Free Virtuals Servers has Rebranded to NetNerd

You may have seen on our social media channels and emails that in November, we rebranded our company Free Virtual Serves to a new name, logo and website – NetNerd.

Many of you may be wondering why we decided to rebrand and today we’re going to discuss these and answer some of the frequently asked questions we’ve had since the rebrand.

1. Limitations with our name

Free Virtual Servers as a name worked as we could quickly and easily describe what we did. However, it’s not very memorable!

Also, although we offered the free hosting package we offered paid packages once you surpassed the free 100MB of webspace.

We felt that the name, Free Virtual Servers, didn’t accurately describe all the other great things that we as a company were doing any longer.

This is one of the big reasons why we decided to rebrand to NetNerd, so we could shout loader about our low cost, high-quality paid web hosting services and keep them separate to Free Virtual Servers under a new, memorable company name.

2. We’ve moved onto Cloud Web Hosting

We’ve also made the move from shared hosting to cloud web hosting. Cloud-based web hosting means that your website information and data is stored virtually, in cloud-based servers.

Cloud-based servers are compiled of lots of different servers, meaning they are lightning-fast and much more reliable. If one ever goes down, it is quickly moved over to another of the servers – meaning no website downtime!

We also want to branch out our services into the corporate market for businesses.

3. Why “NetNerd”?

We’re all nerds about something – and we’re nerds about the net!

We felt the new name is a fun way to draw on the stereotypes surrounding web hosting and the net whilst reflecting the friendly, approachable company that we are.

From the smallest blog to the largest e-commerce website, we want to make web hosting cheap, fast and reliable for everyone.

4. I’m a Free Virtual Servers customer, who will my invoices be from?

All invoices will now come from Easy Internet Solutions T/A NetNerd automatically. Please don’t be alarmed by this.

Both NetNerd and Free Virtual Servers are Easy Internet Solutions brands so they will always be billed by Easy Internet Solutions.

If you have any questions about the rebrand or the service, as always our friendly UK-based customer service team would be very pleased to hear from you.

We’re offering the same great service, just under a different name.

Visit NetNerd today for all your web hosting and business needs.

Are .eu domain names going to be revoked?

UK residents and organisations who hold .eu domain names beware – the European Commission announced that .eu domain names may no longer be available in the UK post-Brexit (subject to any transitional arrangements). Up to 300,000 domains may potentially be affected.

Legally, only EU organisations and residents are eligible to register .eu domain names. All domain names that are held by parties that do not meet this criteria can be revoked.

That, according to the European Commission, makes all of the UK organisations and residents ineligible after brexit.

Their notice has been met with a lot of criticism. This could be a reason for the EU to reconsider its current strict stance. There is still a chance that the EU and UK may agree on a different arrangement for .eu domains, however the latest draft of the withdrawal agreement says nothing about it. If no arrangement is made, then the European Commission announcement will come into effect on 30th March 2019.

GDPR: Limiting WHOIS Can Make Pirates Harder to Find

The General Data Protection Regulation is coming into effect next month and it will change the current system for protecting the personal data of EU citizens. Following that, the WHOIS database will be limited – which concerns anti-piracy groups.

The main goal of GDPR is to protect EU citizens from online abuse and breaches of privacy. It applies to all companies processing their EU subjects data, no matter where the company is located.
There are severe penalties for non-compliance – from 4% of annual global turnover to 20 million euros; whichever is greater. That makes it a serious matter.

It will greatly affect domain name registries and registrars who publish the personal details of domain owners in the WHOIS database, which is public – with a full entry listing an organisation’s name, address, telephone number and email addresses.
The issue that arises here is that registries and registrars are obliged to publish data in the WHOIS database by ICANN (global domain name authority).

ICANN has been trying to resolve the clash – but since they only determined it would affect them in October 2017 – they have been rushing to find a solution since then. They have proposed a model of GDPR compliance which makes registrars continue collecting WHOIS data in full, but not publishing it to the public.
This raises a concern – it will have a serious effect on the ability to protect intellectual property rights from “cybercriminals”.

Groups like Copyright Alliance, MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and dozen of others – sent a letter to the Vice President of the European Commission warning that restricting their access to WHOIS will affect their ability to protect their rights.

The EFF, on the other hand, says that being able to contact a domain owner wouldn’t necessarily require an email address to be made public: “There are other cases in which it makes sense to allow members of the public to contact the owner of a domain, without having to obtain a court order, but this could be achieved very simply if ICANN were simply to provide something like a CAPTCHA-protected contact form, which would deliver [an] email to the appropriate contact point with no need to reveal the registrant’s actual email address”.

What do you think about the GDPR and WHOIS confusion? Is it going to help us retain our privacy, or help grow cybercrime? Let us know in the comments below.

Safer Internet Day: 7 Tips for Online Security

Last year saw a huge surge in the amount of cyber security attacks. High profile data breaches such as the ones suffered by Target and Neiman Marcus’ Computer Systems saw their systems compromised and their business reputation suffered as a result.

Security breaches can be very costly and devastating, so should you be worried about the security of your websites and online accounts? If you hold any kind of database or customer data, you need to take steps to ensure that your systems are secure.  

Easy Internet Solutions Sponsors Leicestershire Law Society’s Newly Qualified Event

We are proud to be sponsors of the Leicestershire Law Society’s Newly Qualified event which is taking place next week on Thursday 10th December 2015 at College Court in Leicester. The Leicestershire Law Society comprises 500 members who are solicitors practising in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The event, which will run from 5.30pm till 7.00pm, will comprise of networking and presentations and a short ceremony where all newly qualified solicitors will be announced.  During the event we will be showcasing Free Virtual Servers and the benefits/features this offers to legal companies.

At Easy Internet Solutions we are seeing more and more legal firms signing up to our services and are receiving additional enquiries, especially for our free hosting services offered through Free Virtual Servers.

We have strong roots in the Leicestershire local community and are proud to sponsor events such as these, having previously sponsored the Leicestershire Women In Business Awards,  the National Diversity Awards and the Go Ahead Youth Star Awards.  

If you would like us to consider sponsoring your event or community group in 2016, please give us a call on 0333 222 4080 or visit our contact us page, we would love to hear from you.

The Evolution of Web Hosting

Today, you can publish a website for less than the cost of a cup of coffee

It all began when the world wide web (www) was first introduced to the world back in 1991. Back then, you needed to own and manage your own computer server to host a website. This would have literally cost you thousands of pounds at that time.