I've recently been trying to help a friend in a bit of a difficult position with their web host provider.

The current host provider has given some notice to the fact that PHP4 support will be disabled at the end of the year and after much time and struggle, they nor I have been able to bring the site up from PHP4 to PHP5.2+ despite being the original developer.

They are a bit of an old timer (70+), and haven't kept up with their site maintenance as they should have - still operating on PHP4 - now long out of support.

The sites are all for non-profit organizations so there's no real cash flow to pay for an up front bill from a developer to bring things into compliance and managing their own private server is likely too steep of a learning curve for this to be a realistic option.

He's now faced with a couple of options.. Close the sites down and deliver the sad news to the non-profits that he provides services to, or to find a new host provider that does offer PHP4. (bearing in mind that this is might only be a temporary solution)

So far in my searches, I haven't managed to find a NZ based web hosting provider, but in reality the geo-location of the host is a preference not a need.

Wanting to know if anyone here has had a similar experience or if someone can recommend a PHP4 host provider?