Best Free Web Hosting

So you want to get it on (the net, that is) and you don't want to spend a penny.

In other words, what you're looking for is the BEST FREE WEB HOSTING with a huge emphasis on the first two words of that phrase, right?

Well here ya go...

After signing up with over four dozen web hosting dozen companies, I've come up with a short list of the top freebies. Most of these services will post no banners (read: no ads) on your web pages and a few of them actually provide PHP support and MySQL databases (woohoo!)

Be advised though that using any free web hosting service is precarious at best and there are absolutely no guarantees. Hence —to say the least— they are not really suitable for a small business.

So if you're at all thinking about creating some kind of a professional web presence then I strongly recommend that you go for the whole shebang and sign up with a commercial web host like Hostgator (5$ a month for more goodies and resources than you can shake a stick at).

Having said that and without further ado, let's make with the freebies...

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ATSPACE
ATSPACE.COM is my pick for the best totally free web hosting service if you don't require any server-side scripting like PHP, Perl or SSI to run your website. They are highly professional, your free hosting request will be instantly activated and no banners will be displayed on your site. Here are their details:
GENERAL
FREE DOMAIN HOSTING:	YES (Unlimited)
SUBDOMAINS:	YES (Unlimited)
SUBDOMAIN URL TYPE:	your-name.atspace.com
BANDWIDTH:	Unlimited
DISK SPACE:	50 MB
ADS
FORCED ADS:	NO
YOUR OWN ADS:	YES
SCRIPTING
CGI-BIN:	NO
SCRIPTS SUPPORTED:	NO
SCRIPT INSTALLER:	NO
DATABASES
MySQL:	NO
MYSQL DATABASE SPACE:	N/A
SITE MANAGEMENT
WEB EDITING TOOLS:	NO
FRONT PAGE EXTENSIONS:	NO
CONTROL PANEL:	NO
EMAIL
EMAIL:	POP3 (Unlimited)
SMTP:	NO
UPLOAD
FTP ACCOUNT:	YES
FILE SIZE LIMIT:	200 KB
SUPPORTED FILE TYPES:	Flash okay
STATS
SITE STATS:	NO
ACCESS LOGS:	NO
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50WEBS
50WEBS is another free website hosting service for those who only need to use HTML, CSS and Javascript to create their web presence. They're not quite as professional as AtSpace but they offer a little more disk space. Here are their details:
GENERAL
FREE DOMAIN HOSTING:	YES (Unlimited)
SUBDOMAINS:	YES (Unlimited)
SUBDOMAIN URL TYPE:	your-name.50webs.com
BANDWIDTH:	Unlimited
DISK SPACE:	60 MB
ADS
FORCED ADS:	NO
YOUR OWN ADS:	YES
SCRIPTING
CGI-BIN:	NO
SCRIPTS SUPPORTED:	NO
SCRIPT INSTALLER:	NO
DATABASES
MySQL:	NO
MYSQL DATABASE SPACE:	N/A
SITE MANAGEMENT
WEB EDITING TOOLS:	NO
FRONT PAGE EXTENSIONS:	NO
CONTROL PANEL:	Web-based (very basic)
EMAIL
EMAIL:	POP3
SMTP:	NO
UPLOAD
FTP ACCOUNT:	YES
FILE SIZE LIMIT:	300 KB
SUPPORTED FILE TYPES:	MP3 & Flash okay (refer to FAQ)
STATS
SITE STATS:	NO
ACCESS LOGS:	NO
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FREEHOSTIA
FREEHOSTIA offers up a fabulous and full-featured free web hosting package (and no ads!) for those who need PHP support and a MySQL database for their website. My only gripe with these guys is the sign-up process which asks for a lot of personal information as well as gives the impression that you have to pay for something by requiring you to choose between using a credit card or Paypal. But in fact there is no charge (I just selected the Paypal option and my account was activated instantly, no further questions asked). Other than that, I was very impressed with this hosting setup. Here are their details:
GENERAL
FREE DOMAIN HOSTING:	YES (1)
SUBDOMAINS:	YES (5)
SUBDOMAIN URL TYPE:	your-name.freehostia.com
BANDWIDTH:	5 GB/month
Disk Space:	250 MB
ADS
FORCED ADS:	NO
YOUR OWN ADS:	YES
SCRIPTING
CGI-BIN:	NO
SCRIPTS SUPPORTED:	PHP, Perl, SSI, CGI
SCRIPT INSTALLER:	YES (Elefante Installer)
DATABASES
MySQL:	1
MYSQL DATABASE SPACE:	10 MB
SITE MANAGEMENT
WEB EDITING TOOLS:	NO
FRONT PAGE EXTENSIONS:	YES
CONTROL PANEL:	Web-based
EMAIL
EMAIL:	POP3 (x3)
SMTP:	NO
UPLOAD
FTP ACCOUNT:	YES
FILE SIZE LIMIT:	500 KB
SUPPORTED FILE TYPES:	ALL
STATS
SITE STATS:	YES (Webalizer)
ACCESS LOGS:	YES
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100WEBSPACE
100WEBSPACE is among the oldest and most well established of those offering up free web space hosting. They hand out a full-featured web hosting package which means you get server-side scripting (PHP, Perl, etc), databases, POP3 email and webmail, the whole kit and kaboodle. On top of this their technical support is spectacular. The price of all this is you will have to display their banner ads at the top of all your web pages. The consolation here is that this means they are making money (you want this, believe me) which in turn means they will survive (and so will your site). Here are their details:
GENERAL
FREE DOMAIN HOSTING:	YES (1)
SUBDOMAINS:	YES (5)
SUBDOMAIN URL TYPE:	your-name.[server name].com
BANDWIDTH:	3 GB/month
Disk Space:	100 MB
ADS
FORCED ADS:	Banner and text links at top
YOUR OWN ADS:	YES
SCRIPTING
CGI-BIN:	NO (Scripts run in all directories)
SCRIPTS SUPPORTED:	SSI, PHP, Perl, CGI
SCRIPT INSTALLER:	NO
DATABASES
MySQL:	1
MYSQL DATABASE SPACE:	5MB
SITE MANAGEMENT
WEB EDITING TOOLS:	NO
FRONT PAGE EXTENSIONS:	YES
CONTROL PANEL:	Web based
EMAIL
EMAIL:	3 POP3 accounts, 3 Aliases
SMTP:	NO
UPLOAD
FTP ACCOUNT:	YES
FILE SIZE LIMIT:	500 KB
SUPPORTED FILE TYPES:	No streaming audio/video
STATS
SITE STATS:	Webalizer 2.01
ACCESS LOGS:	NO
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AWARDSPACE
AWARDSPACE provides an outstanding free bannerless web hosting package although it can be a little quirky. The web based control panel is a little slow and clunky and the FTP login has an incredibly short inactivity timeout setting. There's also this list of forbidden words (which is top secret) that cannot be used on your site. If they are used, the web page will reportedly redirect to another (Terms of Service - 5.g). This is reportedly done for legal reasons although forum moderators were unable to explain why AwardSpace was apparently the only free web host that found it necessary to do this. Definitely not my cup of tea but they're getting rave reviews elsewhere so I thought I'd include them. Here are their details:
GENERAL
FREE DOMAIN HOSTING:	YES (2)
SUBDOMAINS:	YES (5)
SUBDOMAIN URL TYPE:	your-name.awardspace.com
BANDWIDTH:	5 GB/month
Disk Space:	200 MB
ADS
FORCED ADS:	NO
YOUR OWN ADS:	YES
SCRIPTING
CGI-BIN:	NO
SCRIPTS SUPPORTED:	PHP, CGI, SSI, Perl
SCRIPT INSTALLER:	YES (Zachy Tools Installer)
DATABASES
MySQL:	1
MYSQL DATABASE SPACE:	N/A
SITE MANAGEMENT
WEB EDITING TOOLS:	NO
FRONT PAGE EXTENSIONS:	YES
CONTROL PANEL:	Web-based
EMAIL
EMAIL:	5
SMTP:	NO
UPLOAD
FTP ACCOUNT:	YES
FILE SIZE LIMIT:	500 KB
SUPPORTED FILE TYPES:	All of the following file types are forbidden: .htacl, .htaclu, .avi, .mov, .mp2, .mp3, .mpeg, .ram, .asf, .quota, .vbs, .shs, .scr, .exe, .cmd, .torrent, .wmv, .wma, .rm, .zip, .htacl, .htaclu, .avi, .mov, .mp2, .mp3, .mpeg, .ram, .asf, .quota, .vbs, .shs, .scr, .exe, .cmd, .torrent, .wmv, .wma, .rm, .zip
STATS
SITE STATS:	YES (kinda sorta)
ACCESS LOGS:	NO
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Feeling a little squeamish about using free web hosting?

Well, here's some more information on what you can expect in the way of commercial web hosting...