is no evidence of any scamming having occurred and it is still uncool to try to smear someone because their logic doesn't exactly coincide with your own.  You are more than welcome to have any opinion you like of anyone here, Luceo and myself included, but to be purposefully derailing topics and throwing around accusations with nothing behind them is just rude.

Don't mind gweedo, he is just being himself, he has a record on trying to find scammers in the community. With Rugatu earlier this year https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94879.0


Luceo is an outstanding member of the community, and I'm planning to use the hosting services he provides in the future. I've been recommending him with confidence to allot of my friends too. A while ago he organized a contest for the creation of his company logo on Rugatu http://www.rugatu.com/questions/2327/logo-design-contest-fennec-internet-services, and didn't have any issues paying the rewards and tips to community members who participated.

[Luceo]

then I am just a rude person LOL I can't wait until his servers go down or hardware fails and you all just get taken to the ringers, the dude can't even use the linux commands and is using Rync for backup no raid disks or anything like that. I could probably go on and on about everything he is doing wrong but I let you guys find out.

Just going to clarify a few more of gweedo's inaccuracies.

1. Not being able to write extensive scripts != not being able to use Linux commands. I'm more than proficient in Linux.
2. It's rsync. Nice to know you don't even know what you're talking about.
3. The opening post addresses this: "All of our servers are Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron-based machines, with RAID data redundancy."

Also, just for your information, no serious computer enthusiast, let alone an IT professional, would refer to RAID as a backup. It's not a backup, it's just a fail-safe against disk failure. It does nothing to protect data against far more common issues like user error, physical damage or data corruption. If FIS hardware fails, it will be replaced in place within 24 hours.

So, to clarify:
a) You judge other people based on their post count, not the merits of their arguments.
b) You claim to be a programmer, yet you see no gap between programming and sysadmin work.
c) You can't read, and/or don't bother to read the text in front of you
d) You make a bunch of accusations that you (of course, because they're untrue) can't back up.

[vampire]

I don't read RAID data redundancy as RAID, i need a number what is the number if it is 1, it better be Raid 2-0+ LOL you may want to change that LOL I doubt you can even change a hot disk, cause you can't even script!! It is impossible if you can't script, you can't do anything.

I think I have proved my point many times in this thread, you know nothing about linux and web hosting, just cause you can google doesn't mean anything.

There is no such thing as raid as 2-0+. Hell even RAID 2 doesn't exists..... Only in spec docs.

[vampire]

yes there is raid 2-0 and the "+" meant greater

There is no 2-0. Or raid 2 - its one of those raids that never got used......

[Luceo]

1. I'm not sure how my ability to script affects whether I could swap out a hotswap drive (yes, I can).
2. I don't need to swap out a hotswap drive, I have remote hands at the datacenter who can do that for me.
3. I'm not sure how you could read 'RAID data redundancy' as 'no raid disks'. It's RAID-1 on 2 HDD arrays and RAID-10 on 4 HDD arrays though, since you asked.

I think I've proven, by running Arch Linux for several years and being an AUR package maintainer, as well as operating Fennec Internet Services that I know plenty about Linux & hosting. I'm not naive enough to think I can't learn more, though scripting isn't the top of my list of priorities, but I know more than enough to ensure a quality service for my customers.

If you can do better, by all means buy some servers and compete, and we'll let the market decide. For as long as you keep failing to address my points, I'll just have to assume you're just harassing another of my threads.

[Luceo]

LOL I can be an AUR package maintainer, like 3 people use Arch linux, let me know when get gentoo running from source then you will be a linux person I will even trust

Does a stage3 install count? I ran gentoo for a while on my Macbook Air because no other distros wanted to run and the #gentoo IRC room was one of the most helpful with setting up a MBA friendly kernel and helped me find a patch for the screen backlight (by default, you can't turn it down).

Problem I found with gentoo was an upgrade just straight-up took too long because everything was source-based. Hence moving to Arch Linux because it maintains the rolling release (no huge block releases with big likelihood of issues like Debian or Fedora) but allows you to install from binaries -OR- source, which is far more practical than compiling everything (openoffice, xulrunner, firefox etc take a *long* time).

Having said that, gentoo IRC and forums are very knowledgeable and I'd recommend them even to users of other distros, because you can learn a lot just by monitoring. I also love the ebuilds and overlays, very intuitive, yet powerful, package management.

[vampire]

I have a raid 2 - 0 disk looking me in the face so explain that

It's easy to explain, you're a clueless troll.

[Luceo]

If any established members of the community want to try the service out and offer an honest opinion, let me know and I'll hook you up with a free trial.

So far we're doing well, got a number of signups and a couple of domains registered, so if anyone wants to check us out join the IRC or e-mail info@fennec.name.

[Luceo]

Hopefully got an ad on the forum coming up!