MacHighway used to be a decent small local-to-Colorado web host and domain registrar. That is, until they were bought out by
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Deluxe Corp a few years ago. After the buyout, is when things started to go downhill.
Privacy concerns are multi fold. After the buyout, Deluxe Corp automatically shared your private information with their “affiliates”. Your info is sold “For our affiliated companies to market to you” and “ For reputable third parties to market to you on their behalf“.
Additionally, Deluxe Corp added to MacHighway added the weebly site builder. On the surface it seems like a convenient way to build a website using drag and drop elements. It can be helpful for many people. What is not disclosed by Deluxe Corp is that weebly injects tracking code into your website. The website that you paid money to Deluxe Corp/MacHighway to host has non-removable tracking code. You, the website creator doesn’t even have access to the analytics from this tracking; only weebly does. If you are okay with a webhost tracking every visitor of yours, then just go to Weebly directly and save yourself some money.
The name Machighway was based on the idea that the company was “Mac friendly”. Any semblance of Mac-centrism is gone. The control panel for domain registration and web host is just as inconsistently non-intuitive as most other web hosts. Nothing especially user friendly for Mac users who think they are getting something simpler than traditional web hosting companies. Don’t let the folksy About page fool you.
And finally, billing. Autorenewal is strongly discouraged. 1. The price of domain auto renewal is higher than the price of manually renewing. You are charged extra for the benefit of them keeping your credit card on file. No other registrar that I am aware does this. 2. Your card will be charged a month before domain expires. This is not indicated on the reminder email, the Machighway invoice, or in the domain control panel. 3. They still have a “privacy protection” upsell, when ICAAN now does essentially the same thing automatically.
Take it from a customer of over a decade, MacHighway is nothing special. It filled a niche at one time a couple decades ago, but now it’s just Deluxe Corp, another webhost with overpriced domain registration.
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