Be Excellent To Each Other

So my house move has totally flummoxed my ISP, to the extent that I've had to let the poor dear go along with my complimentary web space. I've been looking at a few of the web-based services as possible replacements but they're all the same -- Google Sites, Weebly, MS Office Live, Yola... very nice for what they are (apart from the MS offering perhaps) but can you simply upload a complete, custom site? No, they're all site-designer based, sporting templates that -- even where editable -- would take hideous amounts of time to customise, whereas I really want to just upload my own philez.

Move over to straightforward free web space, though, and you're immediately into shonky-ville -- signing up for Yola et al just to discover they weren't what I wanted was bad enough, I can't go through it all over again!

So pals, any suggestions? Is there a nice, free spot for my site out there on the web or do you really only get what you pay for?

I personally wouldn't use any free hosting space. You can get something nice and affordable from http://www.123-reg.co.uk. I think it's something like £20 a year. Very reliable, too.

If you pay for monkeys, you, um, get monkeys?

Likewise, I can't think of a free service that offers anything worth having.

What did Google ever do for us eh?

I'm sure I could google that question and find you an answer...

Don't bother. I'm sure it wouldn't be worth having.

We're talking about ISPs and webspace here, of course.

Free web hosting provider, numbnuts.

Yeah the problem is that all the trustworthy vendors have decided to differentiate themselves on ease of use and simply won't present you with a blank slate. 123 look good (cheers myp) and a bit cheaper than net2, and with a 'proper' host I can at least faff around with scripting and databases 'n' whatnot (never had such luxury so far).

Are there any sites that collate information about how much bandwidth various other sites use? I've got no idea how much is appropriate -- I suspect not very much

Ah. If you want PHP and MySQL support, then you'll need the medium package or upwards. The starter one doesn't offer it.

I run my own server for dicking about with php and sql and trying out CMSs and so on (which I find is easier to do locally than remotely). And I host a few low volume websites on it.

So, umm, depending on what you need, what the site is for, and how mission critical it is, I could possibly sort you out with a temporary home for £0. Just a thought.

Just to add a couple of alternatives, there's also UKHost4U where Consolemad currently sits and EUKHost which hosts my work's website.

Never used either of them, but as long as you stay away from Fasthosts or Heart Internet, you'll generally be fine with the big companies.

NEVER go to a fly-by-night web developer and get him to set up your hosting. I've seen it happen so many times where this has been done and they suddenly jack up the prices and threaten to pull the site if you don't pay them.

I've never had any issues with fasthosts.

They are terrible if you ever want to move away (which a lot of people seemed to want to do when I worked in the industry).

Yeah I noticed that -- their Plus package is similarly priced to net2's Starter, though, making their own Starter pretty sweet if you only need a static site.

I will have a ganders at the other suggestions -- excellent as always, chums!


Now correct me if I'm wrong, but you need a static IP for that, right? I had one with Pipex (my ex) but I'm not sure if Sky (we don't get digital broadcast telly down in the valley so TV+calls+internets makes quite a lot of sense for us) does likewise.

If you don't have a static IP you can use something like DynDNS.

Interesting -- my major concern about hosting at home is security. I'd have a zombie box in no time, most likely.

Yep. So far I seem to have avoided zombination by running OS X, and having a router with a firewall (and only opening the one or two ports necessary).

To be honest I wouldn't want to have a computer running all the time just for this purpose, but it's on for other boring reasons anyway so thought I might as well.

PM me if you want an account to muck about with.

Have a guess which ports are most commonly used by attempts to compromise a web server....

80, 8080, 20 and 21?

And 443, yes.

Apart from having all the passwords stolen, natch..... and when the data centre was under 1 metre of water.

I'd move away but I have too many domains with them. Also, having worked in the industry, I suspect everyone else is just as bad once you scratch the surface.

And haven't they outsourced all support to Poland or somewhere?

And 0891 50 50 50.

Meh - changed my passwords, done. If I was a business, I'd be pissed - but I'm not.

Also, Gloucestershire was under a metre of water - I'm not exactly ready to blame Fasthosts for that one.

Heh. Go on then, what basic security measures should I have taken?

About a year afterwards I received a spam email that repeated the randomly generated password that Fasthosts assigned me for the control panel over and over again. I couldn't write that off as a coincidence.

Also, about 3 months after all that happened was when someone used my credit card details to buy a phone in Leeds. The same credit card Fasthosts had on file at the time of their "problems.

Just saying.

Oh, you've done nothing wrong, it's just that blocking ports is a little redundant when you have to leave open the ones that'll be attacked :0)

That's very generous and I appreciate the offer. I ended up plumping for ukhost4u, though, as their budget offering matches my requirements exactly (fairly small amount of space but with scripting and unlimited bandwidth). I made the sign-up process a bit farcical by not really understanding what kind of account I wanted but it at least gave me the chance to discover that their customer support is excellent.

For the interested, the site is a-this (don't look so shocked that I was checking out free hosts for a business -- that's specifically what MS Office Live is for) and yes, I have a product but it's taking months and months and months to sort the art out. I've probably missed out on thousands. Of pence.