Hi All,
Just a tip for those who do not know about this opportunity.
With Google Firebase you can host your static Blocs site for free.
Follow this tutorial on how to set things up:
Drawback: You can’t upload server-side stuff like PHP scripts there.
I was checking out the Google firebase website. I’m not all that knowledgeable, but it seems to me that this is mainly used for mobile.
In other words I couldn’t use it to host my exported Blocs HTML folder/files is that correct?
When checking out the side it when checking out it looks quite complicated for a beginner.
I use to host my own: csabakissi.com Created in Blocs of course.
You get also a free SSL certficate and you’re on Google CDN of course. It’s worth to try.
Okay so at this moment I paid for a web hosting service, such as iPage, you’re implying that if I up an account with Google firebase I will not have a yearly fee. Other than PHP what are its limitations? With the host I use I have unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space is that true of the same service?
This isn’t a sensible idea for the average blocs user and I feel it’s not a sensible idea for anyone.
This solution would stop contact forms working and I suspect (I don’t know) a big rigmarole with setting up domain forwarding.
If you can save hosting costs for a year, you’ll pay for it with a load of hassle that you otherwise wouldn’t have.
Am I wrong?
I’ve just spent 10 minutes looking for clever simple solutions like hosting on your own computer or using Dropbox etc and concluded they are too much hassle for most users. In the end I Googled “free web hosting” and found this Best free web hosting sites of 2023: Get Hostinger for $0 | TechRadar
When looking at free hosts, also look at the restrictions they may impose and at user reviews of their services.
Free services are essentially a funnel to a revenue stream somewhere and it’s that revenue stream that funds the free clientele. If the free service was as good as the paid-for service, nobody would be paying for their hosting.
So look for free hosting but be aware of what it doesn’t offer and see if that’s a good fit for you.
I really can’t believe anyone would want to use a free hosting plan. Hosting plans are so affordable. If you do the hosting for a client you just pass along the cost. I want the expertise of the hosting company for support.
Casey
As Casey rightly says, hosting plans can be very affordable nowadays, but I suppose some might want to make use of it if they were running a community website or something like that. Maybe even students for school projects etc.
I’m sure there are some who maybe need a free service, like your examples. I would think maybe they would use something like wix?
Casey
Yes that or Weebly or something similarly awful.
I recently produced a website for a local church choir in a small village that had been using one of these free services. From the first contact I discovered that if you visited the site on desktop it looked OK, but on a mobile the the visitor was presented with a rather different website of a more adult nature selling assorted gizmos. Free maybe, but at some cost…
Wix is a joke. You pay 4.5EUR/month and they still display ads on your site. Massive online campaigns they do makes them profitable though.
There have been times when I have landed on a Wix site with an adblocker enabled and all I see is a blank white page. That’s not good.