Free Hosting for Jokers by Jokers!?

I have read on a pinned topic in this forum that people offering free hosting is a joke and that the people running it are jokers..
i just wanted to say that I totally disagree, yes I have seen some free hosting fold within the first few months and that is probably their fault.
when i began working on my personal website i looked everywhere for a free hosting only because Im a beginner and i didnt want to pay for something that I didnt fully understand. after searching through thousands of offers I came accross one and I havent left or have anything bad to say about them...
the person that runs this hosting asks for no banners necessary to be added nor does he constantly spam you asking you to click on the google ads..
I think he's just giving people like myself a fair go and the opportunity to have our own little website, because thats probably where he got started.

now just to compare what Im getting for free to a paid hosting that i have seen on the Australian Market..

i get 1gb+ webspace and 10gb bandwidth
no ads,
myql and php support,
email
subdomains
Cpanel 8
webalizer
etc etc.. this is all for free...

Paid hosting costs for all that i have listed = AUD$1100+ believe it or not.. so when it said that free hosting is for jokers, what does it make you when you pay $1100 for a similar service!? when you can get it for free..
now im sure that this paid hosting company is fantastic and they provide excellent service but I would rather laugh with a joker and get this premium service for free than pay that amount of money.

you all probably have had a bad experience with free hosting including myself, but you got to start somewhere and these people that are providing free hosting are there to help you get on your way to whatever it is you want to do on the web

I agree man :thumbsup:

what host is that free one, it looks pretty cool! if you cant put it here (advertising means) PM me.

hey hey...I want it too!

i sent u both a PM...

Please post the URL publicly or not at all, not through private messages.

i wasnt actually advertising, i was merely expressing my opinion in response to the pinned topic in this forum and used the free hosting that i have been receiving as an example.

please note : im not taking any private messages in regards to this hosting due to the forum rules. i will ask the owner of the hosting for his permission to post the url publicly and i will do so if he agrees.

Usually there's a catch. This person must have to receive something in return or compensate some how for all that space. I'm not sure I would completely trust it.

Why are we so scathing of free webspace?

What about the free server we all use called Apache? The numerous free code editing apps? Free FTP clients, virus checkers, browsers, operating systems, mp3 players, mySQL server, email, code snippets, help sites, forums, search engines and the rest?

Free resources are everywhere and GNU licencing is taking over, yet it is constantly said on this forum that free hosting is BAD. OK, some free hosting is bad, as are some free apps, web sites, etc. but it seems a bit naive to keep on repeating the same old thing time and time again.

Running a web server isn't that difficult anymore so it's likely that free hosts will become more common. If you think about it, is it really cheaper to write an application that takes many hours of coding orto buy a 200GB hard-drive and host a few sites on it?

People will decide on what to use based on their needs and wants. This blanket statement of all free hosting is bad is getting very old, very fast!

mossoi>> I kind of see your point there, but let me take for example my friend here in CA that decided to be "cheap" and hook up an old computer to his internet for his server.

What happened? He ended up paying 5x more in electricity than it would have cost him in hosting. Also the server was unstable, slow upload, he had to deal with it, and it slowed down his internet connection.


I'll never deal with free hosting ever again. If I pay for hosting, I don't have to worry about it and I can blame somebody if it goes down/has problems. I don't have to update security holes, servers and I can be assured I'll never have to get it back up if it crashes. It costs me approxomately 1/100th the amount to host 3 websites than it costs me in gas driving only 3 months a year moderately (no long trips, just city driving).

It's just not worth it. Take it what you will.

Like I say it's a personal decision. I like the server admin side of things so I have a web server. It gives me more freedom to try different techniques. The server is under capacity by a long way so I can easily let a few other people use the web space for whatever testing they want. I wouldn't advertise it as a great platform for business sites but for some sites it would be just fine.

I'm not saying that free hosting is the way forward but it seems a bit over the top for these "official decree from on high" type posts that keep popping up stating that it is all bad.

Free Hosting

My website is hosted for free by BT through the internet webspace that I obtained when I signed up for BTOpenworld email. I find their servers are fast and the upload takes a matter of seconds. This free webspace has no banner ads, and they even allow you to use forms via their built in form processor.

Freewebs (www.freewebs.com) also offer free hosting, with no banner advertisements, no requirement to advertise them anything at all on your website. You have access to a small selection of preinstalled scripts, but their servers are fast and my site hosting on freewebs has never been down when I have tried to access it.

Free hosting does not give out a very professional image, people might say, but if you just want a small personal site, I say get free hosting, because if your site isn't going to be visited by many people, then there is no need to have a short and catchy .com domain. .com domain addresses can be registered for very little, and .co.uk can be registered even cheaper, but if you don't want to have to spend this money on hosting and a domain name, or you, like me cannot realistically afford hosting being 15 years old, then free hosting is the starters package to getting a site up and on the web.

well, portland.co.uk offers 15mb, 100mb/month bandwith and you can buy from them, use a free one like you.port5.com or use a domain you bought from someone else, and they offer free mysql databases. I have a domain named ironation.com and I have a free database. The only thing I don't have is free PHP hosting. If anybody has an idea maybe I can turn it into a very neat forum

I thought I heard mention somewhere that Freewebs only allows a limited number of non-HTML files, aka images, videos, sounds, etc. This was awhile back mind you but I know I do recall people being displeased (as displeased as one can get with a bannerless, pop-up free service) with it.

I think my subject heading is a little misleading and people think that Im against free hosting, which I assure you I am not. Its good to read different point of views on this topic.

It's clear from your post that you are for free hosting. It's just that other posts regularly pop up on this forum to condemn free hosting so I thought I'd use the opportunity to state my point of view.

Lol, I bet it would be the modle of reliability!

downtime is downtime no matter how you look at it....
so thumb your nose at it, thats your point of view.

Well I checked out Freewebs and if you read the Terms Of Service, it clearly states about a "FreeBar Code" - a strip at the bottom that reads "This site hosted by FreeWebs" that you must have on your page so clearly there are ads. Maybe it wasn't like this when you signed up, but they require it now.

http://members.freewebs.com/termsOfUse.jsp

Again, it seems free hosting without catches is practically non-existant.