Freeweb - look at the small print
Freewebs is a new service (apparently founded in 2003) which promises to be "different" from other web site hosts. They state
Since its inception, FreeWebs.com has empowered hundreds of thousands of webmasters around the world by offering high-quality free web hosting without requiring our users to display banner advertisements or popup windows on their websites. While the web becomes less and less free, we remain dedicated to our original mission.
Being the skeptic I am, my first thought "This sounds too good to be true" and my second thought was "how are they paying for maintaining their servers?"
First of all, keep in mind that it's common practice on the web for new services to offer astounding deals in the beginning to get you to buy in. Then, when they feel you have invested too much to move, they write "oh sorry, we so wanted to continue the free service but we are 'forced' to now charge" (and often the charge is more than the other sites they so dissed in the beginning). Typically, people are less than thrilled when their freebie site which they have spent a lot of time with, has become banner city or pop-up central and anyway, who wants to pay for what you got for free.
So the next step is, if the web hosting company cannot get people to pay the fees, they go away. That happened to me. Just once and since then, I do NOT use bargain sites.
Still, I knew besides no promise to REMAIN free, there had to be a catch. Sure enough I found several.
First, this paragraph is the last one in the TOS:
All non-premium users are required to have the FreeWebs FreeBar Code on their website. This adds a very small strip at the bottom of the website saying, "This website is being hosted for Free by FreeWebs.com." Users can upgrade their user status to premium status for less than a dollar a month. Other restrictions apply to all non-premium accounts including a maximum limit of 50 files per account, and unavailability of several site addons and extras. Users may upgrade their account to premium status at any time by signing up for any of our paid services. These services start at less than $1 per month.
Notice the "other addons and extras" are not named. But 50 files? The average website is at least 100 files. So here they give you 100 megabytes (a lot of real estate) but only 50 files? Initially, they give you 40 megabytes and you have to write to them to "Upgrade that" to 100 meg. Small discrepancy.
For privacy, Freewebs.com states they do not share information at this time with their advertisers but the last sentence in the privacy statement reads:
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by FreeWebs.com. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.
In other words, they are collecting information and could start sharing that at any time, and unless you check the privacy page, you will never know it. Clever. How many people even READ the privacy page the first time let alone check it often?
Figure on them sharing your information really soon! :) It's expensive to run servers. They are not going to absorb the expense just because they "like you"!
From the FAQ:
Can I use Frontpage with FreeWebs? Does FreeWebs support Frontpage Extensions?
FreeWebs does NOT support frontpage extensions however you can sign up for our FTP service and publish your website from Frontpage through FTP.
Ok but this 'begs the question'. The question is does it offer Front Page extensions meaning can you easily put "forms" on your website? The answer is no, apparently, not even if you pay for the site. Bad news. If you have to put your email address on your site for a contact, figure on getting lots of spam (spammers have programs which read the email addresses off of websites - that's how most spam lists are formed)! Most servers including Netfirms.com and Freeservers.com (both $5 bucks a month) DO offer Front Page extensions.
From the FAQ:
Can I hotlink images? Can I put Images or files on my FreeWebs account and have them available from other sites?
Hotlinking means storing an image on one web account and linking directly to it from another website. This is also referred to as Image hosting. Some users wish to have their images available to link to from other webpages such as eBay or from their discussion boards. FreeWebs prevents this type of use as our primary purpose is to provide web hosting. However, for those users who do wish to use FreeWebs as an image host as well, we have made available Webzoom which will permit your files to be hotlinked and will also increase their bandwidth speed. You can sign up for Webzoom from your Premium Services area after logging into your FreeWebs account.
In English, this means that anything you store on the Freeweb server, you cannot link to, from another server. Unless you pay of course.
I notice Freewebs rates low on a service called www.free-webhosts.com which offers reviews of free hosting services. Apparently you CANNOT upload with an FTP program and you can only upload one file at a time through the Internet Explorer. (ability to upload FTP is a pay service). Users complain about Freewebs.com being slow, losing files they DID upload and having a file size limit of less than 1/2 meg. Freewebs apparently has a 7 page limit (most of my sites are at least 50 pages or more).
One user who bought the premium service complains that the server is slow and that they could not use the photo album and that so far, two emails to freewebs.com had gone unanswered.
Bandwidth has to do with the number of visitors you can have on your website in a given period. The bandwidth for the freewebs no pay service is only 500 meg. That sounds like a lot but really isn't if you have any graphics on your site. One reviewer complained that his site had exceeded that bandwidth on month, and freewebs had deleted his site without notice.
Finally, several users complained about freewebs.com having a lot of down time and not being responsive to customer complaints.
Freewebs.com is owned by a company called "UpIn60 Technologies". They have no web presence that I can find.
While Freewebs might be a reasonable service for someone who is a beginner with a personal website, who doesn't care if it goes down every so often and who likes the built-in templates, it appears that Freewebs may not be a good choice for the rest of us. And I am very uncomfortable that their home site does not list pay options (and how much they are) and also, that the TOS neglects to mention the 7 page limit. Perhaps these things are revealed to those who sign up but they should be available to people BEFORE they sign up.
If you have a personal site you wish to put up, most ISP's offer that service as a part of your ISP service and there are no banner ads on those servers either...
I would suggest that since 37 out of 41 reviewers had serious problems with this web host, that freewebs.com is not a good deal...even for free.
