Ah yes, indeed, on the subject of free hosts yet again, and things that I thought would change from last time. If it’s too good to be true in terms of hosting, there has to be a catch somewhere. Somewhere indeed…

The hosting service starts out good
It’s just too good to be true, and they’re still on the internet! First things first – check how long the host has been operating and see how their uptime has been (just because the host says their uptime has been 99.5% or higher doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way). Get to know your host, see how many servers they have running and in which part of the country (stay the heck away from Florida and places that have hurricanes – water + electronics = BAD JUJU!). I don’t know how many times I’ve signed up for a host only to find a week later that there are SQL connection errors, slow load times, or even extreme downtime that goes on for days. And then the host just shuts down and takes all of your files with them (luckily if you know the concept of free hosting, you also tend to know the concept of backing things up).

Ads are evil, even with Firefox and AdBlock
Well, that is, unless you don’t mind them. Problem is, I do! And so do many other people. If your website isn’t selling products with the advertisements that are put up, it’s usually a bad thing. And when your host forces those ads on you, that’s just pure agony (and some ads make it worse with flashing colors and annoying roll down menus). There are only a few ads out there even worth looking at from a designers perspective, the rest suck. Which brings me to my point – if your host makes you put up ads, or even worse, forces them on each page, move to another host. Ads will mess up layouts, destroy any chances of returning visitors, and will make your site look less than professional.

Bandwidth and Space limitations
The more the better (in terms of actual space and bandwidth)…but do you really need that much anyways? My blog actually consists of less than 10megs worth of files. But I always look to the future, and since I’m going to start hosting files and such, I expect my host to be able to hold that up. And even if you only have one 5 mb file being hosted, and that file just got “dugg”, its pretty much DoS for the host in general, paid or free (in most general cases). And if the host doesn’t go down, your bandwidth will go up and strike you upside the head. The worst website is the one that you can’t even see (arguably the one that doesn’t exist). Free hosting may be good for now, but not for later.

Free hosting and free support just doesn’t come hand in hand
There are exceptions, but generally, if you have a free host, you’re not going to get any kind of support. Sure, some people don’t even need support, but if something on your site goes haywire with something that you can’t fix (say something with an SQL connection or FTP going down), you absolutely need to communicate to the support/webmaster to get it fixed. Even for paid hosts, make sure you’re getting proper support, check it before even signing any sort of deals. Ask them for a trial hosting service for a couple of days to check out support response times.

So basically, the main thing I’m trying to get at here is don’t rely on free web hosting because it will actually cost you something in the long run.
Want a free web hosting service? Get any kind of computer, install Ubuntu LAMP on it, hook it up to a 256kb+ line, and there’s a free reliable start for you. Ok sure, it costs you a computer and your internet connection, but isn’t that what you use anyways to read this blog? Maybe then, you can start up your very own free hosting service for others as well and see exactly how all those other free hosts are doing it!