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Free Hosting - no ads, your own domain, PHP, MySQL and more!

March 12, 2007 – 9:07 am | by Miriam Schwab

This seems to good to be true, but I came across a new site that offers offers ad-free, free hosting with 40 MB of disk space and 3 MySQL databases (thanks to infOpinions? for the heads up). This site, JustFree.com, says that the disk space is likely to increase over time, and they offer one-click installations for the following applications:

  • osCommerce
  • MyBB, sBlog
  • MyLittleForum
  • Mambo
  • Xoops
  • gallery
  • SMF
  • Wordpress
  • Joomla
  • wikiwig
  • ZenCart
  • tikiwiki
  • cutenews
  • Nucleus
  • bBlog
  • 4images
  • phpBB2
  • UseBB

They say that more one-click installs are becoming available all the time. You can put ads on your site, and even use your own domain name by changing the name servers at your domain registrar.

One issue: their privacy policy is a little iffy. Here’s what they say:

Pursuant to Justfree’s privacy policy, we may disclose to third parties certain aggregate information contained in your Registration Information or related data, provided that, such information will NOT include personally identifying information, except as specifically authorized by you or in the good faith belief that such action is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, legal process, to enforce the TOS, or under any of the other circumstances set forth in our privacy policy, as may be amended from time to time.

So spam-wise, it seems that they are saying that they can give your email address to third parties - correct me if I’m wrong. In the meantime, I’m going to sign up with a web email address. But this site is still useful because you can use it for quickly setting up WordPress sites and testing your themes out, and you can also use it to show clients how work is progressing on their sites.

Added March 13, 2007: I installed WordPress on JustFree to see how it works. There were a few problems:

  1. It was not a one-click install. It unpacks the WordPress files in the directory that you designated, but did not install it. I had to rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php, and then I tried to edit it in the control panel so that I could enter the database name, user name and password that I had created. It opened up an FCDeditor type of editor, but I couldn’t do any editing, even when I clicked on Source. I had to download the file, edit it on my desktop, and then upload it again. But I could only upload it once I deleted the online version of the file, otherwise I would get an error message telling me that it already existed.
  2. I finally got everything installed, only to discover that the version of WordPress installed is 2.0.5. That’s not very useful if you want to use it as a testing server for themes you intend to use with version 2.1.

JustFree.com>>

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  1. 8 Responses to “Free Hosting - no ads, your own domain, PHP, MySQL and more!”

  2. By Robert on Mar 14, 2007 | Reply

    An update for you, I just learned that the mail() function is disabled on those hosting accounts. So, I agree with you. It is useful solely for test and demo sites. New adopters will have too much trouble learning phpMyAdmin to be able to change their password, should they lose it, for instance.

    I still like the service for some tasks, but wouldn’t suggest it for trying to develop a working blog or small community site. I say that because subscribe to comments and posts, for instance, won’t work.

  3. By Miriam on Mar 14, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks Robert - it’s important to know about the disabled mail(). That’s a pretty serious drawback, especially for blogs where keeping up with blogs and posts is pretty essential!

  4. By niku on Mar 31, 2007 | Reply

    thanks for the post.
    Any other suggestions? how about 110mb.com?

  5. By Miriam on Mar 31, 2007 | Reply

    Hi niku,
    I never heard of 110mb.com. I checked it out, and it seems interesting. When I have a chance I’ll set up a test site and see how it goes. If it works and is legit, I’ll write a review here. Thanks for your input!

  6. By Ryan on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply

    http://www.freehostia.com/ offer free web hosting too. But they have none of the draw backs (that I’m aware of) that have been mentioned above.

    250 MB disk space
    5 GB/month data transfer
    Hosting for 2 domains and 10 subdomains
    CPanel
    1 MySQL database with 10 MB space
    Full FTP access

    I tried it in about September 2006, and it worked flawlessly. The only drawback I can see is that your MySQL database is limited to 10 MB which could be a bit small for some sites.

    I don’t use it now as I’ve bought my own hosting from Hostgator.com which is massively better, albeit inifinitely more expensive.

  7. By Ryan on Aug 1, 2007 | Reply

    I found an example of a freehostia.com hosted Wordpress blog in case anyones interested …
    http://matthewpoer.freehostia.com/wordpress/

  8. By Matthew Poer on Aug 14, 2007 | Reply

    Indeed, I am a FreeHostia.com user. I use the free account. I rarely have troubles, but there is some down time. You get what you pay for with it… decent bandwidth and space, 1 mysql, PHP enabled, mail, etc. One thing you do *not* get from FreeHostia (for free, at least) is awstats/webalizer type data. I have had to install the WordPress Stats plugin for that.

  9. By Ryan on Aug 28, 2007 | Reply

    Good to hear that I’m not the only one with a good opinion of Freehostia.com. I’m impressed they haven’t been inundated with people overloading their systems to breaking point. Most other free hosts I’ve come across have generally started out well, but over time they seem to nose dive in quality/service due to overloading of their services. Anything’s got to be better than those hideous Geocities accounts that people still seem to get sucked into - me included until about 18 months ago.

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