fifeclub — Fri, 22 Feb 2002 04:19:56 +0000

First, if it's even half-way professional, don't go free.

Now, I checked out dozens of free providers and tried several of them. My primary requirements of 1)cgi-bin with Perl and 2)no pop-up ads (ads are expected, but IMHO popups are annoying and drive people away). I settled on free.prohosting.com. I was reasonably happy with them. They give you 50 Megs. If you need more than that then you shouldn't be looking at free ones anyway.

P.S. Be careful. SOme free servers say they allow cgi-bins but will only let you choose from the sevices they have installed. If free.prohosting.com doesn't work for ya then be sure to look for "custom" cgi-bin.

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(and now I want to use some rare "smilies" for no reason at all :snow: :ducky: :martian: :roll: . That was fun. Thanks )

Suzanne — Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:41:34 +0000

IMO, having ads on the site is you paying for it -- you are paying for it by bringing traffic to those ads. It's not free.

Same with having a banner or button for the host -- while it doesn't cost you money, you are still "paying" for it.

There's no free lunch. Really. There is always a catch, whether that's limited options, them using you to build usership to leverage a pro version, et cetera.

Suzanne

WannaBaHost — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 23:26:15 +0000

You can ask for a sponsorship of sorts from a hosting company. When I get mine set-up I will be giving away accounts for a small banner saying "Hosted By" soon.

thedawg — Tue, 19 Feb 2002 08:11:28 +0000

the one i recommended doesnt cost a cent! keep checking there site they will be up again soon...i can also recommend coolfreepages.com, which was passed on to me from someone else on this forum...50mb, hard drive, unlimted bandwidth and my sql...one catch is a pop-up ad. also if ur concerned about a long domain name check out cjb.net and dot.tk. u seem like ur in the same situation as myself...no money but a desire to make it work

Suzanne — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 21:35:35 +0000

"its called no money... how can i pay for something with no money"

If you have no money at all? You can't. That's a fact of life. If you have nothing with which to trade (and money is the accepted token for trade in this society), then you get nothing.

If you have knowledge, you can exchange that knowledge for money. If you have brawn, you can exchange that sweat for money. People often barter trading services instead of money. You could, if you have barterable skills, trade them for hosting if you could find someone who needs your skills more than they need money.

Suzanne

thedawg — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:42:43 +0000

oh yeah cgi-bin aswell

thedawg — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 17:40:44 +0000

i have one of my sites hosted at barrysworld.com they give u 20mb HD, no ads, and 100mb of data transfer a day also php and mysql support...but the bad thing is they've stop registring of new accounts at the moment, apparently it will be back up soon though. so u might wanna check it out

mjames — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:12:56 +0000

http://www.freewebspace.net is a great resource.

All things aside, Suzanne is correct. There are no free lunches and you must be willing to make sacrifices somewhere if you're not paying.

movieguru — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 10:16:04 +0000

its called no money... how can i pay for something with no money

Suzanne — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 06:25:27 +0000

good
cheap
fast

pick two.

Notice how "free" isn't in the list? That's because if you want free, you pretty well have to put up with slow and ads, which are neither good, nor fast.

Hosting really isn't that expensive, you would do better to save your pennies and find a cheaper host that will give you what you need when you pay a year in advance.

Suzanne