Free web hosting? [Archive]

Jucato

March 22nd, 2006, 02:07 PM

dermotti

March 22nd, 2006, 02:10 PM

If you have a boadband conection you could setup your own server prety easy :-) Then you have unlimited bandwidth :-P

WildTangent

March 22nd, 2006, 02:13 PM

I'm looking for a good and reliable free web hosting service. Any suggestions? Any particular favorite among the FLOSS circles?

Is Geocities still that good? Haven't used it in a while. But last time I used it, some people were saying that they get an "exceeded bandwidth" when viewing my pages. Can you really exceed your bandwidth when people just view the page and not download anything?
Yes, Geocities gives you rediculously little bandwidth. If you must use one of these free hosts, I'd recommend Freewebs (http://www.freewebs.com). Last time I used them, they were pretty good. You can use pre-existing templates that you can edit, or use Advanced mode and upload your own pages. I'd recommend storing images on another host such as Photobucket ("http://www.photobucket.com).

-Wild

dermotti

March 22nd, 2006, 02:16 PM

Or you could go to http://registerfly.com and register a domain name for like $7, and they give you free hosting for your domain! Not bad at all, and you get your own dot com.

Jucato

March 22nd, 2006, 02:24 PM

WildTangent: Thanks! I'll check out freewebs. And yes, I do have a PhotoBucket account. :D

dermotti: I would love to get my own dot.com. But as you can see in my little profile to the left, I'm not in the U.S., and the only way I could sign up for that is to use a credit card, which I do not have (and my mother would never lend me hers. she distrusts online transactions).

I do have broadband (256kbps or is it Kbps...). But that would mean I'd have to leave my PC open always for people to access my pages, right? (looks at electricity bill *gulp*)

Jucato

March 22nd, 2006, 04:32 PM

I signed up for the freeweb account. I was able to sign up using Konqueror. But now, every time I try to log in, it crashes Konqueror. But it works in Firefox. thanks for the suggestions!

s|k

March 22nd, 2006, 04:50 PM

www.googlepages.com is free and has no advertisement, also www.infogami.com is another free one, but both of these restrict the use of HTML. There's also www.50megs.com which craps ads all over the page.

Jucato

March 22nd, 2006, 05:53 PM

Too bad I missed out on registering for an account with googlepages. Well... I'll just have to wait then. :D

curuxz

March 22nd, 2006, 06:32 PM

Whats the site for?

nickle

March 22nd, 2006, 09:22 PM

If you have a boadband conection you could setup your own server prety easy :-) Then you have unlimited bandwidth :-P

Excuse me this might be rally dumb:confused:. If you set up your own web server, I gues that means you have to run your computer 24/7.... Iguess that must be expensive over time... or are there cheaper alternatives...

I am also curious, when you say broadband... how "broad" do you mean?

WildTangent

March 22nd, 2006, 10:07 PM

Excuse me this might be rally dumb:confused:. If you set up your own web server, I gues that means you have to run your computer 24/7.... Iguess that must be expensive over time... or are there cheaper alternatives...

I am also curious, when you say broadband... how "broad" do you mean?
Leaving a previous generation computer, like socket A AMD, or P3/early P4 on all the time barely consumes electricty. Just make sure you turn off the monitor. Not just let it sleep, physically press the power button to turn it off.

-Wild

Virogenesis

March 22nd, 2006, 10:08 PM

When he means broadband he means either a dsl or cable connection n basicaly not dial up and yes it would require you to have your comp on 24/7for most this isn't a problem as alot of users download through the night

for a dns name I use www.afraid.org free dns names and very well liked for their support the servers use freebsd ;)

flickr for my pictures and http://www.100webspace.com/ for just uploading and testing

Jucato

March 22nd, 2006, 11:34 PM

Whats the site for?
The site is for general purposes. For now, just a place to upload tutorials, guides, etc. that I will be making. nothing big really. I was also thinking of just putting it up in a blog, or something. But I'm not sure if you can have separate pages inside a blog.

Making my own server might be too much of a hassle. And I definitely can't leave my PC on, even 24/6 (My mom's gonna kill me). Thanks for the suggestions!

Rackerz

March 22nd, 2006, 11:43 PM

Well I run this free hosting company, take a look.

http://www.labtechhosting.com

We'd b glad to welcome you in ;).

BWF89

March 23rd, 2006, 12:28 AM

http://rapidshare.de/

majikstreet

March 23rd, 2006, 02:10 AM

http://rapidshare.de/
lol

it's hard to find a quality free web host these days.. it's actually better IMO if you find a *person* who hosts people.. better than a company :D

if you don't think you'll use much bandwidth or space.. I could host you if you want.. (ok - I'm not the best tech support guy, but I have cpanel to offer and maybe 500mb space? I have like 50 gigs bandwidth for all of my sites and I use like 2 gigs so bandwidth shouldn't be much of an issue but I'll probably limit you to like 10 gigs at first... pm me for more)

lucia_engel

March 23rd, 2006, 03:51 AM

Check out http://www.free-webhosts.com/.
You can sort by "space", "ads", "scripting", etc.

I'm using http://www.50webs.com/.
▪ 60 MB Free
▪ Unlimited Bandwidth
▪ Allows FTP upload or Web Based File Manager
▪ No Ads
▪ 1 POP3 account

I had a Freeweb account once, but I found it quite slow. You have to upload 1 file at a time and you can't use FTP (free account).

Labtech Hosting (http://www.labtechhosting.com/index.php?id=freehosting) sounds nice!

Jucato

March 23rd, 2006, 06:05 AM

@Rackerz: Does Labtech Hosting display adds on the free accounts (like geocities?) I don't mind some ads, but others might think that ads = spyware (not that I'm accusing/doubting you. But others might not be so trusting as me :D)

I guess I'll go for 50webs.com if I don't find my current freewebs.com account satisfactory. The fact that the free version has no adds and has unlimited bandwidth is enticing. I'm not gonna host big stuff anyway. Just a few tables/text/pages that I would not be able to post here directly. At least until I get a blog up and running.

Here's an example of what I planned to put up on those web pages:
http://www.freewebs.com/jucato/kcontrol.html

Of course that's just the first one. I have a few more in my mind.

And no, I can't afford one that is even as cheap as $1 a month. I have no work (*sigh*) and means of paying online (*sigh again*). So I guess I'm stuck with those free web services. Yeah, I know. I'm cheap. :(

EDIT: I forgot to add why I'm going for unlimited bandwidth if possible. I'm just preparing if ever that site/page becomes quite known (like aysiu's or the Ubuntu Documentation Storage). But I don't expect that will happen any time soon. I'm still preparing, just in case. :D

LinuxKid

March 23rd, 2006, 06:25 AM

I use 100webspace for my site because of the ftp (plus there is only 1 ad)
100 mb of space and 3 gb of bandwidth
(Note: for some reason if I try to go to my control panel at 100webspace.com, it doesn't always work, not like it really matters since I use ftp, but sometimes I need to go there to set up some stuff and it doesn't work, this may be only by me)

I also have one with freewebs, unfortunately it has no ftp (no ads)
40 mb of space and *unlimited bandwidth

*sponsored but no ads

Jucato

March 23rd, 2006, 06:32 AM

freewebs... sponsored with no ads? sounds interesting. does it really work? but I guess having not FTP means it's a no-no. That and I seem to be getting crashes in Konqueror when I log in to freewebs... Really weird...

oh well... Seems Labtech and 50Webs are the highest bidders. :D

Thanks for all your info. I'll probably post a summary on my first post to provide info to others who might be browsing through this thread. Again, thanks!!

Trel

March 23rd, 2006, 06:54 AM

LinuxKid

March 23rd, 2006, 06:57 AM

because of this thread I signed up with 50webs.com

looks good

thanks!

LinuxKid

March 23rd, 2006, 06:59 AM

I'm actually pleased to see this thread and the attitudes over here. :) It is rare you see any positive mention of free webhosting providers.

I run www.lifelesspeople.com among others and would be happy to host members of the ubuntuforums.
as you know the best things in life are free

that's why most linux distros are and why we like free software so much

Jucato

March 23rd, 2006, 07:16 AM

Before, I usually held in suspicion most free web hosting services, except for the the "established" ones like Geocities. This was because some of those free services (and some of those "free domain name services" like the .tk stuff) have annoying ads/pop-ups, some of which you're not actually sure are safe (at least on Windows :D). But that doesn't mean all free web hosting services are like that. It's just not so easy to find reliable and safe ones.

That's why I asked here, because I value the opinions and suggestions of a community I hold in high respect. :D That and I presume that no one is intentionally going to suggest anything that they know will cause harm to to others.

Well, back to the topic: Strange... freewebs seems to be working now on Konqueror. Guess I just needed to log out and back in to KDE. But still I have a thing going for 50webs because of the unlimited bandwidth, no ads, and FTP account.

Trel

March 23rd, 2006, 07:21 AM

All I can say to unlimited bandwidth is..

](*,)

All unlimited bandwidth does is provide you with unmetered bandwidth and quite a few restrictions on its use.

LinuxKid

March 23rd, 2006, 07:23 AM

as you know the best things in life are free

that's why most linux distros are and why we like free software so much
I have to say that 50webs.com is the best!

I actually like it much better than the other 2
60 mb and unlimited bandwidth

I'm thinking of keeping my site just on 50webs

thanks guys!

Komakino

March 23rd, 2006, 07:29 AM

www.sitesled.com

LinuxKid

March 23rd, 2006, 07:44 AM

looks good but maybe you can write a small review on it rather than just posting up a link

soon, I'm going to have thousands of free sites on the net, bwah hah hah :twisted:

Jucato

March 23rd, 2006, 07:59 AM

All I can say to unlimited bandwidth is..

](*,)

All unlimited bandwidth does is provide you with unmetered bandwidth and quite a few restrictions on its use.

Well, yes. But if you are expecting quite heavy traffic in the future (for example, lots of people viewing/downloading stuff from your site), it may be worth to compromise a little. Especially for the purposes I have in mind (an example a few posts back), I don't mind the restrictions. Thanks for the link, btw. I'll look into it later. :D

@Komakino: thanks for the link. Looks good, too. But the features/details about the service is not immediately visible. I had to search for this to get some info:

http://www.sitesled.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=392&sid=c1cbd7e5ba95432d33c489d954a96f23

So basically, 100 MB storage, 30GB bandwidth (1GB per day), and presumably one FTP account. Did I get it right? 1GB per day is almost as good as unlimited. :D

majikstreet

March 23rd, 2006, 09:49 PM

there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth... if you see a host with unlimited bandwidth, they are overselling and it IS NOT TRUE! you do NOT want a host that gives you unlimited space or bandwidth.. it's just to good to be true.

mips

March 23rd, 2006, 10:37 PM

I personally would not host anything on servers that reside in the USA due to their laws. They are the cheapest though ;)

Trel

March 23rd, 2006, 10:48 PM

In reality unlimited bandwidth doesn't exist because it is an error in terminology and flawed logic.

Bandwidth is the calculation in terms of data per second a line is transfering, can transfer, or something of that nature. For example 1 Megabyte per second would be an amount of bandwidth. Without the per second it is a data transfer quota.

Unlimited.. well this is going to depend on if you think of limits in terms of data transfered or unusual restrictions on use. I consider either to make this term invalid.

Definitely something to consider.

Rackerz

March 24th, 2006, 12:01 AM

@Rackerz: Does Labtech Hosting display adds on the free accounts (like geocities?) I don't mind some ads, but others might think that ads = spyware (not that I'm accusing/doubting you. But others might not be so trusting as me :D)

There is no ads, so no worries there. Take a look in our forum at some reviews from our exisiting users http://www.labtechhosting.com/forums2/forumdisplay.php?f=8

fatsamurai

March 24th, 2006, 02:07 AM

I would recommend sdf.lonestar.org, or it's EU equivalent sdf-eu.org.

Not only do you get free BANNERLESS webhosting - you get ssh access, a console bulletin board, even a gopher server should you wish to go retro!

If you want more space than the free acount offers (10MB) then you can upgrade the account for a very resonable amount. I have 300mb and paid about £15 for the year. Full details are on the website anyway.

Swiss

March 24th, 2006, 02:10 AM

There is no ads, so no worries there. Take a look in our forum at some reviews from our exisiting users http://www.labtechhosting.com/forums...isplay.php?f=8

I just signed up and am waiting for approval... It looks good!

Jucato

March 24th, 2006, 02:11 AM

So when they say "unlimited bandwidth" they're just pulling my leg? :(

Swiss

March 24th, 2006, 02:12 AM

Yep. :p :rolleyes:

Jucato

March 24th, 2006, 03:15 AM

Awww.... and I was really looking forward to signing up with 50webs.com. I'll check that out first, then if it doesn't go well, I'll go for that 30GB/month (1GB/day) service. :D

drummer

March 24th, 2006, 03:30 AM

This isn't free, but almost is... They offer amazing services for the price, just a once off fee and that's it. Huge bandwidth (3gb per day and up), extensive language options (PHP, Perl, Ruby). I'd reccommend it.

www.freepgs.com

YuHoo

March 24th, 2006, 03:40 AM

dermotti originally posted:
If you have a boadband conection you could setup your own server prety easy Then you have unlimited bandwidth

This has two issues.

The first is that if you have DSL you almost always get a free website. If you have a nice ISP you can get some very nice options that you can not get else where. I have even seen free DNS registration and hosting as long as you have your DSL account.

The second issue is to beware annoying your DSL provider. Some do not want you to run a dedicated server and if it is the EULA you can be sued (though they'll probably just penalize you and bump you up a payment level). So as a general rule you should always look into things, even trivial things. But so long as you're not hosting warez, porn, or crap, I wouldn't worry much if you can't find much documentation.