Ookla has released its Q1 2022 internet speeds report for the United States and revealed that T-Mobile has the best mobile connectivity among all providers with Verizon being the best in broadband.
Ookla is the company behind Speedtest and they judge on three main categories: speed, latency, and consistency alongside regional and 5G performance.
Top mobile speeds for the US
T-Mobile swept all three major categories for mobile speeds and the 5G subcategories.
According to the report, T-Mobile has a download speed of 117.83 Mbps, up from 90.65 Mbps during Q4 2021. This makes T-Mobile more than twice as fast as AT&T.
For latency, T-Mobile actually tied with Verizon Wireless at 31 ms. And for its Consistency Score, T-Mobile earned a score of 88.3 percent in terms of consistent quality.
Going down the list, T-Mobile has the best performing 5G network at 191.12 Mbps download speed, the most widely available network at 65 percent coverage, and a Consistency Score of 79.9 percent.
Aiding T-Mobile’s domination is the ever-increasing hardware that supports these speeds. Ookla reveals that the fastest chipset among the popular brands is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile platform with a median speed of 122.68 Mbps.
It’s a chipset that powers some high-end Android phones, like the OnePlus 10 Pro and the Galaxy S22 Ultra, whose brand has the fastest speeds among cell phone companies.
Top broadband speeds for the US
For home broadband internet speeds, Verizon wins for fastest provider and latency but loses to XFINITY for consistency.
Verizon has a median download speed of 184.36 Mbps and a latency of 8 ms. For the Consistency Score, XFINITY took the top spot with 90.6 percent and Verizon came in third with 89.4 percent. Spectrum took second at 90.3 percent.
However, depending on which US region you look at, these standings change. XFINITY is the fastest in thirteen states while Verizon wins in four.
In case you’re curious, New Jersey is the state with the fastest internet speeds at 195.2 Mbps. This is followed by New York and Rhode Island with speeds of 179.32 and 173.09 Mbps, respectively. Wyoming, according to the study, has the slowest mobile broadband service.
Optus has typically been the top performer in the Australian consumer watchdog’s broadband reporting, but its latest study shows that Optus has been beaten by a surprise internet provider.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) latest report shows that Exetel has overtaken Optus in the average download speed measurement, beating its advertised plan speeds by 3.3% during the peak busy hours, and 4.5% across all times.
Optus still performed well though, and it wasn’t too far behind Exetel. Its NBN plans reached 100% of its rated average download speed during the peak usage period, and exceeded it by 0.8% during all times.
With a smaller ISP such as Exetel beating out the heavy hitters such as Telstra, Optus and TPG, it serves as another reminder that size often doesn’t matter when it comes to NBN providers.
Exetel currently has discounts available across all of its plans, with savings of up to AU$240 on offer if you sign up for one of its NBN 1000 or NBN 250 plans. If you want a more standard NBN 50 or NBN 25 plan, you can save up to AU$120 by signing up now.
Fibre to the Nope
As has consistently been shown in the consumer advocate’s reporting, fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) services continue to perform significantly below that of other connection types for NBN 50 and NBN 100 plans.
During the reporting period, FTTN users on an NBN 100 plan received an average download speed that was around 16Mbps lower than other connection types. Overall, these households reached 85.9% of their plan’s rated speed on average across all hours.
FTTN users on an NBN 50 plan that were monitored for the report fared a little better, with average download speeds measuring around 6Mbps lower than other technologies. These FTTN users were able to reach 93.2% of their NBN 50 plan’s advertised speed during all hours, but that is still substantially below other NBN 50 users with other connection types.
If you are one of the millions of Australians stuck with a FTTN connection and have an underperforming NBN 100 plan, your best bet is to move down to a slower, more affordable NBN 50 plan.
Good news for NBN Fixed Wireless
The ACCC’s latest report brings good news for regional and rural Australians with an NBN Fixed Wireless connection: results from December 2021 found that on average, users were able to reach 79.8% of their plan’s rated speed during the crucial busy hours of 7-11pm, and 93.4% across all hours.
These findings are a significant improvement from when the ACCC first started monitoring Fixed Wireless performance in December 2020. At the time, these users were achieving 68.4% of their plan’s advertised speed during peak usage hours, and 78.5% on average across all hours.
As indicated by the consumer watchdog’s report, this increase in download speeds can be credited to NBN Co, which began to allow a 15% overprovisioning allowance in July 2021. That’s led some internet providers to pass on the benefit to their customers.
Households are typically connected to NBN Fixed Wireless when they’re in regional or remote areas – they access the NBN from a transmission tower through an antenna installed on their roof, as opposed to fibre or copper wiring direct to their premise. We have a guide to the best wireless broadband plans in Australia if you want to compare what’s on offer.
The folks over at Downdetector are reporting a huge surge in error reports with Twitter, so this certainly looks to be a relatively widespread issue.
Profile pages the main casualty
Interestingly, the main Twitter feed is working for us, so we can see what people are tweeting, but clicking on any profiles returns the failure to load message.
We’re seeing other Twitter users reporting the issue too.
Twitter is down on my laptop, but okay on my phone. https://t.co/ksJ4vCBj6sFebruary 17, 2022
See more
A global issue
This issue looks to be wide-spread, with reports from users in multiple countries around the world saying they are struggling to access the social network.
There are a variety of different reported issues as well, with some users not able to load profiles on desktop, while others are reporting issues with retweeting, the main feed and individual tweets.
Service being restored
Profile pages are beginning to load for us now, albeit slowly. Twitter may have fixed this one quickly.
The number of internet options available to the average Aussie is getting to the point of being overwhelming, especially if you’re just after a cheap NBN plan.
When shopping around for an internet plan, you’ll notice that most NBN providers offer a six-month discount when you first sign up, and this is a great way to get a cheap deal. An affordable internet plan isn’t always a good one though, particularly if it only comes with a limited amount of data.
To help ensure you get a good internet plan at the best price, we’ve run through our cheap NBN plan recommendations here, or if you want to jump ahead, click the links below:
Noteworthy cheap NBN deals
All of our plan recommendations are detailed below, but before you check them out, here are some good deals you should check out before deciding on an NBN plan:
Best cheap NBN plans
Cheapest NBN plan overall
The lowest-cost NBN plan available
Cheapest NBN plan with unlimited data
The lowest cost with unlimited data
NBN 12 plans compared
Cheap NBN 25
A cheap NBN plan that doesn’t sacrifice speed
NBN 25 plans compared
Cheap NBN 50
Best option for most users
NBN 50 plans compared
Cheap NBN 100
A bump in speed for larger households
NBN 100 plans compared
Cheap NBN 250
For super-fast internet, consider this
NBN 250 plans compared
Cheap NBN 1000
The fastest you can get, but only available in select locations
NBN 1000 plans compared
Cheap NBN plans: major telcos
If you’re looking for the cheapest options available for the major providers, we’ve outlined them below. While they aren’t as affordable as other budget ISPs, they tend to perform well, and come with optional added perks:
Ransomware is a type of malware that locks a device, encrypts content on the device or web hosting and then blackmails the user to pay a ransom to regain access to its content.
And of course, devices are not just cell phones and computers, they are servers and the Internet of Things (IoT). Therefore, in case of ransomware infection (and non-existent or non-functional backups), the company loses access to, for example, invoices and customers.
This form of attack may temporarily interrupt the company’s work or production process. Depending on the business or organization, the ransomware attack is likely to have consequences for its customers , which may eventually lead them to turn to a competitor.
According to ESET , companies often consider ransomware to be the biggest security problem. However, this is not necessarily because ransomware attacks are more common than other forms of cyber-attack, but because such attacks are often widely publicized.
Thus, even someone who has never experienced an ransomware attack can realize that such cyber attacks pose a serious threat.
How does Ransomware get into the PC?
The most common way an ransomware attacks a computer is through phishing, in which “suspicious” emails are sent to users, camouflaged in newsletters from banks or other entities, with attachments, url links and text.
In such a case, the ransomware infects the PC the moment the user decides to install the “unknown” program requested! With the installation, the user gives the program permission to gain administrator access and therefore complete control of the device.
* More aggressive hosting programs – such as NotPetya – take advantage of vulnerabilities in the operating system and attack the system without requiring user access.
Files appear as “inaccessible” and can only be restored by providing the decryption key held by the ransomware developer.
Another way of cheating is when the victim receives a notification from a Security Agency (eg Police, Cybercrime Prosecution, etc.) to be fined for violating the law by engaging in illegal online activities, such as the presence of pornographic software, software. etc. In this way, the perpetrators “persuade” the users much easier to repay the price and automatically avoid the alleged denunciation of their action to the Authorities.
In the same context, in order to immediately pay the ransom “hostage” and at the same time to silence this criminal act, the perpetrators resort to the so-called leakware or doxware, in which sensitive personal data of the user is stolen, threatening to be made public, if not the necessary amount is deposited.
Who is at risk from the “hostage” of files and data?
Perpetrators usually select their victims, based on the security strength of the system. An educational institution may not have invested time and money in setting up an impregnable security wall for its digital activities, which include a large volume of files and data that are distributed throughout the day.
In addition, organizations that have a large amount of sensitive information – such as government agencies, medical laboratories and pharmaceutical companies, law firms, etc. – in case of “hostage” of their data, they are more likely to mobilize to repay the price, for their immediate security.
Email remains the most common form of ransomware infection
While ransomware infection often starts with a click on a suspicious link or fake invoice, ESET has found that email remains the most common method of distribution in a two-step process, with a download program delivered first, followed by ransomware as secondary infection.
The need to raise employee awareness about safety
It is not clear whether successful ransomware attacks are due to the ability of the attackers or the negligence of employees. Some types of ransomware are highly sophisticated, while others are not.
The risk of ransomware infection is one of the many reasons why companies should focus on educating their employees on cybersecurity so they know what links to click and what to do if they have already done so. some security mistake.
Unequal distribution of investments in security issues
Some companies spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on various advanced security solutions, but not a few thousand more on well-trained staff who will be responsible for developing and managing network security measures.
Instead, companies often choose to acknowledge that there are security vulnerabilities and make this decision because they do not expect to be attacked by ransomware.
The basic rules to follow
According to ESET, the basic rules you need to follow to avoid data loss are:
Make frequent backups of your data and keep at least one full backup offline.
Keep all your software – including operating systems – repaired and up to date.
However, holistic coverage should be the first goal of any comprehensive cyber security strategy. This starts with a reliable and multi-layered endpoint protection solution , followed by continuous maintenance and best security practices.
FOR HISTORY: In 1989, the first ransomware attack was carried out with… the postman
The first documented case of ransomware occurred in 1989. It was called the AIDS Trojan and spread through thousands of floppy disks sent by mail. These diskettes reported that they contained a database of AIDS and the risk factors associated with the disease.
In fact, the floppy disks contained malware, which disabled users’ access to much of the contents of the hard disk. The AIDS Trojan demanded a ransom (or, as the message called it, a “license payment”) of $ 189, which was to be sent to a post office box in Panama. Responsible for this ransomware was considered Dr. Joseph Popp.
With Christmas looming you probably have things you’d rather be thinking about right now than broadband deals. But if your current contract just came to an end or you’ve noticed that you’re paying through the teeth for a rolling agreement, it’s worth spending a few brief minutes to check out Vodafone’s latest offer.
Sign up to the company’s Superfast 1 plan now, and all you’ll have to pay is a mere £19 per month. Nothing upfront, no delivery or connection charges – just monthly bills of less than £20 to secure average fibre speeds of 38Mb.
That’s a very eye-catching price. But it’s worth knowing that for an extra quid a month, you can upgrade to Vodafone’s Superfast 2 plan and come close to doubling your average connection speeds (stated at 65Mb).
Which you go for will depend on the internet usage in your home. If it’s just you or a couple and you just like to stream the odd Netflix binge and leisurely surf the web, then Superfast 1 may be enough. Superfast 2 will suit large households packed with gamers, streamers, downloaders and home workers – and it’s only £1 a month more for arguably the best fibre broadband deal in the UK.
More than 70,000 Indian exporters, who are part of Amazon India’s ‘Global Selling program’, will showcase millions of ‘Made in India’ products customers world-wide during the annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) sale.
According to Amazon India, the country’s exporters are launching over 52,000 new products on Amazon’s global websites for the upcoming holiday season. Also, to make things easy for sellers in India, Amazon Global Selling has introduced language support for them in Hindi and Tamil
The Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales start on November 25 and end on November 29.
Amazon Global Selling program nets $3 billion
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, though not big in India, are significant sale events marking the beginning of the holiday season in the USA and many other countries.
Amazon works with Indian exporters to help them identify key holiday shopping trends to bring in relevant product assortment. It also supports them with logistics solutions and guides them to market their products through a range of deals and advertising options.
Amazon India said customers globally will be able to discover a range of products from Indian exporters across categories including home and kitchen, STEM toys, apparel, health and personal care, office products, jewelry, beauty and furniture.
For the record, during the BFCM sale in 2020, Indian exporters on Global Selling saw a 50% YOY growth in sales. More than 300 sellers crossed Rs 10 lakh in sales during the 2020 sale period.
Amazon Global Selling is its flagship program to help Indian MSMEs to start or expand their exports business using eCommerce. Launched in India in 2015 through Amazon’s international websites and marketplaces, there are, at present, more than 70,000 exporters across India on the program who get to showcase millions of Made in India products to customers in 200+ countries.
Amazon India says Indian MSMEs exporting through the program have surpassed $3 billion in cumulative sales till now.
Earlier this year, Amazon India set up $250 million fund for small, medium businesses in the country. The commitments were a further step in Amazon’s pledge of digitizing 10 million SMBs, enabling $10 billion in exports from India, and creating 1 million jobs by 2025.
Support for exporters in Hindi and Tamil
Meanwhile, Amazon India, as part of its Global Selling program, has introduced language support for sellers in Hindi and Tamil. Entrepreneurs from anywhere in India can launch and manage their export businesses entirely in Hindi and Tamil.
Amazon said it worked with experts in respective languages “to develop an accurate and comprehensible experience for sellers”.
From registering and KYC processes to managing orders, product pages, inventory and seller central will be available in these two languages (apart from English).
Additionally, sellers can also get assistance with their queries in Hindi and Tamil through Seller Support. This new feature is currently live for sellers selling on Amazon.com marketplace and will soon be enabled for other global marketplaces as well, the company said.
Sellers who wish to change their preferred language can do it in a few simple steps on Seller Central, once logged in. More regional Indian languages will be added to this program, Amazon said.
The best website builder for portfolios will make it easy to publish and manage your photographs and other artwork online.
Creating a new website is a lot easier than it used to be – rather than learning HTML and CSS, you can just click and drag with your mouse and have something very professional-looking on the internet in minutes, and portfolio website builders are no different.
The increased use of this software online means you’ve got a selection of the website builders for portfolios to choose from. However, with so many great selection of tools to choose from, it can be difficult to pick out the best portfolio website builders from a crowd of so many.
To help you narrow down your choice, we’ve picked five portfolio website builders that offer a good balance of price points and features.
All of these website builders for portfolios offer simple ways of customizing your pages once they’re online, so you can regularly change the look of your work, and make sure your talents are always being well promoted on the web.
Top 3 website builder services overall
Once you get a taste for building your own site you may decide you’re looking for more of an all rounder website builder. We’ve reviewed all the best website builders and here’s the best three overall. They all offer top-class easy to use website builder services that could transform your online presence, giving you the freedom to create any type of website you need.
Scroll down to read our comprehensive shortlist of the best portfolio website builder services on the market right now.
The best portfolio website builders of 2021
1. Weebly
Created with portfolios in mind
Reasons to buy
+Elegant, user-friendly interface+Advanced site analytics in paid plans
Reasons to avoid
–Relatively small choice of themes
Weebly was first set up with the intention of making it easy to set up a portfolio of work online, and those origins stand it in good stead today, even as it has broadened its horizons to become more of a general website builder. If you don’t mind a Weebly subdomain, some ads on your site, and a limit of 500MB storage, you can actually use it for free.
While the choice of themes is relatively small, they’re all fully customizable, and they all work on any size of screen, automatically reformatting to suit the display dimensions. Weebly has one of the most elegant and user-friendly website editor interfaces we’ve seen, so you can tweak your portfolio in exactly the way you want.
One of the many areas where Weebly excels is in the way it calmly handles a lot of technical stuff quietly in the background: it gives you enhanced SSL security by default, and (on the paid options) advanced analytics for your website, plus the option to transfer over a domain name.
If you want to get up and running quickly, would like to spend some – but not a lot – of time customizing your site, and need something that’s going to be reliable and comprehensive, Weebly fits the bill. The fact that you can get started for free to see if you like it is an added bonus.
2. Cargo
Portfolio building with an edge
Reasons to buy
+Get up and running in minutes+Great choice of image effects and fonts
Reasons to avoid
–Will be too unconventional for some
There’s a lot that appeals to us about the website builder Cargo: the unconventional and varied choice of templates, the intuitive page tweaking interface you can edit them with, and the way that you can build up an entire site without paying a penny (you won’t be charged until the site goes live).
It’s certainly got more of an edge than other comparable website builders, which might be good or bad depending on what you’re looking for. The templates available are all eye-catching and bold, and will work best for people wanting to stand out from the crowd, whether that’s with photography or writing.
Every template is responsive and works on a variety of screens, while Cargo also offers some cool animated image effects you can play around with too. On top of that, the site builder is to be commended for its wide choice of fonts as well, plus, even more fonts are being added from time to time.
Besides all of the features on the surface – including an online template editor that hits a nice balance between simplicity and customization – you get 6GB of image cloud storage, unlimited pages, unlimited bandwidth, the option to transfer over a domain name if you need to, and a ton of help and support (including tutorial videos).
3. IM Creator
All the options you need
Reasons to buy
+Strong selection of templates+Doesn’t take long to get started
Reasons to avoid
–Will be too advanced for some
Built on the latest HTML5 technology and with useful extras like e-commerce and domain name support included, IM Creator is going to be too advanced and in-depth for some, but will suit other portfolio builders perfectly. That’s not to say it’s difficult to use – there’s just more going on.
You don’t need to know a shred of code to get started, there are plenty of different themes and looks to choose from, and we like the way the themes are already pre-populated with content. That means you can just edit the sample material that’s already there rather than starting from scratch, which can be more daunting.
If you want to go deeper into your website building and customizations, then IM Creator makes this possible. The site editor includes a variety of gallery and slideshow options, plus image effects to drop over your uploaded pictures, and the option to change everything from the fonts used to the page margins.
We’d recommend IM Creator if you’re looking to stand out from the pack – it has a wide choice of templates and some detailed editing options too. On the other hand, it does need a bit more of a time and effort investment than other site builders.
4. Krop
Premium template options
Reasons to buy
+Find a job at the same time+Useful third-party integrations
Reasons to avoid
–Lacks more advanced customizations
Krop is a creative jobs site and a portfolio builder rolled into one, so you know that its services are trusted by people in the same industry as you (or the same industry that you’re trying to break into). What’s more, its template options are some of the most well-designed that we’ve seen.
The website builder ticks all of the boxes that you should be looking for. Setting a site up is quick and easy, you can register a custom domain if you want to, and making tweaks to the design and layout of your pages is very straightforward too. On top of that, you get neat extras like Dropbox and Instagram syncing, and Google Analytics integration.
If you do know some CSS, then you can take more control over the way your site is designed. If not, you can just use the simple site editor instead – picking colors and fonts is as easy as clicking on a side panel.
Those of you who are looking to get a gig at the same time as building your website can of course switch straight over to the job section of the Krop site to find work – there are some big-name employers on the portal. You can try out the service with a free 14-day trial.
5. Adobe Portfolio
A superb option for CC subscribers
Reasons to buy
+Simple and straightforward setup+Online interface is very polished
Reasons to avoid
–Requires a Creative Cloud subscription
Considering Adobe makes some of the best creative software in the business, you would hope it knows what it’s doing in terms of displaying portfolios on the web – and we’re glad to report that is indeed the case.
This is slightly different to the other services we’ve mentioned here, because it’s a free add-on to the Creative Cloud suite developed by Adobe. If you don’t already pay for the programs then Portfolio is unlikely to tempt you to part with your cash, but if you are a CC subscriber, it’s worth looking at this before venturing anywhere else. Worth noting that college graduates can get Adobe Portfolio free for one year.
While it doesn’t offer as many customization and layout options as some of the other site builders we’ve mentioned here (although, the popular feature request – video backgrounds, has been added), Adobe Portfolio does make the process of getting your work online simple and fun. Of course there’s also the tight integration with Adobe’s apps, so you can easily share your work straight from Lightroom to the web. You can also purchase and connect a domain if you wish.
Pages are optimized for any device and certain ones can be password-protected if needed, and there’s also the option to bring over a domain name you already own. For a simple portfolio maker that plugs right into the apps you already use (assuming that’s the case), it’s ideal.
Cloud hosting has changed the hosting industry for the better, allowing for increasing reliability and resilience for clients.
Signing up for a simple web hosting package would usually buy you a defined block of resources on a single server: register your domain name, then choose this much web space, that much bandwidth, maybe a set amount of RAM or CPU cores.
While this works well for many websites, having fixed resources can be a problem for larger projects. There’s generally no way to temporarily allocate extra RAM or bandwidth if you experience an increase in traffic, and even a simple plan upgrade might require your website to go offline for a while.
Cloud hosting plans look much like virtual private server (VPS) web hosting products, where you’ll initially pay for a set amount of web space, RAM, CPU time and bandwidth. But these resources are spread across multiple devices instead of just one, and changing your plan later – adding another gig of RAM, for instance – is generally as easy as dragging a slider, with the extra power coming online within moments.
There are also additional options for small business web hosting, such as environmentally-friendly green web hosting. Additionally, cloud hosting is scalable and can provide for a good alternative to needing a dedicated server with colocation provider, and there are options for managed web hosting services.
You can use cloud hosting for everything, from just hosting your emails, to replacing your business server. However, if you want a hands-on experience expect the virtual servers to be running Linux, not Windows.
Cloud hosting still won’t be for everyone, and small, simple websites are likely to be better off with regular packages. But the technology has a lot to offer anyone with larger or more ambitious projects, and many hosts run free trials which make it easy to explore their abilities for yourself.
Want your company or services to be considered for this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
Hostinger is one of the biggest providers of free web hosting via its 000webhosting brand. It has well over 30 million users, and some of the lowest prices thanks to low running costs and overheads. Hostinger prefers to use its own technology (for example, it has its own customized control panel instead of the ubiquitous Cpanel), so that it can better control performance and features.
There are three plans available, Cloud Startup, Cloud Professional, and Cloud Global, all of which offer unlimited websites and unlimited bandwidth for your account.
The Cloud Startup plan comes with 200GB of SSD storage, 3GB of RAM, and 2 CPU cores. The Cloud Professional plan increases these to 250GB storage, 6GB RAM, and 4 CPU cores, the Cloud Enterprise plan extends these further to 300GB storage, 12GB RAM, and 6CPU cores. All plans come with a free SSL certificate and domain name.
Pricing depends on how long you commit to the service. For the Cloud Startup plan, it costs $29.00 on a month to month basis. However, if you commit for a year the monthly cost falls to $12.99 a month. For a two-year contract, it drops to $10.99 per month, and for a four-year contract, it falls to $9.99 a month.
2. HostGator
Cloud hosting for only websites
Reasons to buy
+Simple to use+Solid range of plans+Temptingly priced with initial discounts
If you only need to host a website rather than additional business data, then HostGator’s cloud platform could be a more ideal choice. Unlike normal web hosting, Hostgator’s cloud hosting platform spreads your website load across multiple virtual server instances for more reliable and scalable hosting, but it’s as easy to use as standard shared hosting, and only costs a little more.
For example, the baseline Hatchling Cloud plan gets you support for one domain, unmetered bandwidth and storage, a share of up to two cores and 2GB RAM, and distributed Varnish caching to speed up the loading of static content. You can get started for as little as $3.13 (£2.26) per month if you buy three years upfront, although the price leaps to $8.95 (£6.40) on renewal.
If you need something more powerful, the top-of-the-range Business Cloud plan supports unlimited domains, gives you up to six cores and 6GB RAM, and includes private SSL and a dedicated IP. Another chunky introductory discount means you can pay as little as $6.28 (£4.54) per month over three years, but after that, you’ll pay $17.95 (£12.80) per month.
Benefits of the cloud plans include (up to) twice as fast load times, along with more site statistics, and because your site is mirrored across multiple devices, the ability to switch your site to another server in the event of a hardware failure.
But the key advantage of all cloud hosting schemes is scalability. If your site can’t cope with demand, you can scale up to eight cores and 8GB RAM with a click. There’s no waiting around for someone to process your order and no downtime while your web space is reallocated – you get the extra resources right away.
Also, while prices go up after the initial discount promotion, they still remain extremely competitive.
At first glance, cloud hosting products seem to be divided into two clear groups: enterprise-level technology from Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and more, or simpler and more user-friendly products from hosts like Hostgator.
Cloudways represents an interesting middle path. The company offers managed cloud hosting which is powered by your choice of the top providers – Amazon, Google, DigitalOcean, Linode or Vultr are supported – and comes packed with features, yet is configured from a simple web console which is just as easy to use as the more basic competition.
It’s an impressive platform. Cloudways’ ThunderStack covers all your core performance needs: Nginx, Apache, Memcached, MySQL/MariaDB, Varnish Cache, PHP 7, PHP-FM and Redis. There’s one-click cloning, backup and restore, integrated Git and team collaboration tools for developers, and no less than 60 data centers strategically placed around the world (over 25 locations).
Despite all this high-end functionality, Cloudways products are generally simple to operate, and prices start at a beginner-friendly $10 (£7.15) per month for one core, 1GB RAM, 25GB storage and 1TB of bandwidth. It’s all supremely configurable, and a free trial allows you to check out the product, with no credit card details required. Furthermore, a referral system is available, where both you and your friends can receive free hosting credits.
4. Bluehost
An exceptional cloud web hosting provider
Reasons to buy
+Unmetered bandwidth+WooCommerce hosting+Free domain+24×7-US-based support
Bluehost is a company based in Utah which is owned by web giant Endurance International Group (EIG). It offers basic shared hosting from $2.75 monthly (on a three-year contract), with managed WordPress plans starting at $9.95 per month (although that’s also a discounted introductory rate).
For the money, you get automated setup for WordPress, not to mention other popular apps via a Mojo Marketplace-powered system. There’s also a cPanel-based area to allow expert users to tweak things.
Furthermore, Bluehost provides a Weebly-based website builder. This is a basic browser-based affair that lets you create a website of up to six pages, and there are no extras like site templates included. But still, it’s better than nothing, and more functionality is in the pipeline – plus you get this builder with the basic account.
There’s also good customer support on offer, and the end result is a mix of user-friendly aspects alongside a good amount of power, and potential tweaking for more advanced users.
While Bluehost doesn’t offer cloud hosting as a separate service, it does offer free access to CloudFlare cloud hosting with all of its plans. This automatically increases the performance of your website without having to code or program for any changes.
5. Dreamhost
Best cloud server hosting and cloud object storage
Reasons to buy
+Open source platform+Powerful hardware+Entry for cloud services+Computing or storage options
Dreamhost offers cloud server hosting, taking it a step up from the other plans offered here. However, by running their unmanaged cloud servers the expectation is that users will be comfortable with a command line environment for managing their cloud hosting service.
Dreamhost’s cloud hosting services cover two main areas: cloud computing and cloud object storage.
DreamCompute is the cloud computing service, and offers an easy way to develop and grow your own cloud services. You can run it based on Linux, BSD, or Windows, in a serverless environment based on the latest SSD storage and next-gen processors.
Built around the free and open-source OpenStack platform, there is no lock-in to proprietary software, and you can use Dreamhost as a place to grow until you’re ready to manage your own OpenStack.
DreamObjects is Dreamhost’s secure cloud storage hosting storage service, which can be use as a web development environment to augment or replace AWS E3 services. DreamObjects can also be used for backup storage.
While cloud services and storage can seem over-whelming for new users, Dreamhosts provides the ideal place to start to experiment, explore, and grow your cloud services at a very cost-effective rate.
The best web design software makes it simple and easy to build the website you need, either by offering a coding platform, or a drag-and-drop interface.
The best web design software
It used to be the case that the only option was to code a website directing, using HTML & CSS and even JavaScript. However, these days drag-and-drop editors have become much more commonplace, making it a breeze for anyone to customize or even build their own website.
Whichever option you prefer, all of them make it easier to build in the elements you require on your website, and can work with additional tools such as form builders, image hosting, and even content delivery networks.
In this guide we have focused on the best web design tools currently available. When weighing up which to include, we have focused on ease of use, supported web languages, cost, and how easy the tools make it to upload the finished project once you are done.
1. Wix
The best web design software for beginners
Reasons to buy
+Very easy to use+No coding required+Huge range of powerful features+Yet still highly user-friendly
Wix is more of a website builder than a coding platform, but it is one of the most popular online website creators, offering a range of plans and products. The free version has Wix branding, limited storage space (500MB) and bandwidth, but move up to the most popular plan (unlimited) and there’s no Wix ads.
An excellent collection of 500 plus templates gets the design process off to a quick start. The drag-and-drop editor gives you all kinds of tools and features to explore – an image editor, video backgrounds, animations, social buttons, an integrated site blog – and just about everything can be tweaked, tuned and restyled. Furthermore, as of recently, Wix introduced Wix Turbo, which increases the speed and performance of websites substantially.
All the core editing functions are really smartly designed, and operate more like a native app than your average website builder. Wix does have some weaknesses, with tech support seeming a little sluggish and limited in some respects. But there’s no denying that the superb editor and range of top-notch templates make it easy for web building novices to create something impressive.
2. Adobe Dreamweaver
The best web design software for professionals
Reasons to buy
+Customize your design+Build a responsive design+HTML5 support
Reasons to avoid
–Not cheap
Adobe Dreamweaver is a long-established app that allows you to code your website design directly, without having to know too much about programming. The software works through a mix of visual editing and HTML editing, which means it shouldn’t have too steep a learning curve for most users.
Additionally, while coding your own website design requires you to put in more effort than simply using an existing ready made template, at least you have the chance to ensure you get the look you actually want, rather than trying to work around someone else’s design specifications.
A particularly good feature of Dreamweaver is that it allows you to produce a responsive design, which means your website can be optimized to display on desktops as well as mobile devices, without limiting the user experience.
However, if you are a more advanced user you may be pleased to note that Dreamweaver provides multi-monitor support for Windows. It also supports the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) to work with HTML5 elements and CSS grids. Additionally, there’s also support for Git to allow you to edit source code directly from within Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver is available as part of Adobe’s mid-range packaged app subscription service, Creative Cloud, which also includes Photoshop.
3. WordPress
The best custom option for beginners
Reasons to buy
+Easy to install and use+Many available features+Pre-built website templates
Reasons to avoid
–Watch out for spam
WordPress is an alternative way to set up and design your website, being rather different to the other offerings we’ve highlighted here because it’s actually a content management system (CMS). The power here is that it is a simple matter to set up a website in minutes. Indeed, many web hosting packages include a one-click install of WordPress from their Control Panel, but even without that, WordPress is relatively easy to install.
Once installed, the backend for administration and management is very user-friendly. You can use the existing WordPress design templates for your website, but more likely you will want to download and install an existing free or premium WordPress template – all of which can be done with just a few clicks.
Even if you would prefer to work with your own design, you can often do so using drag-and-drop functions, usually from a downloaded design with an in-built framework. This can allow you to create a professional-looking website without having to learn programming or coding at all.
Better still, there are so many free add-ons available to download and install, often requiring nothing more than a few clicks. This makes the whole process of customizing your website very simple, and it does not require any professional skills.
Overall, WordPress is a very easy CMS to use, and can provide a very quick way to get any form of website online fast. The huge variety of template designs and additional community supported features mean that getting something which is near the mark of what you want isn’t hard at all. Just ensure that in the settings you select to turn off comments so as to avoid spam.
4. Weebly
The DIY e-commerce website
Reasons to buy
+Professional look+Mobile-friendly+Easy to personalize
Weebly is another online CMS, this time targeted at people with little or no coding experience, by providing easy to use drag and drop tools for creating a website. Weebly also provides the ability for users to create online stores using existing templates to work with their simply website-building framework.
The number of themes available for Weebly is somewhat limited, but the designs are clean and professional-looking, plus there are options to personalize accordingly. Additionally, the themes are responsive, which means they are optimized to work with mobile devices, plus they have in built SEO, analytics, and even a feature for posting ads directly to Facebook.
There’s a free tier available for basic use, and allows you to get used to the service, with paid plans allowing you to connect a custom domain. However, to use your own domain and get rid of ads, you’ll need the Professional plan.
5. Webflow
Cloud-based offering that needs no coding knowledge
Reasons to buy
+Drag and drop GUI+Truly cross-platform
Reasons to avoid
–Interface takes time to master
Webflow is a cloud-based service which has been created specifically to allow people with no coding knowledge to get started with web design.
Aside from being truly cross-platform, as it’s web-based, Webflow emphasizes the concept of ‘smart codelessness’. In the first instance this means a crisp drag and drop interface allowing you to drop elements such as text and images seamlessly onto a page using one of the freely available templates.
Unlike many WYSIWYG editors, the code produced is very clean and well-written even if you choose the ‘I have no coding experience’ option during setup. Webflow’s automation tool will create the necessary HTML/CSS code for you. You can make granular changes to individual elements using the panels on the right.
Webflow offers a free demonstration of its features via the website, and you can also subscribe for a free Starter package which allows you to create up to two projects.
6. Bluefish
Lightweight and easy to use web coding platform
Reasons to buy
+Lightweight and quick+Use advanced code via wizards
Reasons to avoid
–No visual interface
Bluefish is among the smallest web design tools available today. The tiny installer takes only a few moments to setup. While the interface is text-only, it’s clearly designed with novices in mind as it employs clear-cut toolbars, user customizable menus and syntax highlighting.
While the main focus is on HTML, Bluefish supports a huge range of other languages including PHP, Java, JavaScript, SQL, XML and CSS. Unlike visual WYSIWYG web design tools, the text interface makes for much cleaner code.
Bluefish has an excellent search function, allowing you to find text across multiple projects. The tool also has no trouble juggling hundreds of documents at the same time. Although Bluefish supports working with remote files, the varied and useful dialogs and wizards don’t currently support direct upload of web pages via FTP.
Despite the best efforts of the developers, Bluefish may take some time to get used to. The tool is available free of charge, however, so you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.
7. Visual Studio Code
A text editor from Microsoft
Reasons to buy
+Customizable+Loads of integrations+Source control tools
Visual Studio Code (or VScode) has become popular among developers – the ones who aren’t put off by the fact that it’s a Microsoft product, anyway. It offers a variety of packages and free extensions that can be downloaded from its marketplace to add additional features – and the code editor itself can be customized.
While a lot of people may be intimated by the idea of coding if they have no programming experience, at some point in the web design process it can be important to be able to edit code directly. This is particularly helpful if you want to customize code for existing software add-ons in order to get the features you want for your website. Visual Studio Code can help make the process less painful by providing a dedicated platform for coding.
Visual Studio Code sports its own terminal and debugger, supports linting, and has integration with all manner of source control tools. It especially offers good support for Javascript and Python, making it potentially useful not just for coding the frontend of a website but also potentially some backend functions as well.
If you’re involved in web design, the chances are you’ll also need some graphic design skills and assets. Here we’ll look at a couple of other resources and assets you’ll properly need to help with your website design process:
1. Graphics program
You don’t need anything too expensive or fancy unless you’re chasing a career in graphic design or illustration. However, you’ll probably find yourself wanting to create simple logos, headings, text features, as well as manipulate photos, all as part of your website design.
There are a lot of different packages out there, from GIMP which is a completely free software platform, to older software such as Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro which remains a competent program that can be bought on the cheap at Amazon.
Alternatively, check out these other features for the latest in best, and sometimes free, software you might want to use:
2. Stock photos
On top of creating your own graphics, there’s also a good chance you’ll want to use stock photos to really give your website a professional look.
Stock photos are available on almost any subject matter, and on top of that there are also an increasing number of stock video websites, in case you want to add video media.
Even better is that there are a number of free stock image and video websites, but be advised that these tend to be much more limited than paid-for stock image sites.
Here you can check out some of our features on these, to help you choose the best ones:
You might also want to look at our many web hosting guides: