[Answered] All You Ever Dreamed Of ?

[JimV8673]

Hi there, i just got my forum up and running on this service, and so far its still accessable. I was just wondering if, for those of you that have used this hosting for awhile, if its at least usable, or is the bad publicity you read about free hosting mostly junk ??

[ExtremeGaming]

As long as you don't write ridiculous code that crashes the server or goes over the limit allowed per user (hard to do) you should be fine. Log in every 30 days, etc. etc. Granted, sometimes some users tend to mess up the servers with load. And like any web company, errors occur. How long it takes to fix depends on severity. Overall I would say it's very usable

[Krydos]

We actually get these "This free hosting service is too good to be true! What's the catch?" questions quite a bit.

 

I know you would rather hear from other users than an admin, but as far as I'm concerned the requirement of logging in every 30 days is the only real catch. A lot of people have the tendency to set up their website, and then once everything is the way they want it they just forget to log in again. After 30 days of not logging in at http://heliohost.org/ your account gets flagged as inactive, you get a reminder email on how to renew your account, and all of your websites and pages show up as suspended until you do. The reason we have to do this is because our servers would quickly become overloaded if we continued hosting every account that was ever created forever. So this helps filter out the accounts that aren't even being used from the ones that are still active. We have active accounts that were created all the way back back in 2007 so that's somewhere around 72 months of logging in to keep that account active. Even if you do forget to log in and your account gets suspended, there is a quick automated way to renew your account and you get email reminders about it too.

 

One of the biggest difference between us and other free hosts is that most other free hosts are owned by a for-profit hosting company, and the only reason they offer free accounts is to try to convert you to a paid account. They figure most people are too lazy to move their websites around between hosts so once they have you hooked with their free account they do everything they can to suck as much money out of you as possible. I've seen a lot of really obnoxious stuff that they do to try to annoy you into paying them money, but since all we do is free accounts you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff here.

[JimV8673]

Well, you are wrong my friend that explanation is exactly what i wanted to hear. #1 because i was wondering about that login thing which you cleared up completely, and #2 because ive learned basically what it takes to stay up and running... Thank you for that friendly and very clear answer to my question, just because youre an Admin dont mean you lie, Im an Admin as well.

 

Oh by the way, i just logged in and checked the stats and find that this is the server load Server Load 6.33 (4 cpus)

 

 

Is that because of me?? if so what can i do to correct it, My forum is still very small with no weird scripts or anything

[Krydos]

this is the server load Server Load 6.33 (4 cpus)

That is the total load for the entire server not just your account. It's optimal under 5, good under 10, and if it goes over 20 websites will start to load slowly and someone might be abusing the server. 6.33 is fine.

[JimV8673]

Thanks

[Shinryuu]

Glad your question got answered!

 

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Just to add my two-cents, I can't imagine a paid host offering you much more.

In terms of uptime, Stevie is pretty strong, and in terms of services Johnny offers

a broad range.

 

A paid host would probably have more servers which would mean

more space and stability, but if you're just trying out site-building and don't have

much in terms of budgeting getting locked into 12+mo hosting plans is probably

more than you're looking for or out of your immediate budget range.

 

The popular unlimited disk space marketing gimmick is bogus,there's usually

a limit, they just assume you'll never notice. The exception is a host that offers

dedicated servers, which is extremely expensive.

 

We're upfront about everything, from server limitations to why we disable some

functions to why your account gets banned (if it does). And if you have a problem or

question you can usually get a quick response as long as somebody has a general

idea what you're talking about.