JohnWayne_Duke
New Member
- Messages
- 8
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 1
I enjoy free hosting as well. I just have a simple WP site and a phpBB forum for my gaming community and it makes sense for me to just use free hosting as that is all i need.
However remember that free hosting has it challenges including more than average down time, disk full issues, latency, and other challenges that face us all.
One of the things that hurts all of us is that many people that use free hosting see two words "free" and "unlimited". And so they register and they load the server up with junk they want to store (personal stuff maybe even home computer backups) or use it as a test area for their work. They don't respect that it is a very nice thing this company is doing for us all and they take extra advantage of their generosity which is so selfish and irresponsible.
Remember that the company is probably getting thousands and thousands or registrations throughout the day and so when people do this they fill up the disk space on the server quickly which means that the server may go down as a result.
In the years past "unlimited" meant literally "unlimited" however in today's hosting world many hosting companies are backing away from that term and using it so loosely. Remember that there is always a literal limit, when the disk is full its full. What hosting companies mean by unlimited normally is that you can use the space you need without charge and many respect that and only use what they need, but many do not and they cause havoc with the servers.
Some hosting companies randomly check to see if people are storing things on the server they should not. Some Terms Of Service (TOS) rules by some hosting companies even say that you agree not to store anything on the server that does not lend itself to the purpose or function of the domain and that you can be terminated if violating that rule.
I am not sure why people would do that anyway, there are plenty of places to store your stuff for free. Google and MSN and i,m sure Yahoo all have that feature so why store it on a domain server where it just sits and collects dust and wastes disk space.
As i said before some people use these free servers as test sites, whether it is to test new php or html coding or test htaccess coding so they don't have to use their live site. If they crash this server then they don't care. Some even use free servers to test hacks to see if they can get in. This way they don't warn the actual victim too early and when they have the hack properly executed then they use it on the intended server.
One person i knew who had a rather large social site, backed up his server every day and had 6 months of every day backups stored on his domain. WHY!! Nobody needs that many backups and certainly not on the server, if you want them then download them and keep them stored on your system. But backups that old are worthless and just take up space.
I know all this because i used to run a hosting company and i have seen such things with my own eyes. It is nuts what people will do when they see "free" and "unlimited".
For most of us free hosting has it's privileges and it's comforts. And for those that respect what the company is doing for us really appreciate that and use the opportunity with respect and control. So "free" hosting is a good thing and a good thing for those that offer it as well. But it certainly has it's challenges.
Thanks for listening and i hope this has helped you understand those challenges a little better.
JW
However remember that free hosting has it challenges including more than average down time, disk full issues, latency, and other challenges that face us all.
One of the things that hurts all of us is that many people that use free hosting see two words "free" and "unlimited". And so they register and they load the server up with junk they want to store (personal stuff maybe even home computer backups) or use it as a test area for their work. They don't respect that it is a very nice thing this company is doing for us all and they take extra advantage of their generosity which is so selfish and irresponsible.
Remember that the company is probably getting thousands and thousands or registrations throughout the day and so when people do this they fill up the disk space on the server quickly which means that the server may go down as a result.
In the years past "unlimited" meant literally "unlimited" however in today's hosting world many hosting companies are backing away from that term and using it so loosely. Remember that there is always a literal limit, when the disk is full its full. What hosting companies mean by unlimited normally is that you can use the space you need without charge and many respect that and only use what they need, but many do not and they cause havoc with the servers.
Some hosting companies randomly check to see if people are storing things on the server they should not. Some Terms Of Service (TOS) rules by some hosting companies even say that you agree not to store anything on the server that does not lend itself to the purpose or function of the domain and that you can be terminated if violating that rule.
I am not sure why people would do that anyway, there are plenty of places to store your stuff for free. Google and MSN and i,m sure Yahoo all have that feature so why store it on a domain server where it just sits and collects dust and wastes disk space.
As i said before some people use these free servers as test sites, whether it is to test new php or html coding or test htaccess coding so they don't have to use their live site. If they crash this server then they don't care. Some even use free servers to test hacks to see if they can get in. This way they don't warn the actual victim too early and when they have the hack properly executed then they use it on the intended server.
One person i knew who had a rather large social site, backed up his server every day and had 6 months of every day backups stored on his domain. WHY!! Nobody needs that many backups and certainly not on the server, if you want them then download them and keep them stored on your system. But backups that old are worthless and just take up space.
I know all this because i used to run a hosting company and i have seen such things with my own eyes. It is nuts what people will do when they see "free" and "unlimited".
For most of us free hosting has it's privileges and it's comforts. And for those that respect what the company is doing for us really appreciate that and use the opportunity with respect and control. So "free" hosting is a good thing and a good thing for those that offer it as well. But it certainly has it's challenges.
Thanks for listening and i hope this has helped you understand those challenges a little better.
JW
Last edited:
