I too use 1and1 for most of my domains because of the price. I agree with your assesment of them being great for beginners. I ran into several “gotchas” while trying to install various scripts (such as ensuring your rewrite base is set properly) and switched some domains to other hosts to get things working. Now that I’ve found (hopefully) all the little idiosyncracies, I have no problems recommending them to complete noobs and experienced pros, but if you’re an intermediate with no desire to learn more, I’d recommend nearly anyone else (except GoDaddy who seems to like to nickel and dime you to death).

Perhaps this review came off a little harsh, as they do have a few features (such as their wonderfully intuitive WYSIWYG website builder) that many newbies will find incredibly useful (as I did).

Like you said, some things just don’t work. This is why I recommend other hosts.

Thanks for your comment

1and1 can be quite good if you are lucky, unfortunately I would not recommend them because some aspects of their business practices are horrible and near-fraudulent. Forget about being upset about sorting out a tech problem, thats nothing, if you have a billing problem, their policy is to transfer the bill to NCO Financial Debt collection just like that, which harrasses the customer ( credit rating?) regarless of the validity (or legality) of the fee or charge in question.