If you're one of the growing number of people who publishes Web pages or cobbles together Web sites, you've probably learned one lesson: you can't get enough space for your content. Because, let's face it, with Java, graphics, and multimedia content, even a small Web site can eat up megabytes of storage.
But getting that extra space can be difficult for several reasons. Sometimes need cheap place to hang your hat online. Maybe you can't afford full service from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Or, maybe you need a way to mirror your Web site cheaply. There's a way to do it that costs you nothing. It's called free Web hosting. Over the last couple of years, services that let you post Web pages free of charge have been springing up all across the WWW.
Free Web hosting has a lot going for it. The most important aspect is the cost. How else can you get a place to dump your Web pages without paying a cent? A free hosting service is perfect for someone who can't afford a full-fledged Internet account or who accesses the Web using a public terminal or a FreeNet. Depending on the service you choose, you can get anywhere from 3 MB to 35 MB of storage space. Many ISPs don't offer that much. If they do, the extra space can get quite expensive.
Of course, there's the convenience of it all. You can do just about everything you need to with a free Web hosting service. Most give you access to an online HTML editor and to some sort of file management tool. While the latter allows you to delete or rename files, but generally little else, the HTML editors are quite useful. They range from a simple workspace into which you type your code and content, to editors that insert HTML tags with a mouse click, to fully-fledged graphical tools that let you build pages by pointing and clicking.
Best of all, transferring your files from your computer to any free hosting service is easy. Most have an interface for transferring files. Or, you can use good old-fashioned FTP to move your files around. There's no learning curve for experienced Web users. You simply do as you have always done.
There are a growing number of free Web page hosting services. If you're wondering about a service to choose, here's a quick peek at four of the better ones out there:
Yahoo! GeoCities is one of the oldest free hosting services. And it's one of the most popular. How popular? Well, it has a huge international user base. And it's so popular that there's a book titled Creating GeoCities Web sites. It's the only published guide to putting together Web pages for a specific free hosting service that I've seen.
What sets Yahoo! GeoCities apart from its competitors is the service's file management capabilities and the PageBuilder Web authoring tool. The Yahoo! GeoCities file manager gives you full control over your files -- as much as, or more than, you have with the file manager in your operating system. With it, you can delete, copy, rename, preview, edit, and upload files with only a few clicks. PageBuilder is an advanced point-and-click HTML editor that has capabilities rivalling those of many commercial HTML authoring tools. Using PageBuilder you can position any element on your Web pages, then preview the page. There is also a set of add-ons that insert buttons, graphics, lines, and counters into a document.
On the downside, you're forced to pigeonhole your site into a "neighbourhood," based on your area of interest. If you have a site devoted to origami, you're encouraged to put it into one of the Tokyo neighbourhoods. Your URL will look something like this: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Club/1273. That's a lot of typing!
AngelFire is a solid service that has some nice features, but which can also be quite annoying. The nice features include a pair of easy-to-use HTML editors. One lets you type in your HTML code; perfect for the experienced Web builder. The other editor is more of a wizard aimed at the newbie. With it, you can choose a pre-defined layout, as well as specify the colours to use on your pages. You can also pick graphics, set up a list of links, and type in some body text. Best of all, you can arrange where on the page these elements will appear. You don't get as much control as you would with the code-based editor but it's a good way to quickly get up and running.
What I found annoying about AngelFire is that it insists all Web page files have the extension .HTML. This is fine if you're building from scratch, but not so good if you're moving your files from another location. You may have to change the file names and any internal links.
The first time I encountered a Xoom Web site, it crashed my browser. But that didn't sour me on Xoom. It's easy to use, and Xoom gives you an unlimited amount of space. I don't know how true this is, but I doubt anyone has yet to use even a portion of their space.
Xoom makes creating Web pages easy. Like AngelFire, Xoom has a page-building wizard. It's not fancy, but it gets the job done. You choose a pre-defined page template, and then select the graphics and type the text you want to appear on your page. Here again, you don't have much control over layouts. All the templates are heavily graphical, which can really affect loading time. On top of that, there is no way to edit the HTML code of your pages online. You have to download them, do the editing on your computer, then use FTP to transfer the files back to Xoom. Doing this quickly becomes tedious.
Of all the Web hosting services I've tried, WebJump is my favourite. It's easy to use and, best of all, you can choose a personalized URL -- like http://kujira.webjump.com. This isn't as good as having your own Internet domain, but it is the next best thing. And it's sure a lot easier to type than a GeoCities or AngelFire address.
One area in which WebJump stands out is technical support. Most free Web hosting services don't offer much beyond a set of frequently asked questions and an e-mail address for support. WebJump, on the other hand, has a toll-free number and 24-hour a day, 7 days a week technical and customer support.
WebJump lacks the frills many of its rivals have. But, then again, that's another reason I was attracted to it: simplicity. You just create and upload your pages, then you're done. It's that simple. You also get access to a scripting engine that will allow you to add dynamic content to your site like a search engine or a survey form. On top of that, WebJump has a free e-commerce site builder for the budding Web entrepreneur. The only thing that could make this deal sweeter is free e-mail.
Whoever coined the phrase "you can't get something for nothing" had pegged free Web hosting services correctly. While you're not laying out any cash, you do have to make one concession -- advertising banners which appear whenever someone surfs to your site. You've probably seen them in your travels on the Web, either as pop-up windows or ads embedded at the top of a Web page. Other services, like Xoom and WebJump, put your pages into frames and put the ads in the top frame. This makes the pages unfriendly to older browsers that can't render frames, as well as to text-only Web clients. Advertisements are annoying, but they are a necessary evil. That's because the serviced rely on the support of advertisers and sponsors to help make them free.
To set up an account, you'll probably have to give the service of your choice some personal information -- address, telephone number, age, etc. It's another necessary evil, but on with which you may not feel comfortable.
Free Web hosting services give you an excellent opportunity to create a presence on the Web. Not only can't you beat the price, but you'll find that these services offer a number of features that even the best ISPs lack. While there are aspects of them that leave much to be desired, you may find that using a free hosting service is the fastest and cheapest way to get your message out there.