When it comes to starting up a blog and finding web hosting for it, many people turn to some of the free services on the web first. Getting yourself established on a free hosting service, before moving up to a paid one can save you some money – if you are willing to trade off some flexibility and features along with it.
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10 Sources for Free Web Site Hosting
We are all falling on tough economic times, so what better way to save on some hosting than to look towards a few free hosting sources. Now, free web hosting does come with some downsides. You are not going to be able to host the next Digg or YouTube, however if you need a small space to get started with learning the web hosting ropes, free hosts can often be the best way to get your feet wet.
Here are ten free sources for web hosting out there today.
100webspace.com – Here you get 100 MB of web page, 3000 MB of bandwidth and a lot of extra features like MySQL databases, SSL, SpamAssassin, POP3 and web e-mail and much more. It also allows for FTP or FrontPage access too.
Frihost.com – This free web host is offering you 250 MB of disk space and 10 GB of bandwidth per month. It is hosted on a Unix OS, with access to MySQL, cron jobs, raw logs, backups and more.
HelioHost.org – Your monthly bandwidth will be limited to 2500 here, and 250 MB of disk space. However, they do offer Ruby on Rails, Fantastico, and both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.
Alternatives to Geocities
With the word that Geocities would be closing, “sometime in 2009” many of the Geocities users are looking for other places to host their content. Even though Geocities is closing the door on it’s free hosting, there are still many free hosting alternatives to Geocities.
Free Hosting – Two free web site elders that might someday share the same fate as Geocities are still around. Both Angelfire and Tripod are still around. Here are a few more to choose from:
- 50Megs.com – Offers users 50 MB of disk space to host their files.
- Bravenet.com – Also offers 50 MB of disk space and 1.5 GB of bandwidth.
- 110MB.com – You get 110 MB of disk space with them (who would have guessed?) and 10 GB of bandwidth for free.
Specialized Hosting – For those people wanting to host their own blog, you might look into wordpress.com and their free blog hosting service. If you want to get started with a forum, check out freeforums.org.
Shared Hosting – For those people moving from Geocities to another location, it might also be time to look into shared hosting plans. There are many low-cost web hosting plans out there to choose from, and they will give you much more disk space, bandwidth and resources to work with.
One more place to check out for free hosting suggestions would be TheFreeSite.com. Hey have a lot of suggestions when it comes to free web site hosting.
Have a free favorite host you would like to plug? Leave a comment!
BONUS! Here are a few other Geocities alternatives:
If you find any more, let me know!
Be sure to catch the rest of our Geocities Tribute on Podcast 186 of the Web Hosting Show!
Free File Sharing with 4Shared
There is a new free file sharing and hosting service that recently caught my eye. 4Shared.com promises to give you free online storage, to upload, access and share your music, video and photos. You can upload and share a single file or an entire folder!
Offering 5GB of space for free, this service sounds terrific. 4Shared also comes with a built in search engine, so you can browse around to see the other content people are uploading.
How long are the files hosted there? Your free account and all your files will be removed from 4Shared only if you do not log in the account for 30 days.
Here are the most popular types of files that may be shared:
- document file (doc, txt, pdf, rtf, xls)
- music file (mp3, ogg, wav, mid)
- video file (avi, mpg, mpeg)
- image file (jpg, gif, bmp, png)
- zip file (zip, rar, arj)
- any other types
If you like the free service, then you can also upload to the paid versions too. A one year membership will remove some of the limits. So if you out-grow the free version, the paid version is always there to give you a few more perks.
10 Alternatives to Free Rapidshare Hosting
Rapidshare might be the most popular free web hosting alternative right now, however they might not be the best. Here are some equally as great alternatives.
SendSpace.com – Unlimited uploads and unlimited downloads. The file size limit with SendSpace is up to 300MB too.
MediaFire.com – This service provides up to 100MB file size per upload, and unlimited storage. A “pro” account will also get you a few more perks if you want to pay for it.
iFile.it – With one of the simplest interfaces, just browse, upload and cross your fingers.
MegaUpload.com – Another popular alternative is MegaUpload, unfortunately you might be looking for an alternative to it pretty soon. Hate to give you an alternative to an alternative.
SaveFile.com – With a limit of 100MB per file in size, the most enticing thing about this hosting solution would be the fact that it isn’t used by many – so speeds should be pretty good.
TransferBigFiles.com – Oh, if only the rest of the internet was this obvious.
KeepMyFile.com – Bad web site design, with a limit of 60MB per file and 300MB max. The advantage here is they say you can upload 30 files at once.
Badongo.com – With unlimited limits, and being free to use – have to say this alternative sounds like gold.
YourFileLink.com – Free video and file hosting is what they promise, and with the highest limit thus far on file size (5GB), you may want to go ahead and take advantage of this domain while it is still around.
UploadPedia.com – Oh, I get it – like Wikipedia, but you host stuff on it. So it isn’t like Wikipedia at all…
Know of another free file host that deserves to be an alternative to Rapidshare? Share your suggestions with us, and I might be able to come up with a list of at least ten more free file hosting alternatives to enjoy.
5 Ways to Get Free Hosting
We are all looking for something for nothing, and when you mention that phrase in the web hosting world, it can only mean one thing. Free web hosts. Now I don’t often recommend free web hosts to people, cause you never know when they might fall off the radar – and take your web site with them. However, here are some of the better free hosting solutions out there.
With 110MB Hosting you get 5GB of free no-ads hosting to setup shop. So where is the catch? They seem to get all of their income from upgrades and other related services. You also get PHP 5, 300 GB of Bandwidth and MySQL 5.
Agility Hoster looks to use the free hosting account they provide as a gateway into other services too. On the free plan, you get 2 addon domains, 5GB of bandwidth, and 200MB of disk space.
When looking for free web hosts out there, doteasy was the only one that stuck out as a name I had heard before. The free plan they provide will give you 1GB of bandwidth, 100MB of storage and up to 10 e-mail accounts.
I hate to say it, but Freehostia is probably one of the cheesier looking out of the bunch. They do provide 250 MB of storage, 5 GB of monthly bandwidth and hosting for 2 domains.
HostWQ.net calls themselves the ultimate source for free and premium web site hosting. Do they deliver? Well for free you can get up to 300 MB of disk space and 10 GB of bandwidth a month. Very promising, to say the least.
Are you a free web hosts or do you know of a free web host that can do any better? Drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com or leave a comment and let me know.
30GB of Free Online Storage
Humyo.com is a new personal file hosting service that is now giving away 30GB of disk space for free to people who sign up today. The tag line here is “access your life” and they want you to be able to reach the documents and file you need anywhere at any time.
You receive 25GB for Photos/Music/Videos and 5GB for other files. You can also play your music, watch your video and edit your documents from any location. Signing up for the free version will also give you a 14 day trial of the desktop client they have which promises to make transferring data from one PC to the other a simple task.
Need to access your files on the go? They have the ability to get to your files via your phone or PDA. You can also e-mail your files without worrying about file size limits. One more nice feature of the free service is you can publish your files on the Web from Humyo. The only thing you have to live with would be the Humyo logo in the bottom corner.
Paid users of Humyo can also:
- File transfers to and from your space protected with 256-bit SSL encryption
- Allow colleagues to edit stored documents and upload files to shared folders.
Paid customers also get access to 100GB of disk space, and 100GB more can be added at any time for an additional $99.99 per year. The regular price for paid users is $59.99 for the first year then $79.99 per year after that.
Photo Sharing with EchoPic
Free photo or image web hosts come a dime a dozen these days. EchoPic.com is another provider that gives you another choice to your image sharing.
They provide image and photo sharing services that make life easy when you need to upload and share files on your web site, blog or social network profile.
You can either upload or enter the image URL and “grab it” to host on EchoPic’s services. All in all EchoPic isn’t doing anything really different but they are providing a quality free image hosting solution and when it comes down to it – what more could you ask for from your free hosting solution?
Share and Host Large Files
File Dropper makes it easy to share and host your own files Online without the need of your traditional web host. They are a totally free service that just kind of came out of nowhere with what they are offering. All you do is upload your file, and then share your personal link with those that want to download the file.
What is the upload limit? Right now it is 5GB. According to the about us page, the goal of File Dropper as to create a fresh alternative to sites like MegaUpload and RapidShare. They do not wish to reel in users and make them wait for annoying countdown times. (Insert Yippee Here!) They do not hide their download links and they will not aggressively place ads all over the place.
As long as the file is still being downloaded, they will never take your files down. Now if a file is uploaded once, downloaded once and then not touched again for six months then you might see them taking it down to make more room for other material. That is totally understandable. Also, it goes without saying that copyrighted or illegal material is not allowed and will be removed.
How are they going to make money? That might be the next question you were curious about. Well, you can do the free file hosting as much as you want and that is open to anybody. If you sign up though you get a few more perks.
- 99 Cents Plan – 5GB File Size, Direct Linking for Images, Share Files with Others
- Silver Plan – 10GB File Size, Direct Linking for Images, Share Files with Others
- Gold Plan – 25GB File Size, Direct Linking for Images, Share Files with Others
There is also a Free Trial plan that will let you test out the back end to see if you really want to pay to get a little more bang for your buck. All in all File Dropper seems to be doing everything right. Go give FileDropper.com a visit and let them know that the Web Hosting Show sent you there.
Free File Hosting at FilesTube
FilesTube is a great place to go to search for almost any sort of file you might need. It features special areas for groups, games, video, software and more too. All you have to do is search for the file you need, and download from one of the many sources out there.
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