Where to find free Web hosting?
July 24, 2011 6:21 AM Subscribe
Where can one find free Web site hosting? I don't need a lot of space, 40 or 50 Mbs will do, I just need to FTP files.
Verizon has decided that FTP is unsecure, so they are eliminating FTP and the ability to update one's own Web site effective August 22. They are requiring people to use their absurdly ridiculous, and completely unusable Web Site Builder. My experience in just the past two days are horrendous, with the tool being unavailable, blank pages when I click on their links, unable to upload images due to some "downstream proxy server error" etc. So where oh where can my little site reside.
I looked for previous questions and did not see anything since 2006. So let's get up to date. Thanks.
Verizon has decided that FTP is unsecure, so they are eliminating FTP and the ability to update one's own Web site effective August 22. They are requiring people to use their absurdly ridiculous, and completely unusable Web Site Builder. My experience in just the past two days are horrendous, with the tool being unavailable, blank pages when I click on their links, unable to upload images due to some "downstream proxy server error" etc. So where oh where can my little site reside.
I looked for previous questions and did not see anything since 2006. So let's get up to date. Thanks.
FTP puts your password in plain text over the wire for everyone to see, so it is indeed quite insecure; that's not something they made up. If you must use it the only sensible choice is to use one of the ftps variants, not to be confused with sftp with is a whole unrelated ssh-based protocol.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:50 AM on July 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by Rhomboid at 6:50 AM on July 24, 2011 [2 favorites]
nearlyfreespeach.net is probably your best deal...
posted by brorfred at 7:13 AM on July 24, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by brorfred at 7:13 AM on July 24, 2011 [3 favorites]
Have you considered hosting your website on S3? There's a free usage tier that makes it effectively free for the first twelve months, and after that it's ridiculously cheap for low-bandwidth sites. You can't use FTP with S3, but many popular FTP clients for Windows and Mac transparently support uploading to S3 buckets as if you were using FTP.
(Note: S3 is just for hosting files---if you want to actually run something on the server, like Wordpress, you'll need to find some other option. But if your site really is just a bunch of static files, then S3 is a great choice.)
posted by aparrish at 7:35 AM on July 24, 2011
(Note: S3 is just for hosting files---if you want to actually run something on the server, like Wordpress, you'll need to find some other option. But if your site really is just a bunch of static files, then S3 is a great choice.)
posted by aparrish at 7:35 AM on July 24, 2011
I know bugger all about how the web works, really, but if this is to host a web site: I've been using NearlyFreeSpeech.net for a couple of years and it's been great.
You have a pay as you go type account, and I think they deduct a dollar per Gigabyte of bandwidth used. Maybe for hosting like MetaFilter or Flickr this would turn out to be astronomically expensive but for a punter like me it works out to be very cheap.
posted by Flashman at 9:00 AM on July 24, 2011
You have a pay as you go type account, and I think they deduct a dollar per Gigabyte of bandwidth used. Maybe for hosting like MetaFilter or Flickr this would turn out to be astronomically expensive but for a punter like me it works out to be very cheap.
posted by Flashman at 9:00 AM on July 24, 2011
Not free, but A Small Orange have a plan that's $25/year.
People always bring up NearlyFreeSpeech for this kind of question, and I'm sure they're fine(never used it myself), but ASO's plan is actually a bit cheaper and doesn't involve a ludicrous amount of math to figure out.
posted by Su at 10:35 AM on July 24, 2011
People always bring up NearlyFreeSpeech for this kind of question, and I'm sure they're fine(never used it myself), but ASO's plan is actually a bit cheaper and doesn't involve a ludicrous amount of math to figure out.
posted by Su at 10:35 AM on July 24, 2011
Might be a derail but ... when people turn off FTP because of insecurities, they normally still allow SFTP. Are you absolutely sure you can't use that?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:46 PM on July 24, 2011
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:46 PM on July 24, 2011
Response by poster: This is all I know.
Dear Verizon Internet User:
As part of our ongoing enhancements to the online customer experience, Verizon continues to ensure security for our Internet customers. As a result of this ongoing effort, Verizon Online is making modifications to the Internet access provided to you. These modifications will occur on August 21, 2011. For security reasons, Verizon will no longer allow users to FTP their HTML files to the personal web site Verizon offers.
Verizon recommends that current FTP users download their files prior to August 21, 2011 to prevent any data loss.
If you still wish to have a Verizon website, please go to our site builder tool available with Personal Webspace which can be found under My Services in My Verizon at: LINK
Remember, after August 21, 2011, you will not be able to use FTP for uploading your files.
Thanks for being a valued Verizon Online customer. We encourage you to act now to protect your private information.
Sincerely,
Verizon Online
* File Transfer Protocol
posted by Gungho at 6:42 AM on July 25, 2011
Dear Verizon Internet User:
As part of our ongoing enhancements to the online customer experience, Verizon continues to ensure security for our Internet customers. As a result of this ongoing effort, Verizon Online is making modifications to the Internet access provided to you. These modifications will occur on August 21, 2011. For security reasons, Verizon will no longer allow users to FTP their HTML files to the personal web site Verizon offers.
Verizon recommends that current FTP users download their files prior to August 21, 2011 to prevent any data loss.
If you still wish to have a Verizon website, please go to our site builder tool available with Personal Webspace which can be found under My Services in My Verizon at: LINK
Remember, after August 21, 2011, you will not be able to use FTP for uploading your files.
Thanks for being a valued Verizon Online customer. We encourage you to act now to protect your private information.
Sincerely,
Verizon Online
* File Transfer Protocol
posted by Gungho at 6:42 AM on July 25, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by COD at 6:29 AM on July 24, 2011