No Place Like Home

by Irene Smith

UPDATE 3/3/2000 -- The amount of space offered has changed at some places and it seems as if many of the free space providers are offering FrontPage extensions and access. It also looks like many places are now setting up affiliate programs for their users as well. Pretty soon, there won't have to be anything like a "personal" web site because everyone is going to have something to sell.

I have been compiling links to places that offer free web sites for quite some time now. In fact, I have (or had) sites at many of them. The following list will continue to grow as I find new places, so if you don't find something you like check back. Also, if you should discover that the features offered by a particular provider (such as amount of space, scripts, etc.) has changed, let me know. I'm going to try to keep up, but it's not easy. (Editorial note: NOW I remember why I put this one off for so long. In order to do a good job of it, it takes a long time to go to all those places and find information. Let's make a deal... I'll add a couple pages a day for a while so I give you the best information possible. Let's start with some of the well-known places and go on from there.

1BigParty (Personal)
10 mb storage
Seems to be mostly personal. I didn't see anything that explicitly states that you couldn't have a business site, but most of the suggestions they had for creating a site were for personal sites.

• Can't tell what else they offer, but they do seem to have page creation tools.

50 Megs (Business or Personal)
50 mb storage

• FTP Access
• File Manager
• Guest book
• Web Board
• Form Mail
  

Angelfire (Business or Personal)
5 mb to 30 mb storage
Angelfire has an interesting system for offering web space. They start you with 5 mb and, if you fill that up, you can apply for more. You can have up to 30 mb in 5 mb increments. Several other things have changed at Angelfire as well. You can now upload directly to your own site. In fact, you have regular FTP access and can set up subdirectories and organize the files the way you want. FrontPage access is now available as well, making site maintenance much easier. You can have either a personal or commercial site here, but Angelfire no longer allows you to turn off advertising. They also offer a script library and an associate program you can join to make money from your site.

• FTP Access
• File Manager
• Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Support
• Affiliate Program
• FrontPage Extensions

Family Shoebox (Personal ONLY)
Can't tell how much space they are giving, but the list of services included with membership is interesting. When you join you get:

• a home page
• a newsletter
• calendar
• threaded discussion
• private family chat
• ability to add shoeboxes for other families, family members and friends, and the ability to make some or all of your shoebox private.

Now, from what I can gather after reading their FAQ, the web pages aren't necessarily what you and I think of when we think of web pages. On the other hand, for keeping a large family up-to-date without letting the whole world see what you're up to, this might be just the ticket. I couldn't really find out anything more without actually signing up for a shoebox of my own, and I've got enough web sites to maintain right now. If I find out more, I'll let you know.

Fortune City (Personal ONLY)
100 mb storage

• FTP Access
• File Manager (upload through browser)
• Web-based e-mail
• Guestbook
• Counter
• Limited form handling script.
• Requires banner ad on each page.
• Pages uploaded using file manager or by FTP.
• Includes beginning and advanced page editors.
• Affiliate Program

Infoseek/WBS (Business or Personal)
Unlimited Storage

• Files uploaded using file manager (don't know about FTP) 
• Includes three different web page editors.
• I'm not sure whether the information in this paragraph is still true. I checked the membership agreement recently and didn't see anything about copyright beyond that violators would have their sites removed. At one time there were clauses in the member agreement that said that, by publishing your work there, it becomes their property to do with as they please! Your copyright becomes meaningless and anything you create belongs to them. Worse, it means that you are violating the copyright of anyone whose work you use. For example, if you use linkware graphics, they can take that work as well... leaving you wide open to a lawsuit from the rightful copyright holder. This is the same problem that had many GeoCitizens screaming about when Yahoo first bought them out. (See the GeoCities entry for more information.

TalkCity (Personal ONLY)
12 mb storage. I first got a site here because they were having a contest. TalkCity is more chat oriented that some of the other places. In fact, I think it started as a chat site and then added the web pages as an afterthought.

• FTP Access
• File Manager (upload through browser)
• Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Support
• Guestbook
• Counter
• Chat Rooms
• Auto-inserts pop-up banner code on each page.
• Beginning and advanced page editors.
• TalkCity offers an interesting feature, called the ZineZone, that is advertised as "publishing your own magazine." This isn't quite the reality, but it is kind of a neat way to share information about the things you are interested in. I'm not quite sure I'm comfortable with the way the ZineZone works though, because it creates a frameset and displays other sites from within that frameset. That's why my TalkCity pages all include code to break out of framesets! The link from your ZineZone back to your own site places your site in the ZineZone frame. However, griping aside, I did find some really cool places by exploring the the Irene's Attic ZineZone.
• Affiliate Program

Tripod (Business or Personal)
11 mb storage. This is another place where I had a site when I was first learning HTML and other web design skills.

• FTP Access
• File Manager (upload through browser)
• guestbook
• online answering machine
• Microsoft FrontPage 200 Support
• includes beginning and advanced editors
• Auto-inserts pop-up banner code on each page.
• "Better Builder" program that is supposed to include web tutorials and other help, but although I joined it, I haven't seen much happening yet.
• CGI and JavaScript Library
• Ability to write your own CGI scripts.
• Affiliate program.

Yahoo/GeoCities (Personal ONLY)
15 mb storage

UPDATE: GeoCities has just added support for FrontPage 2000.

Although I marked this Personal ONLY, they do have a business neighborhood. You can place a site about your business but you can't sell anything. (?) Anyway, you can also become a "GeoShops" member for a monthly fee. The only selling allowed on a free site is through the affiliate program.

The first really extensive web site I made was here at GeoCities. I still have the site because it's gotten over 5 MILLION hits over the nearly three years since I set it up. I'm still not quite sure how it managed that, but I just can't quite let it go.

There were a bunch of rumors when Yahoo first bought GeoCities that by posting a site on GeoCities, you gave permission for your content to be used in any way Yahoo and/or GeoCities saw fit. Now they expressly state that they in no way claim any kind of ownership of your material and that they can only use it to promote your site and only for as long as you have a web site at GeoCities. That seems fair.

• FTP Access
• File Manager (upload through browser)
• Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Support
• Subdirectories (finally!) but only two levels deep unless you are a GeoPlus member.
• Several page building applications from beginner to advanced.
• "Pages that Pay" affiliate program.
• Counter
• Guestbook
• Message Board
• CGI library
• Multimedia add-ons