In case you're interested, here is an article by yours truly. It's called Free & Unlimited: Terms of Service.

This was inspired by previous discussions at Webmaster-Talk. It's open for discussion if you like.

Dave

Very good article. As a "free" webhost, I can relate to alot of what you say. As a "free" host, we have very few constraints, which is why we're so popular. How many "free" hosts will give you 500MB if you have a domain, and 250MB if you use one of our subdomains? We give you cPanel, etc, etc. What's the catch? You follow our Terms of Service? We're VERY strict on that. If you deviate, you will be suspended. Exactly as his article outlined. Very good read. I think I'll recommend it to the staff of my host for reading.

Very impressive article! Good at cutting to the chase.

I too (as a webhost) will recommend it to our staff. It puts things into a good perspective.

We might like to link to an online version of this article at this site. Is that acceptible using the following URL?:
http://www.website-owner.com/guides/...dresources.asp

Thanks for the info...
____________________________________
Mike_FWT
FreeWebTown.com Community
http://www.freewebtown.com
Extending the power of communities online

hmm... i have a "free" host with unlimited bandwith and space, and php, ftp, and i don't know what else.

it's at www.hostultra.com

yeah but the servers can be built infinity times cant it? i mean who said they have to stop building... can the unlimited word be changed to infinity? cuz its just numbers after numbers after numbers

Originally Posted by whhq

yeah but the servers can be built infinity times cant it?

Errr, no. Then you would need an infinite amount of money to buy the equipment, an infinite power source to run it, and an infinite space to put it in. Unless the universe can be transformed into a combined battery/source of income/webserver, then this ain't going to happen (and you still might not have enough... )

I think 'unlimited' is used to draw the distinction between a hosting solution that imposes artificial constraints, such as 'You've had 10GB bandwidth in the last 4 days, so you won't get any more', and those whose only 'constraint' is what they are physically capable of providing.

I have to say that I totally agree with you on that last post Oberon

Originally Posted by HBwebCrAzY

hmm... i have a "free" host with unlimited bandwith and space, and php, ftp, and i don't know what else.

it's at www.hostultra.com

i use hostultra too, and I have an image intensive site. so the 200k upload limit sucks. as well as the automatic timeout on ftp like after 4 seconds. otherwise they are alright. but they delete me alot because of bandwidth that they say is unlimited.

Wow. I just visited the site. My god.

Good read.

its always an limit on what ever you do. no matter what it is.

I like it, yoiu should cover "unmetered" in there too!

We need to re-examine our conception of "unlimited". Some of us here take it to mean "infinite". But what it really means to the hosts (and what they assume we know) is that "unlimited" means "without limit". And they're right. There is no limit. In other words, there isn't a strict cap like 5 MB or 1 GB. So in the end, this puts the cancellation of accounts at the host's discretion. I "feel" like this guy is using up too much space, or I "feel" like that gal is hogging up too much bandwidth. In the end, you're probably going to get a little more leeway than you would get if they actually "limited" the space/transfer.

Wait, isn't that a good thing? So what's the big deal? By saying "unlimited", you really have no clue what the host's threshold is. It could be a couple hundred KB. It could be several GB. Whereas with a "limited" host, you can say, "Wow, I'm approaching my quota of 500 MB of transfer of month; I better upgrade!", you really have no clue where you're at with an "unlimited" host. Personally, I think unlimited hosts are fine for free hosting, but when it comes to paid hosting, stay well clear!