Free Hosting
A promising Web hoster that allows you full CGI and PHP capability. Here, you get 10 megs of space and FTP file management. There are lots of free services here to spice up your site, too.
This new service lives up to its name. Just fill out a short form and you'll get your own free 100 megabyte Web site, along with your own free E-mail address. You edit and upload pages here through their online "Qwik Builder" utility, which is easy to use. No adult sites permitted. Qwik Pages now offers FTP uploading, free stats and other handy new features.
This free Web page provider offers you six megs of space. Here, you upload and edit your Web page with their easy-to-use "Homepage Manager." Access is quick, thanks to their OC-3 (155 mbps) connection. Members are required to display two 468-by-60 pixel banners on their pages. No porn sites allowed. Escalix recently upgraded their servers and service has greatly improved.
At this free Web hosting service, you get 20 megs of space, along with a third-level domain. Your URL here will be [email protected]. 20m.com also offers free E-mail accounts, instant messaging, FTP access and site promotional tools.
Here's an excellent free ad-supported Web hosting service that offers you a choice of six subdomains and "unlimited" E-mail addresses. Your site address here will be (for example) http://YourSiteName.freeservers.com. FreeServers.com gives you 20 megabytes of space. You also get a free counter, a free guestbook, instant messaging, and direct FTP access.
If you've ever wanted to set up your own 3D virtual reality home on the Web, this is the place to go. Just sign up with Cybertown (it's free to register) and you'll get your own customizable virtual reality home, complete with personal chat, a message board and more goodies. Once you've set up your home here, you can invite your friends over to hang out and chat---all in full 3D! There's always something new and interesting going on at Cybertown: it's more a way of life than a Web site.
WebJump offers a generous 25 megabytes of space. It's easy to get set up at this speedy hoster. WebJump offers a publishing tool that makes it easy to create pages here, even if you're a newbie with no HTML coding experience. Note that you must display their 150-by-60 pixel banner on each page. WebJump offers phone and pager support (with a 30-minute turnaround) to assist you if your site goes down. They say they'll make "every effort" to respond to other tech support requests within 24 hours.
The second largest free Web page service (after Yahoo! GeoCities), Tripod gives its members a choice between pop-up ads and embedded ads. You get 50 megabytes of space for your site at this service, which now has over 4 million members and which is owned by search portal Lycos. Here, you have two options: if you're a beginner, you can use the "Quickpage" option if you want Tripod to write your page's coding. If you know HTML coding, you can do it yourself through the "Custom" option. On Sept. 27, 1999, Tripod announced a "Builder Bucks" program that offers a way for members to earn revenue from their sites via advertising. Your site must receive at least 100 page views per day for you to be eligible to participate in this program. If you're using Builder Bucks, we'd like to hear about your experiences. Tripod offers support for Microsoft FrontPage extensions, which means that if you own this commercial Web authoring package, you have more flexibility in what you can do with your site, (such as the ability to easily add text searches). However, we've had a number of complaints that Tripod's FrontPage server is slow and buggy.
A part of search portal Yahoo's empire, GeoCities is the Web's largest free space provider, with over 5 million "Homesteaders." GeoCities offers you 15 megabytes of space. You start out by staking your claim in a GeoCities "neighborhood" that offers pages with similar themes to yours (there are over 40 to select from). You then submit an application and are given a password for use in creating your own personal home page. You may then use GeoCities' file manager utility to create your home page. Or, you may submit your custom home page and graphics files using their "EZ File Upload Utility." You can also upload your Web page and other files using an FTP client. GeoCities has removed its much-criticized "watermarks," which were once placed on members' sites. They've also stopped displaying their annoying pop-up banner ads. Advertising is now done via a small ad square of DHTML, which can be customized. After Yahoo swallowed up GeoCities we had a number of complaints about their terms of service, which had many folks concerned about the requirement that you give them "royalty-free" use of your content. After a storm of protest, Yahoo! GeoCities on July 6 issued a revised terms of service agreement, which appears to be a vast improvement (and led to the end of a Yahoo boycott). GeoCities has eliminated the problem of its once-cumbersome, lengthy URLs via a new naming scheme, which means that you can have a shorter URL, such as http://www.geocities.com/wolfmagus/.
Some of our visitors report periodic access woes here. A number of complaints have also been posted on Yahoo! GeoCities' message boards lately about vanishing pages. We've also had complaints that support is difficult to obtain. However, other visitors report that assistance is readily available through the service's "Community Leaders," who may be reached via E-mail or ICQ.
An innovative free Web space provider that makes it easy to create nice looking pages, within only minutes. Features a powerful, "drag-and-drop" online editor that makes the whole process of building a Web site simple, even for newbies. You can build a site from scratch, or select from their pre-designed, customizable pages. They also offer free chat rooms, guest books and more. Requires recent versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer (Netscape 3.0 will not work). A few visitors have reported glitches with Homestead's online editor, including error messages and problems with saving their pages. If you're new to Web authoring and want to get a site set up with a minimum of fuss, check out Homestead Express. This service makes it easy to create a quick site, by following a step-by-step process. Note that in their ~site/TermsOfService/TermsOfService_out.ffhtml?B_EXISTING_CUSTOMER=FALSE&NextPage=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ehomestead%2ecom%2f%7esite%2fScripts%5fSignup%2fsignup%2edll%3fCMD%3dCMDSignUpFormFounder"terms of agreement, Homestead requires that you give them a royalty-free copyright on any content you place on a page here.
These people offer 20 megs of Web space and "unlimited" data transfer. You also get server side includes, nightly backups of data, FTP uploading and 24-hour monitoring. No files over 100 kilobytes allowed and no "warez" (illegal software, cracks, serials) allowed. We've had a few complaints that this service is slow in issuing new accounts. Also, you're required to display a large, slow-loading banner at the top of each page, as well as two smaller thumbnail banners at the bottom of each page.
A fast-growing free Web site provider, Free Yellow offers you a hefty 50 megs of space. There are a number of free Web page enhancements available as well: free animated graphics, a free counter, FTP uploading, free E-mail order forms, a free autoresponder and a "WebSite Wizard," to help you build your pages. FreeYellow.com is also CGI capable (as long as you use their scripts). On the downside, the process of signing up for FreeYellow.com's service is time-consuming and cumbersome. We've recently received complaints from FreeYellow.com users who report problems in updating and accessing their pages at times.
We've been hearing a lot of good things from our visitors about this free Web hosting service. Their package looks impressive. Here, you get "unlimited" traffic and E-mail forwarding, as well as a true FTP account. Virtual Avenue also offers you 20 megs of space, (but note that no one individual file you upload may be larger than 1.2 megs). You also get CGI access from your own directory (a rarity among free hosters). There's a good FAQ to get you started. The only "catch" here is that you must display their pop-up banner. (No adult or warez sites allowed).
A major, speedy free Web hoster and free graphics provider, Zy.com offers users a "trial" account that gives you four Web pages, with 10 megabytes of storage space, and a choice of up to 10 template design styles. It's fairly easy to create professional-looking pages here and they offer a nice variety of graphics for use on your pages. Your Web site address here will be: www.ZyWorld.com/(YourSite). Zy.com also offers users a free E-mail service. Technical support here is above average, our visitors report. (Note: they place their banner on all user's pages).
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