I keep a spreadsheet. Column A: host. Column B: promised bonus. Column C: actual delivery. Column D: estimated value. Column E: whether I ever used it.
Current count: 23 hosts, 17 bonuses, 3 used, 1 still in original packaging (a "free" Bluetooth tracker from some reseller that went bust before I opened it).
I confess I had to search this. It appears to be remote desktop software of Russian origin, which explains much. The green stress ball deforms slowly, but at least it does not phone home to Moscow.
Following.
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Free SSL certificate from a host that issued it themselves with a 512-bit RSA key and 90-day expiry. Browser rejected it immediately. Their support ticket response: "Works on our end." Screenshot showed Internet Explorer 9. This was in 2023.
Had a "free backup storage" bonus that was literally an FTP drop on the same physical machine. When the machine died, the backups died with it. Learned my lesson. Now I pay for Backblaze B2 and sleep soundly.
This is false. They give you anxiety. That is a bonus. In Valencia we have a word for this.
You follow but you do not contribute. This is not Twitter.
Same here on the SSL thing. Different host, same 512-bit key. I think there was a tutorial going around at some point. Like a disease vector.
The VM was airgapped for the test. I am not a complete amateur. The lag I survive is my own.
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Twenty years and the weirdest was a "free domain privacy" that replaced my WHOIS info with the host's own address and phone. When a legal notice arrived, they forwarded it to me with a $25 "administrative processing fee." The privacy was free. The un-privacy was not.
