Choosing a Free Web Host
8 Oct
Haven’t we all had bad experiences with free web hosts? If you didn’t have a free web host and you are planning to get one then you could consider yourself lucky. I’ve had a lot of experience with free web hosts and I can help you choose one.
- Space
What are you planning to host? A site, a blog or a forum? This will help you determine how much space you will need. I would suggest having a minimum of 250 mb for a simple site or a small blog and at least 1 gb for a small forum.
- Bandwidth
What kind of traffic are you expecting? 1o, 50, 500 or 2000 visitors per month? You need to have an approximate idea of many visitors you will have per month, so that you know how much bandwidth you will need every month. You should have at least 5 gb of bandwidth if you are expecting a small amount of visitors. The more the visitors the more bandwidth you will need and it’s always good to have a little extra bandwidth than needed.
- Adverts
See if tfhey will put any kind of forced advertisements or pop-ups on your site. You do not want to go with a web host that puts any sort of advertisements. 60% of web hosts will put ads or pop-ups on your site and that is how they make money.
- Databases
You will need MySQL databases if you are planning to have a blog or a forum. If you are planning to have more than 1 blog or forum then you will need more than 1 database. Also check if they have a database size limit. You will not need a database if you are planning to host a simple HTML site.
- Domains & Subdomains
Check if the will allow you to use your domain with them or if you don’t have a domain and don’t plan on buying one then see if they provide a subdomain like you.freehost.com. If you plan on hosting multiple sites then check how many domains or subdomains they allow.
- PHP Functions
Do you have a contact form on your site or planning to have a forum? Then you will need PHP Sendmail enabled or else they won’t work. Blogs may also need it. It is always good to have PHP Sendmail Enabled. Most web hosts don’t have this enabled.
- Email Accounts
If you are planning to have an email address like you@domain.com then you have to check if they allow email accounts or not. About 50% of web hosts provide email accounts. And also think about how many accounts you would need and how many they provide.
- File Extensions
Are you planning to host files and let people people download them? Then you should check if they allow .zip or .rar or the type of extension your files have. If you plan on having a .htaccess then you should also check if they allow that and most free web hosts don’t allow it.
Am pretty sure this will help you choose a free web host and will also save you a lot of time. And also keep in mind that some free web hosts lie! Like I signed-up with free web host and later they were asking a certain amount to get stuff activated and to get the ads removed. It’s kind of like fishing.
Nice. When looking for a free webhost, I take into consideration a lot of this stuff that you mentioned.
For example, I knew that my site was going to be small so I didn’t need all those GB’s of drive space that some free hosts offer, and I only needed a decent amount of bandwidth. I don’t mind adverts too much as long as they’re small and the user has the choice of where to place them. But if a host says they’re ad-free then they better be ad-free. I dislike hidden catches.
Databases and PHP functionality is like a must for any webhost. In fact, I’d be surprised if a webhost actually flourishes without having database and PHP functionality. On a side note, however, now that I’m taking ASP.NET classes, I find it interesting how hard it is to find decent FREE webhosts that support the ASP.NET language. Maybe because it’s proprietary, I dunno.
Well maybe you can help ? im actually hosted on a freehost , and i wanted a wordpress blog . I don’t know about bandwitch..but i want a space between 250MO and maybe more…but nothing too big or my blog will feel cold
The host im actually using are always having server problem . I don’t wanna have ads , and if there are ads i would like to have a choice to where they go .
The host im using have the best ticket-helper but in the long run it get annoying when you always get the same polite answer .
I don’t wanna either have to post 50 quality post on a forum . I don’t wanna have to become a pro in fixing myself my blog . I want the help when i needed , i won’t abuse the help , but knowing there is somebody there ready to land a hand make you want not to screw up .
So any suggestion for a freehost ?!?
Yeah sure I can try to help you out. I would say 250 mb is more than enough for a WordPress blog. I would suggest Whooked Free Hosting because it is perfect for you. We don’t need forum posting, don’t put any sort of ads/pop-ups and has a great support. But, to use that service you need to be a member of Whooked. So just register at Whooked and start using your free hosting account.
Let me know if you need more help.
[quote] *Databases
You will need MySQL databases if you are planning to have a blog or a forum. If you are planning to have more than 1 blog or forum then you will need more than 1 database. Also check if they have a database size limit. You will not need a database if you are planning to host a simple HTML site.[/quote]
You can put more than one blog or forum on a database by using different databse prefixes if your script supports this or if you made the script then you can change the prefixes.
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