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Jul 18, 2007

Because Jojo CMS is still new, we are constantly on the lookout for decent webhosts to try Jojo out on, resolve any issues, and then be able to recommend some good hosts to our users. Today I had a look at the hosting offering from Break - NZ web hosting.

Great stuff

Installing Jojo on Break's New Zealand based server took all of about 10 minutes, and overall was a very smooth install. Taking into account server speed, price, location, software versions, and control panel features, I would have to say that Break appear to be a good choice of host for New Zealand websites.

At this stage I can't comment on reliability, a very important feature of any web host, but the service so far has been prompt and effective from the 2 small issues I found with setting up Jojo on the server.

I can say however that Jojo does run nicely on Break's servers, seems good and quick, and was easy to create the database how I wanted in the control panel. No issues with getting .htaccess to do it's thing, and Break let you keep files outside of the web root, something that adds extra security to a Jojo install.
Break has a NZ$10 per month account with 20Mb of storage. This is unlikely to be enough for a Jojo site, so the 50Mb option at NZ$20 per month is probably a better choice. Combined with unlimited bandwidth on all plans, these prices seem fair.
As an extra bonus, your user directory on the server is /home/USERNAME/ which makes setting up Jojo especially straightforward.

Not so great

There were initially 2 minor things I didn't like about Break's hosting, both resolved within a few hours:

• The CAPTCHA we use on the Jojo contact form did not work, as Freetype wasn't installed on the server at the time of writing this review. This maybe something that is straightforward to fix or workaround, and CAPTCHAs can be disabled within Jojo anyway (if you are feeling brave).
  UPDATE: Within a few hours of mentioning this to Break, the required library has been added and it's all working fine.
  
• Register globals is ON by default, and I couldn't see any easy way to turn this OFF. Jojo works fine with Globals turned on, but it's not the recommended way of doing things these days.
  UPDATE: Adding the following code to .htaccess will allow you to have register globals off...
  
  php_value register_globals off
  
  

Despite this review being overall quite positive, this isn't sponsored (but yes, that is an affiliate link).

Anyone else?

We are interested in hearing from other PHP web hosts that would like to have their hosting reviewed and listed on this site. Please contact us with temporary FTP / Control panel details we can use for testing out your hosting. Or better yet, point us at a working Jojo install and save us the trouble :)

Harvey.

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