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What's the weirdest 'free bonus' you've gotten with hosting?

Deals & Offers by wendy 23 replies 2.7K views
wendy

Member OP

#1

I did not expect much from a budget Windows Server host. The "free bonuses" are usually Linux-centric and useless to those of us running IIS workloads. What I received from KnownHost: a physical cryptocurrency hardware wallet. Not a code. Not a download. A USB device shipped from an address I could not verify, requiring firmware updates from a subdomain that no longer resolves. I did not install it. In my experience, the weirdest bonuses reveal more about the host's business model than their generosity. What have others received?

Have you tried restarting it?
SingaporeRep

Member

Benchmark Addict

8 #2 
Fio --name=disk-test --filename=/dev/sda --direct=1 --rw=randread --bs=4k --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=64 --runtime=60 --numjobs=4

Disk's fine, pipe's not.

Got "free" SEO tool from RackNerd actually white-label reseller account for dead service. Yabs showed tool itself hosted on competitor infrastructure lol

fio, iperf, geekbench. results or gtfo.
ReykjavikFilch

Member

CDN skeptic

#3
wendy said:
The weirdest bonuses reveal more about the host's business model

Methinks thou hast the right of it, for whence came mine own bounty from HostHatch but a stress ball of most curious hue, green as the mold upon ye olde server in my grandfather's cellar, and wherefore should a digital merchant traffic in such physical gewgaws save to occupy warehouse space that bankruptcy hath rendered surplus, which thought did occur to me as I squeezed the bauble and watched it deform most slowly, returning not to its proper shape for many minutes, much as their network speeds which promised gigabit yet delivered less than a tithe thereof whence tested at the witching hour.

manilanslate

Member

Lag Survivor

4 #4

Free game server panel license from a host that shall not be named. The panel was LiteManager, which I had never heard of. The license key was already blacklisted. I ran it in a VM for three hours and it tried to phone home to a domain that was parked at Sedo. Deleted the VM. Still run my game servers on Pterodactyl like a normal person.

SingaporeRep

Member

Benchmark Addict

#5
manilanslate said:
Yabs showed tool itself hosted on competitor infrastructure

Went back and checked. The SEO tool resolved to Hetzner FSN1 — https://www.hetzner.com. RackNerd's own DC list does not include Germany. This is not even subtle.

fio, iperf, geekbench. results or gtfo.
adam20

Member

Ex-Abuse Desk

#6

Not a bonus, but I once got a "free DDoS protection upgrade" that turned out to be a letter from their upstream threatening nullroute if I didn't pay for mitigation. The letter was addressed to the host, not me. They forwarded it as if it were a gift.

reported. resolved. repeat.
LO

Member

7 #7

OVH included a "free" .ovh domain with my Kimsufi. The catch: auto-renew at 3x the market rate unless you disable it in a panel that was down for maintenance for eleven days straight. I set a calendar reminder and still missed it.

olya

Member

Always Free

#8

Oracle Cloud gives you nothing and somehow that is still weirder than these stories. Six free tiers, zero bonuses, one eternal prayer that they do not terminate your account for "inactivity" while you are actively compiling.

licensing is a suggestion
fanboy

Member

#9
wendy said:
A USB device shipped from an address I could not verify

This is not weird, this is threat model. You plugged an unknown USB into a Windows Server? No. You did not. But someone reading this thread will.

wendy

Member OP

3 #10
fanboy said:
You plugged an unknown USB into a Windows Server?

I said I did not install it. It went in the e-waste bin at the office. The point is that KnownHost thought this was an acceptable customer acquisition cost. Their cheapest managed VPS is $3.50. The hardware wallet retails around $50. The economics do not parse unless it was bulk surplus from a failed venture.

Have you tried restarting it?

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