The Owl's Nest - Accessibility

[gsnde]

Hi,

about half a year ago I moved The Owl's Nest to a new US based provider, because web performance and reliability was no longer unacceptable. The new provider offered a very good performance, and was extremly helpful and supportive to setup my new environment. I was very much impressed and satisfied with the new solution and support.

Only after some time I noticed that there was a significant drop of visitors from a whole bunch of countries (Brazil, China, Middle East to name a few). I asked and learned that for several countries - which one not being disclosed - IP ranges are blocked per default. Obviously the visitor sees a notification and can request access via the web provider. This is surely no practical solution for people with dynamic IP addresses, and it is in general too much to ask for if you want to visit a web site for entertainment.

The argumentation for this blocking is that from the countries affected most traffic is malicious (in the sense of hacking, information stealing etc.). Also I was told that this country specific blocking is common practise for many US based providers. I have never encountered anything worse on my web site than two people trying to extract the content of my web with automatic loads, and both IPs I banned for good. So I can't subscribe to this point of view.

My current provider offers another web business model without this blocking, but I can't afford it, the one I have choosen is expensive enough.

The reason I am telling this is that I am thinking about changing back to another - European based - provider, which is a major pain because my current one is absolutely top grade in all other regards.

I would like to know if you have encountered any issues reaching The Owl's Nest, or have heard about such issues here or in other communities.

Thanks for your feedback.

[Christopher Barbas]

Hi Martin


Europe/Greece it is, no problems at all, I don't remember even one time that I couldn't connect to your website since years!

[Victory103]

Martin,
I have had issues within the last few months since I am logging on from Afghanistan, but not sure where our overpriced ISP is based.

[TheFoufure]

No problem from Belgium. This website is fantastic, fast and no problem with it.

After a Hard Disk crash three weeks ago, I'm using The Owl's Nest military reference daily to retreive all my AI Traffic on FS2004.

Thanks a lot for your great site.

[mins]

I have had issues within the last few months since I am logging on from KOREA..
I do not know what the problem is.
I hope to be resolved as soon as possible.

[swp53]

Hi Martin,
Never had a problem with accessing your site from the UK.
Regards
Steve

[gsnde]

Belgium, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, UK = okay
Afghanistan, Korea = nok

Not yet much data, but it confirms what I was expecting. Let's see if there is more feedback.

[gsnde]

Just to put it here that I don't loos track of the feedback.

hello Martin Sir, i now live in Romania- up to about 9 months or so, had no trouble what so ever in finding the owlsnest, either direct via the browser in use or via the MAIW link. Will give the address as given a try with the address ending, / maiw.php which i have not been using. Just maybe if the provider is in the USA, Romania may be being blocked out, up to Eu integration, many usa sites would not entertain ro and there are a few who are still behind the times. Many thanks.

[gsnde]

I have restarted provider evaluation. I already decided that I will select a Swiss based hoster. This guarantees everybody will be able to access the The Owl's Nest again. Stay tuned....

[kenlivia]

Afternoon Martin Sir,
I see from the ( owlsnest moved ) post that a successful move has been completed- congrats all round - however, this afternoon i tried to get into the site using http://WWW.OWLSNEST.EU / MAIW.PHP. All the listings came up but when selecting anything from the site listings, after about 30 seconds i receive a screen which says SERVER NOT FOUND ? Browsers seem ok as no probs getting into maiw-acg ukmil etc. Sorry, Ken in very sunny Ro.

[gsnde]

No Ken, the site has moved about half a year ago. I guess that this is when your trouble started. Can you please make and post some screen shots so that I better understand the issue. I am surprised that you can access the web but only partly as it seems.

[Eagleye]

Help please...
The Owl's Nest site doesn't open !!
I'm not able to log into the site !!
http://www.owlsnest.eu/maiw.php

*EDIT*
It sounds like you may be having a problem like some others around the world. Martin is taking details of problems so I moved your post to this thread.

[gsnde]

From which country do you try to access The Owl's Nest, Eagleye?

[SeanG]

Just some intel for you Martin; I'm travelling in Asia for the next couple of weeks... so far Indonesia is fine for connecting.... Next up is Thailand, then back to Singapore... I'll let you know how it works from each.

SeanG

[masteradept]

Hi,

New member here, although I've been lurking around for many years. Just to let you know, the site's inaccessible from Singapore at the moment.

[gsnde]

Very much appreciated, guys!!

I am on a two week leave, but I am down to two providers in my selection. Switzerland based provider is a given. No banned countries was a precondition this time.

The change will happen in about a months time.

[kenlivia]

Martin Sir,
dont know why but i cannot get this png screen shot pic from the pc documents onto the forum page ? its saved but wont transfer. so word for word- have a box onscreen-22x10cms bottom right is the address;- www.owlsnest.eu/maiw.php from the top-
The server at owlsnest.eu cant be found because the DNS look up failed.DNS is a website service which translates a websites name to its internet address. This error is often caused by having no internet connection
or a misconfigured network. It can also be caused by a unresponsive DNS server OR Firewall preventing Google Chrome from accessing the network
( access a cached copy of http:\ owlsnest.eu/maiw.php ) Search on Google - owls nest.eu maiw- error code. ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED. ( END QUOTE )
hope this helps.

[gsnde]

Hi Ken,

Yes, it helps, thank you. It really seems that you are blocked.
Next month I change my provider and then it will work for you again.

[SeanG]

I know it's academic given that you're moving servers, but the current one is blocked here in Thailand

SeanG

[gsnde]

While I - purely academically, but I do not approve it! - can see the point in the argumentation why to block countries pro-actively, the selection of Romania, Thailand etc. shows a very strange view on this world.

I am glad to be moving.