Free Web Hosting: The ongoing Arrgghh...

One thing the Internet has brought to our lives is a renewed concept of free-ness. Whether it be legal or il-, everything can be gotten for free because everything can be put up for free.

Now I'm not here to debate the legal issues, because I am currently in the business of making information I have written available for free out of the goodness of my heart. It's called "CodeStar" and it's a new website I've been working on (actually since 2002!) which is devoted to programming of all kinds. The whole site is basically done, and I've spent the past few days looking for a host.

Since I'm providing my own information for free, I think it more than fair that I be able to post it to the web at no expense. Fortunately there are a tremendous number of free web hosts out there. Unfortunately, they all have some way of screwing either you or your web pages.

I think it perfectly reasonable that they display a small advertisment on my page - that is after all, how they make their money. But some of the ads are a) ridiculously large, b) stupidly placed, or c) horrendous for my page layout.

I am a web-page designer who loves his CSS, loves his pages to be laid out with that extra bit of care. So I naturally hate it when an ad comes along and ruins that.

This all started with my Myst fansite, EMS Relto, which was (and is) hosted by Geocities. This site was all going very nicely - Geocities would place a fairly large but closeable layer floating over my page. This layer was good because it had absolutely no impact on the page layout at all. Then it all changed to the huge monstrosity you see now, which actually compresses your page to 4/5 of the original width.

Also... you can forget about valid HTML code. Ads are basically never compatible, even with HTML transitional. Tim has stated that this is because it makes it harder for clever CSS/JavaScript coders to remove the ad from displaying. But this is a pretty poor excuse, since they can do it anyway. I'd like to have a page that validates. Cest la vie.

So... I tried the following free hosts, with some interesting results.

• Angelfire (Lycos) - A nice little ad on one of my computers. On the other, a monstrous and uncloseable flash ad over the top of my page, in addition to two huge extra banner ads at the top and bottom. (wtf?) And why is it dependent on my computer? Also, requires a stupid directory name, making your URL longer and harder to remember. Example.
  
• Tripod (Also Lycos) - Similar problems to Angelfire IIRC but with some other terrible thing I've no doubt shunted out of my mind. Example.
  
• FortuneCity - BLECK! Didn't let me have CSS?!! Even if I used a different extension, blocked it out somehow! Avoid! Example.
  
• Top Free Web Hosting - Looked good for awhile. Notice the ad at the top is kinda nice, and best of all, relevant. But if you press refresh a few times you'll see some different ads, including some very large, awkwardly-shaped and annoying ones which are simply unacceptable. Also, overrode my link hover colour!!! Example.
  

</rant>

Finally I stumble upon this one, the interestingly-named FateBack. Their web address is yourname.lidonet.net which is nice and short too, and doesn't contain the word "fate". Check out the ad: EXAMPLE. Now this is very cool. They are getting what they want - they have a number of clickable ads. It is TWENTY-FIVE PIXELS TALL (at normal display heights). Sometimes when its feeling extra nice, the ad disappears entirely (:|). This is a good one! (I just hope they aren't somehow stealing my credit card ;))

FTP access, 60MB, unlimited bandwidth, POP email account. Its very good and I plan to stick with it.

If you want to go with these guys, beware of a couple of things:

• Problem with ad: If you increase the text size, it looks ugly
  
• Also, if you mouse-over the ? boxes in the ad it can get ugly too, but thats basically due to my site design
  
• BIG ONE: 200KB FILE SIZE LIMIT! (I'm going to live with this for now)
  
• Still not valid XHTML
  
• I can read emails but cant find any way to send emails using this account (?)
  
• Very very ugly 404 error (example)
  

Keep in mind these are all minor flaws. In my opinion this is by far the best free webhost I've seen.

So look out for CodeStar in the next few days. I'm looking forward to it. You can bet there will be a link there from this blog.

And OT, I'd like to say a big WOOT at the Adelaide Crows' huge win over the reigning premiers, Port Adelaide.
Crows unleashed, Power turned off

"Let's see... X for sex, XXX, ooh! Mr. X... do I dare cross the final frontier?"
- Comic Book Guy, upon seeing Homer's "Mr. X" website.