[Paul]

Originally posted by Virix


I disagree, if the host is this willing to just try something out on a production box, then I wouldn't trust my data with them...

What if they install something that causes wide spread data coruption, 'whoops, it was a customers request...'

You don't install everything a customer wants.. Thats why it shared hosting.. If you want certain software, get a dedicated box...

I don't want to continue on an irrelevant tangent, but I think it's understood that a hosting provider is not going to put untested modifications on their servers without doing proper research and testing.

A decent hosting company will certainly try to cater to their customer's needs as much as they can to a certain extent. There are competent services out there that will do this for you.

And with regard to data, any half-decent company will regularly backup your data.

If anyone is interested in finding such companies, try the hosting forum over at vBulletin.com.