Best free webserver?

A few friends of mine and I are debating whats the best free webserver. We have single supporters of geocities, tripod, curvedspaces, and web1000.

So whats your favorite free web service (regardless of weather you own a page or not)? Pros and cons? Etc....

 

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I can't answer the best free webspaceprovider but I can give you a clue as what to look for:

1: NO POPUPS
If you can find a provider with no popups or inserted adverts then your on a winner. Popups are nasty things that nobody appreciates especially when they are tailored with tracking CGI from particular advertising networks that follow a person every move on the internet.

2: NO BANDWIDTH RESTRICTIONS
Bandwidth restrictions can apply on some systems, the problem with this is if you use your bandwidth allocation up before the end of the month (or other timed interval) you'll find your site note responding to the DNS entry for it until the next timed interval.

Some Providers will grant you extra bandwidth, but that usually costs money. If you can find one with no restrictions then your on a winner.

Never serve images that you use on bulletinboards from your webspace if you have a restrictions, as this will eatyour bandwidth up and don't bother about chat rooms/bulletin boards.(For the same reason)

3a: 24/7 FTP service
This is one of the main security problems on the internet, which is why most web space providers have moved to using webforms for uploading etc. This is really an optional, but I prefer at least having the ability to upload through FTP or maybe even SSH.

3b: 24/7 SSH service
If you can get this, it's better to transfer files through SSH, especially any CGI scripts you've written. SSH is usually implimented in dedicated server packages, and there are in fact a few free dedicateds out there.

4: Sendmail
Sometimes you might need a Sendmail access for relaying things from CGI scripts, so servers that provide it come in helpful, However these are rare and are decreasing in popularity because of SPAM/Mailing Lists.

5: CGI access
CGI access is useful because you can run your own scripts, not many webservice providers allow this for the shear reason that CGI can be maliciously used, or if they do allow it, they won't allow CHMOD 777.

Some webproviders will allocate a folder you can use, or allow you to create your own folder. While others will just have ready made scripts you can use.

If you can't find a provider with CGI, then your best using something like .js (Javascript).

5: MYSQL
mySQL is just one type of database on the internet, there are others on different platforms. mySQL can be useful for Bulletin boards and even games, anything where data needs to be stored from PHP/ASP/CGI scripts/pages and user inputs.

6: PHP/ASP
I'm not one for PHP and ASP, but you might be. PHP can be easy and an alternative to using HTML + CGI(PERL) to access databases and format webpages. The same can be said about ASP, but just not ASP is a Micro$oft Markup Language which means your site might get hacked.

LASTLY
You have to decide how you want your URL formatted. You could have Http://www.yourname.ahost.com or Http://www.ahost.com/~yourname and if you've got some money you might even get a domain name.

Some providers will allow you to PARK your domainname and then allow you to point it to where ever your site is served. This is useful if you don't want to fork out for webspace.

 

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How do you use MySQL? I've got it installed on my computer but I have no idea how to use it to store information. I'm quite the newbie at this. Do you have any good resources on how I can use this? Thanks!

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MySQL is a console based and GUI based database program. For any web based applications it is very rare that you actually have to enter anything manually into MySQL. I know for sure the setup of PHP for example just requires it's own database. It requires direct admin access to MySQL so it just makes it's own databse.

This is an excellent resource but it's kind of long to read. The point you might want to focus on is "3.3 Creating and Using a Database"

 

Styder listed some good points, but you're never going to find that on a free webserver anywhere on earth, unless you set up your own to access a server illegally (not paying for a service you should be).

If you want all of those features you're going to have to fork out some cash.

 

I've found a nice place that supports all sorts of that stuff. Try http://www.poehosting.com or http://www.sahosting.com

They cost money but are cheaper then using Geocities. Your never going to find a good free webspace without pop-ups.

 

best value one that i recall seeing was from www.kgbinternet.com (or was it .ca, and was there a hyphen in the name? i dunno, but look for a co called kgb internet)

their hosting was like 10$ a month, a gig of traffic and a jsp/servlet container (mucho better than asp lemurs

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)
thats $cdn by the way.. so like a fiver in real (£) money a month. per gig. pretty good rate i think. flexible plans too, you got ftp, shell, extra traffic, mailboxes... keep thinking ill buy one so i can unleash my online project ideas

 

Free Webserver != Free WebHost

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yes, we know.. i figure that the originator doesnt know the difference anyways, and its easy to tell hat he is actually looking for by the post contents

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some things.. ya just gotta let slide

 

www.silvernetwork.net hosts for free without popups but you have to be a mac freeware developer.

 

Pop-ups are not the issue here. If you don't get pop-ups, you'll get banners instead. Free web hosting without ads is incredibly hard to find, if not non-existant. If it is not pop-ups or banner ads, it will be some other kind of advertising, like e-mail SPAM.

Most people running web servers aren't into the charity business of handing out stuff for free. Someone has to pay for your space, in this case it would be the companies advertising their products.

I am sure there are some web servers that offer good features for $5 a month. $5 isn't free, but it seems like a reasonable price to me.

Alternatively you could create your own server - however your website will only be accessable when your computer is turned on, and you will be linking people directly back to your harddrive. You could buy a cheap 2nd computer (if you don't already have two) to use specifically for this purpose, that way it will be available almost 24/7 - much like a dedicated server, except you'd be hosting a site rather than routing data packets. If you had a 40 gig harddrive in this second PC, you'd have about 39GB of space for free, outside of the cost of purchasing a new PC.

This is a rather hefty option though considering that your thread topic was about free web space. If you left this 2nd PC on 24/7, it would really drive up your electric bill. Also if your website was really important, people would have to deal with downtime when something goes wrong with your PC.

You'd also probably want to look into a SCSI drive instead of an IDE drive, as SCSI is meant to run 24/7 Most SCSI drives come with a 5 year warranty, whereas the best you will get with IDE is 3 years (some drives only have a 1 year warranty now). Of course, SCSI drives and controllers are very expensive - just adding to the cost. But if your site is getting alot of traffic, you'll have trouble surviving with an IDE drive.

If you are really serious about having a website, you'll have to fork out some money. If you are just doing a small homepage or something like that, look for a good free provider.

 

Apache (apache.org) is the best. Then just use something like dydns.org for dns redirect. But if you have 56k or something, then maybe not.

 

Website ()=========)->>>>>>>

Does anyone know a good, free website server...

 

Would you like us to create it for you? Or is this just an attempt to outsmart us?

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If you just want a page. Register with geocities. They'll suit you fine.

 

[Edited, due to Thread Merging of two topics with the same content. Original URL to a thread was made Obsolete.
Stryder 24/05/03]

 

For decent free web hosting I suggest http://www.brinkster.com they'll give you something lik 50 MB of space (which ain't THAT bad, though it's acctualy very good if you don't plan on hosting a lot of media files and the like), and they don't make you put any banners or popups on your page, even with the free service.

 

http://www.netfirms.com is pretty good, 25MB space, no popups, there is a banner (which can be avoided), 24/7 FTP access, but it's only 1GB transfer per month. If you just want a personal page or something, it would be ideal.

 

Hiya, seniorz

I am right now considering making a website for myself, but I don't know which one's nice for me...
Here's my criteria:
-Free (for sure, ha ha ha)
-Big web space (preferably over 10 MB) AND no filesize limit for upload (cuz I don't know what files I may upload) AND accepts all types of files.
-Long (or infinite preferably, though it's rather impossible) dormant time, so that if I don't plan to change my website for long time, I don't have to worry bout losing it...
Maybe there'll be another cathegory, but those are the most important for now.

I have tried what you have suggested, for sure..... I'm still considering them yet. I have tried some free providers, here are the list:
0catch and gang (there're many of them, I'm surprised)-> It's too many troublesome rules and pretty short dormant time (okay, 60 days, but I need something longer) outweigh its 100MB space
Angelfire-> rather moderate, unless I can't find something bigger and better, I may go for this.
Tripod->Enough templates, but I want to make my pages myself (unless forced by circs)
Any other help?
Thanks for any reply....