OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

OK, I know this question's been asked around here a lot, but does anyone have a free web host that they would recommend? My new ISP seems to offer a paltry 5MB of space, compared to my old ISP's 100MB, and so I'm looking for somewhere else to host a personal (or maybe family) homepage.

Things I'm looking for, in order of importance:
- free (duh)
- FTP uploading
- plenty of space
- inobtrusive ads (or none if possible)
- script/database support (I've never used it but I'd like to learn)

Thanks!

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Put your own server up.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

I'd recommend freewebs. No ads http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

You know what, I'd completely forgotten about that option! It does require a dedicated, always-on box... but I've got an old one (we're talking pre-Pentium here) lying around that I could plop a cheap PCI network card and a minimal Linux install onto... of course I don't know whether my ISP would like my doing that... I don't expect much traffic, but you never know... Isn't it rather insecure to set up your own server, though, unless you REALLY know what you're doing?

I'll check them out... thanks!

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Na, it's safe for what you want to do. Just keep a good back up, and if you get hacked, restore it.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Backup? Me? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Seriously though, do you mean of just the web host machine or of all the machines in the house?

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Just the web machine, or just the web content.

Linux machines are relatively secure if you use a recent patch, generally speaking.

PvK

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Definetly consider your own. You would be surprised at how much "ISP" you can get out of some old computer that wont even play crappy games anymore. None of my family and friends need to worry about ISP limits anymore. I have a dozen domains, 100 emails, elists, forums, blogs, shops, small bit of newsgroups, small irc, and a 24/7 game server running a mmorpg MUD game that I wish would die but it seems to popular with its playerbase. All with a computer that my kids refused to use, on a DSL.

Gandalf Parker

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Hmm, I wonder how much it would cost to register my own domain...

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

anywhere from $5/year to something like $35/year. More if you are also looking for services but if you are considering your own server then most of that is mute. maybe just DNS and backup mail server. I dont know what the cheapest are but I like DomainDirect

http://www.Any1can.net/DomainDirect.html

I also like that they have a nice gui webpage thingy that lets you search for open domain names

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Wait, according to your site there, it's possible to host a website without a domain name? How would people get to it? Type in an IP address? But if I'm behind a router don't I only have a local IP address? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

All domain names do is redirect you to a certain IP address. So the IP issue will be have to be resolved either way.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Forward port 80 to your server, and typing in the WAN in a browser (from outsiede the LAN) will be directed to the server transparently. This is assuming that your ISP does not block port 80, of course. If that is the case, you will have to use a different port for your server.

You can uses a service like http://www.no-ip.com for dynamic DNS redirection to avoid registering a domain. It is how the SE4 tracker works: http://kazharii.no-ip.com:6969

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Neat! I'll have to get that network card, then... because that will really be the only expense involved!

And my new Internet service is through the cable company, so I shouldn't even need the dynamic DNS except to get a more interesting name for my site than my router's IP address, right?

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

A domain name makes your site "mobile" without losing any accumulated recgnition it might have built up.

And personally I think they are alot of fun. Consider that if you get something to put on the other side of the @ sign, then you are unlimited to what you can put before the @. And some combinations of the two can be alot of fun also. You could be just Ed@ if you snagged kolis.ca or kolis.biz or KolisWorld.com or KolisOnline.net and you could give personalized emails to your whole family. Not to mention guru@ or admin@ or TerranEmpire@

Its also fun to say "you can write me at kolis.ca" then make me@ actually work.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

How hard would this be to setup if you have no experience with webservers?

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

If you have an old copy of Win 98, you can run the Personal Web Server by just following the directions in the help file.

IIS 5 is a little harder
IIS 6 is harder still
Apache is not to bad if you can drive nix
FreeBSD is rough but really solid.

Here's a list of Web Server Clients web server clients

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Thanks. Now, all I need is an old, unused computer... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Look up a nearby used computer store in the yellowpages.
You can probably get yourself a P2 for pocket change. Overkill for a simple server, but cheap.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Cheap PC

There you go.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Thanks. Now, money...

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

OK I will try to use shorter phrases rather than a (complaints received)long pitch. Feel free to ask.

It takes FAR less computer to server something, than it does to create it. Whether its web pages, graphics, sound, even game files.

A server is mostly a network card, CPU, and memory. The rest can be the absolute total minimum that any shop will put in and it will probably do you well.

Administrating any server for any reason is 90% find the answer online and cut&paste the answer into a file. If you are an above average user, then you can move up to admin. If you are comfortable with directorys, files, editing, moving, permissions, etc of files on windows, then you can consider windows admin. If on linux then consider linux admin.

IMPORTANT: for the statements above, admin does NOT include installs and compiles. Thats a WHOLE different headache. But it falls ABOVE admin (as in, it can be put off as the NEXT step up for you). I have no shame whatsoever in paying someone to do the installs on systems that I admin for years after that.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Well, so much for using that old machine as a server... it has only ISA slots (no PCI), and I haven't been able to find any ISA network cards anywhere... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Go through the personal ads at the back of your local newspaper- You'll pick up an old 486 or P1 for peanuts.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Sparc servers that my old ISP managed 30,000 users on can be snagged off of Ebay nowadays for under $200. If I didnt already have a garage full of "in lieu of severance pay" from the dot-com crashes Id be tempted to bid on some.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

"Garage full of Sparc servers"

Turns green with envy and greed.

I have a porting of FreeBSD that will run on Sparc systems, that could be an adventure worth the time it took http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

heehee. That does read wrong. I think I have 3 or 4 sparcs, then a bunch of multiplexes and routers and mux's. All stuff that wants to have a T1 pipeline plugged into it.
If I wanted to invest in a T1 feed Id be all set. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

T-1’s Yuck.

Frames, ATM’s, relays, svc’s, pvc’s; its all so simple until the phone company screws it up to maximize billing. Every time it blows up, it’s from one lata to the next. And every time you turn around, there is a new lata that has to be crossed, for a fee of course. I think we have 46 T-1 circuits and a pair of T-3 at work now, and all in all they work well. Other than weather related problems, most of the outages are because the phone company changes the provisioning at one end and never gets the word out to the other end. Have to watch the actual through put too; they tend to try to sell 3mg on 1.5mg circuits.

I live out on the fringe of the DC urban area, just a little past where the endless city stops, so back in the day it was dialup at about 20k actual, or ISDN. So I got a 128k ISDN line pulled and it was not too bad. Then the beast from New York bought out the local phone company. The ISDN bill was an inch thick! ISDN is timed, so I had it set up to drop the connection if idle for more than 90 seconds. When it negotiates a new connection, there is an 8 step handshake and authentication process IIRC, well to make a long story short, they were billing me 11 minutes for an 8 second connection negotiation. They billed me 34 hours in one 24 hour period. I had the server set up to connect on demand and lots of stuff running off the scheduler. I almost died when I got that first bill from them! It went from about $60 to over a $1000. I could have had a T-1 for what they billed me! Then I put a dish in, and regretted it from day one. I needed good weather here and good weather in Atlanta too. Then the county made me buy a license, because the dish was over 4 feet in diameter. Then they made me mount it 14 feet off the ground, because it was a radiation hazard. The damn thing never was reliable, every time they had storms in Atlanta; (every damn summer day and night I think) it dropped off line. At first, it wouldn’t work if it was just heavy clouds here, but I had a guy rework the transmit horn and he solved that problem. He suggested that I never ever stand in front of it after that too. It’s still up there and can still track the satellite. Every now and again I find a transponder that I can use, but with the cable service I seldom need it.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Cool! Have you tried cooking sausages, marshmallows etc in front of it?

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

OW! OW! OW! you use terms I wanted to forget. I didnt want to know them in the first place. I was pretty good at avoiding it all. When they brought me in it was to convert them from a BBS to an ISP. All the way thru to their growth to national coverage and T3's/D1's I fought their efforts to "spread" me across to the networking side. "Im happy handling all these servers with every OS anyone has ever heard of and every toy you keep throwing on them but once it leaves the machine its NOT MINE!" Its pissed em off but they werent paying me enough to change my mind.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Say... just a wild idea out of the blue... it WOULD be a Bad Idea (tm) to run Apache on my main desktop PC and use it as a web host, wouldn't it? Or have I been misled?

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

It would be doable, but it is a better idea to have a dedicated PC for any "serious" hosting. You can find an 8 year old PC perfectly capable of functioning as a server for dirt cheap.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Well, I've got an 8 or so year old PC lying around... the only problem is it lacks a NIC, and the only NIC's that seem to be up for sale anymore are PCI, and this box only has ISA slots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I suppose I could go on ebay or amazon or something and grab an old ISA network card, but I'm a bit wary of that... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

OK... anyone wanna test this? I set up an Apache server on my desktop machine http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

http://24.209.241.34/ed

Should say "Hello world! It's Ed!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Works for me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I knew you could do it.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Even better - I just set up dynamic DNS:
http://kolis.dyndns.org/ed
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Timed out for me.

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

Sorry, my network connection sometimes freezes up and I have to reboot the computer... and sometimes when I reboot I forget to take the Debian CD out of the drive, so it just boots into an installer and never actually goes anywhere, and it sits there for a while until I get back to it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT - Free web hosting recommendations?
 

They both work now. Congatulations.