Hey guys, I have a quick question... Are free hosting companies trustworthy??? Which ones have you worked with before? Do they usually just put a banner on your site? Thanks!!!
Being a free web host does not exempt you from any cost. They would need to make money in order to offer you free web hosting and the typical way they do that is by adding banners on your web sites to allow them to help them pay for expenses. I would think that most start off with good intentions and if the income that they can is less than the cost of offering the free hosting, they would most likely close. You should note that free web hosting usually are victims of abused by people who sign up for their service and host illegal or obscense contents which may subject them to a higher level of work to shut down those contents and to cooperate with law enforcements. In the end, it may be more trouble than it is worth and they tend not to stay very long. It is low profits, if any and a whole lot of trouble. Web hosting is cheap now and there is no reason to go for free hosting unless you have something to hide. Paid web hosting are not subjected to the same restrictions and limitations as free hosting would thus would not come with any banners.
Well, I am sure that there are cheaper web hosts around but do not sign up with a web host just based on prices alone. Check their reputation and service support. Sometimes it helps to pay a little more to get better service. 1and1 from my pre-sales inquiries does not seems to care to reply to emails and may take several days to reply if they opted to reply.
GoDaddy is good as a domain name registrar but they are not too good as a web host. http://www.alwayswebhosting.com/ gets my vote for a good web host. 10for10 http://www.10for10.com is also good.
If you want to make a business on the Internet, or just want to have non-commercial site published, it will be better to spent <$10/month on hosting. Hostings are very cheap now and no need to work with free hostings.
If you are serious and want to earn money don't try free hostings.One day of downtime can cost you the whole hosting costs. There are a lot of cheap and reliable hosting firms around.Watch for the campains dreamhost for example gives on limited domain hosting for the first year (with a promocode if you can not find one you can pm me) 24 usd.And there are a lot of good ones out there too.
If you want to make real money from your website do not go with free host.One day they just can shut down and leave you with nothing.Go for paid ones instead.
I will say one word, never ever trust a free hosting company if you are serious with your website. I have very bad experience with free hosting.
Free hosting should not be trusted unless they are owned by bigger companies like yahoo's geocities. The reason is that they can track all your activity or the growth of website and they can take the control over your website any time they want. I have heard some cases so i suggest not to trust. You should find some friends if you really need free hosting