Another Free Web Host: Freehostia.com
While reading through several reddit articles, I stumbled upon a website that was using a web host that I have not heard about before called Freehostia. Since I was in search of a new host for my CronGrab service, I decided to check it out, and to my surprise it met all my criteria; not only it was ad-free, but PHP could open remote files! That is very rare among free web hosts. After filling out a short form, I had a free web hosting account!
Here is an overview of their features:
- Data storage: 250 MB
- Monthly bandwidth: 5 GB
- 10 subdomains
- Detailed bandwidth stats
- 1 MySQL database
- 10 MB MySQL DB space
- Perl enabled
- PHP4 enabled
- Custom 404 error page
As you can see, the features are not too shabby for a free service. But also, if they are not enough, one can always upgrade using their Control Panel. What is great about it, is that you can upgrade feature by feature and don’t have to pick a “package”. For example, an 1 extra MySQL database costs $1/month!
So far I had a great experience with Freehostia and my only beef with them is the old PHP version because I like to work in PHP5. However the time that it takes me to change back to PHP4 is offset by the rare allow_furl_open setting being turned On. But if you don’t care about that setting, I would suggest going with 110MB. Not only they offer PHP5, they also have higher limits (2GB of disk space and 100GB of monthly traffic).
