I recently was paying out too much money for domain hosting for my many sites and decided to move them to a Free Web Host. I was not aware that it was so filled with a lot of "The Good and the Bad".... mostly bad. In order to move my sites to a free server, I did require certain expectations:

FTP: I swear by using FTP so I can simply drag my updated files to my FTP client (Fetch) in seconds. So, I had to have impeccable FTP access and not be given messages like "traffic is heavy, try again later."

DOMAIN HOSTING: Almost all of my sites are .COM domains, and the free server I needed had to host these. Some free servers only do Subdomains and/or "/you" additions to their name. If you need your domain hosted, make sure the server does this.

POP-UPS or BANNERS: Free servers rely on their advertising, so I expected maybe a pop-up or a banner at top of page. The material advertised, though, had to be Family Oriented (no smut or porn) because most of my sites are for general public or children.

ACCESS SPEED: it was also important that the free server was not prone to take forever for anyone to access my site. Once they typed in my URL, I expected immediate results.

AVAILABLE SPACE: The supplied space the free servers offer is not so important to me. Mostly, my HMTL and image files do not use much space.

RELIABILITY: Have you ever written web servers about a problem and never hear back from them? I have. If, by chance, I did have a problem with the free server's hosting, I wanted quick action and reliable service.

You have no idea how many Free Web Hosts I tried. I found endless directories showing me their names and I signed up and tested so many. I won't mention names, but the results were very very disappointing. Some hosts had "Pop-up Hell" that I could never even see my page for all the endless pop-ups. One filled my monitor with a full-screen pop-up search page that I could not close or move. I had to force-quit Explorer. I almost chose a few until I saw a porno pop-up, and another I could hardly ever log-in to their FTP site.

THE RESULTS? Yes, I did find a Free Web Host that met all my above criteria. They have impeccable FTP access, they do host .COM domains, they do not have pop-ups and only put a small, unobtrusive, general public banner at the top of the page. They are extremely honorable people (in Canada), always willing to help, and I have had zero problems since I moved my domains to their DNS.

WHO IS THIS? I am very happy to tell you that they are NETFIRMS You do not have to be a "business" to use them. Most of my sites are of a personal nature.