#free html hosting

[birdbutt]

neopets players should totally check out the eyrie section of the beauty contest this week 0:-)

(or just come check me out! I like new ppl, little chats, and rps)

[balkanradfem]

Just got an email about webs.com closing down. That was a good website hosting site, I had about 4 silly little websites on there, I can't move them anywhere because there is no longer a free hosting site that allows you to upload your own html and css, it's all template-based now.

I'm so sad, we're losing all of our rich and individually-created content! All that was done in the 90s and that made internet weird and interesting. All of the cringy stuff that used to make us happy, or made us feel like we're special. RIP Webs. I will miss you.

[shrineofdolls]

I don't want to be on twitter cus Elon but the art there is so good ughnhhhh

[thunderlina]

In the wake of the TikTok ban and revival as a mouthpiece for fascist propaganda, as well as the downfall of Twitter and Facebook/Facebook-owned platforms to the same evils, I think now is a better time than ever to say LEARN HTML!!! FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE SHACKLES OF MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND EMBRACE THE INDIE WEB!!!

You can host a website on Neocities for free as long as it's under 1GB (which is a LOT more than it sounds like let me tell you) but if that's not enough you can get 50GB of space (and a variety of other perks) for only $5 a month.

And if you can't/don't want to pay for the extra space, sites like File Garden and Catbox let you host files for free that you can easily link into NeoCities pages (I do this to host videos on mine!) (It also lets you share files NeoCities wouldn't let you upload for free anyways, this is how I upload the .zip files for my 3DS themes on my site.)

Don't know how to write HTML/CSS? No problem. W3schools is an invaluable resource with free lessons on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and a whole slew of other programming languages, both for web development and otherwise.

Want a more traditional social media experience? SpaceHey is a platform that mimics the experience of 2000s MySpace

Struggling to find independent web pages that cater to your interests via major search engines? I've got you covered. Marginalia and Wiby are search engines that specifically prioritize non-commercial content. Marginalia also has filters that let you search for more specific categories of website, like wikis, blogs, academia, forums, and vintage sites.

Maybe you wanna log off the modern internet landscape altogether and step back into the pre-social media web altogether, well, Protoweb lets you do just that. It's a proxy service for older browsers (or really just any browser that supports HTTP, but that's mostly old browsers now anyways) that lets you visit restored snapshots of vintage websites.

Protoweb has a lot of Geocities content archived, but if you're interested in that you can find even more old Geocities sites over on the Geocities Gallery

And really this is just general tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. If you dig a little deeper you can find loads more interesting stuff out there. The internet doesn't have to be a miserable place full of nothing but doomposting and targeted ads. The first step to making it less miserable is for YOU, yes YOU, to quit spending all your time on it looking at the handful of miserable websites big tech wants you to spend all your time on.

[mtech4you]

Free Secure Web Hosting for Students or Individuals for Learning Purposes

दोस्त आज मैं आपको बहोत ही खास जानकारी देना चाहता हूँ जो शायद अभी तक आपको इसके बारे में पता नहीं होगा और इसीलिए आप इस आर्टिकल में आये है, अगर आपके पास होस्टिंग और डोमेन खरीदने के पैसे नहीं हैं, तो घबराने की जरूरत ��हीं है। आज के इस आर्टिकल में मैं आपको बताऊंगा कि कैसे आप Free Resources का इस्तेमाल करके ब्लॉगिंग, वेबसाइट डिजाइनिंग, और वेब डेवेलपमेंट जैसी Skills को बिना पैसे खर्च किए सीख सकते…

[bogleech]

Going to put all this in its own post too by popular request: here's how you make your own website with no understanding of HTML code at all, no software, no backend, absolutely nothing but a text file and image files! First get website server space of your own, like at NEOCITIES. The free version has enough room to host a whole fan page, your art, a simple comic series, whatever! The link I've provided goes to a silly comic that will tell you how to save the page as an html file and make it into a page for your own site. The bare minimum of all you need to do with it is JUST THIS:

Change the titles, text, and image url's to whatever you want them to be, upload your image files and the html file together to your free website (or the same subfolder in that website), and now you have a webpage with those pictures on it. That's it!!!!! .....But if you want to change some more super basic things about it, here's additional tips from the same terrible little guy:

That last code by itself is: <meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=001.html"> Change "001.html" to wherever you want that link to take people. THIS IS THE REASON WHY when you go to bogleech.com/pokemon/ you are taken instantly to the newest Pokemon review, because the /pokemon/ directory of my website has an "index.html" page with this single line of code. Every pokemon review has its own permanent link, but I change that single line in the index file so it points to the newest page whenever I need it to! While I catered these instructions to updating a webcomic, you can use the same template to make blog type posts, articles or just image galleries. Anything you want! You can delete the navigational links entirely, you can make your site's index.html into a simple list of text links OR fun little image links to your different content, whatever! Your website can be nothing but a big ugly deep fried JPEG of goku with a recipe for potato salad on it, no other content ever, who cares! We did that kind of nonsense all the time in the 1990's and thought it was the pinnacle of comedy!! Maybe it still can be?!?! Or maybe you just want a place to put some artwork and thoughts of yours that doesn't come with the same baggage as big social media? Make a webpage this way and it will look the same in any browser, any operating system for years and years to come, because it's the same kind of basic raw code most of the internet depends upon!

[kafus]

genuinely frustrated and upset about how much using neocities as a filehosting service is being spread everywhere. they disable hotlinking for non-html files for free accounts so it won’t even work properly for those purposes and even supporter accounts are asked not to be used as a file dump host directly by the website. neocities offers a service that no other website provides and that i think is extremely important, but they sure don’t make a ton of money doing it. please, please, do not use neocities as a filehost, they don’t want you to and i don’t want you to either. there is a reason they ask users not to

[numbpill]

========================================================

[tutorial: build your own neocities/nekoweb page]

========================================================

a beginner's guide for making your very own home on the indie web—retro, personal, weird, and 100% yours.

this ain’t an average wix, squarespace, or tiktok aesthetic.

we’re talking full html/css with soul and attitude.

[ prerequisites ]

------------------

> an idea

> basic text editor (vscode, notepad++, or even notepad)

> account on https://neocities.org or https://nekoweb.org

> some gifs or tiles you love (dig deep or make your own)

> optional: image host or gif repo (or self-host everything)

[ feeling overwhelmed? read this. ]

-----------------------------------

you do *not* need to know everything.

html is not a mountain. it's a garden.

you plant one tag. then another. then a style. then a button.

you can build your site piece by piece.

and every piece is a portal to somewhere personal.

you are allowed to make broken pages.

you are allowed to use templates.

you are allowed to start over as many times as you want.

this is *your* world. you control the weird.

[ step 1: create an account ]

-----------------------------

> neocities: https://neocities.org

> nekoweb: https://nekoweb.org

register a name, log in, and enter your file manager.

this is where you upload your files and see your site live.

[ step 2: your first file - index.html ]

----------------------------------------

make a new file: `index.html`

basic starter:

<html>

<head>

<title>my weird little corner</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">

</head>

<body>

<h1>welcome to the void</h1>

<p>this is my page. it’s strange. like me.</p>

<img src="mygif.gif">

</body>

</html>

> upload to the dashboard

> boom. you’re live at

https://yoursite.neocities.org

or https://nekoweb.org/u/yoursite

[ step 3: add a style sheet - style.css ]

-----------------------------------------

create a file called `style.css` and upload it.

here’s some nostalgic magic:

body {

background: url('tile.gif');

color: lime;

font-family: "Courier New", monospace;

text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 black;

}

img {

image-rendering: pixelated;

}

marquee {

font-size: 20px;

color: magenta;

}

link it in your html and the vibes activate.

[ step 4: decorate it like a haunted usb ]

------------------------------------------

> use <marquee> for chaos scrolls

> embed gifs from https://gifcities.org/

> steal buttons from https://cyber.dabamos.de/88x31/

> set up a guestbook at https://www.smartgb.com/

> loop audio with <audio autoplay loop>

> add fake errors, 90s web lore, random link lists

[ step 5: resources, themes, and comfort ]

------------------------------------------

> templates & layouts: https://numbpilled-themes.tumblr.com

> glitchy gifs & buttons: https://glitchcat.neocities.org/resources

> layout builder: https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/

> free tiled backgrounds: https://backgrounds.neocities.org/

> beginner html intro: https://www.w3schools.com/html/

> pixel fonts & cyber assets: https://fontstruct.com/

remember:

you don't need to know js. you don't need to be a coder.

you just need a mood, a direction, a dream.

the html will follow.

[ bonus concept: shrine pages ]

-------------------------------

> a page just for one character you love

> a room to house digital fragments of your identity

> embed quotes, music, images like altars

> call it shrine.html and link it from your homepage

[ closing mantra ]

------------------

you are not here to be optimized.

you are not a brand.

you are a ghost inside the machine,

carving your initials into the silicon void.

welcome to Your website.

========================================================

[subjectsix]

KIP'S BIG POST OF THINGS TO MAKE THE INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY SUCK A LITTLE LESS

Post last updated November 23, 2024. Will continue to update!

Here are my favorite things to use to navigate technology my own way:

A refurbished iPod loaded with Rockbox OS (Rockbox is free, iPods range in price. I linked the site I got mine from. Note that iPods get finicky about syncing and the kind of cord it has— it may still charge but might not recognize the device to sync. Getting an original Apple cord sometimes helps). Rockbox has ports for other MP3 players as well.

This Windows debloater program (there are viable alternatives out there, this one works for me). It has a powershell script that give you a little UI and buttons to press, which I appreciate, as I'm still a bit shy with tech.

Firefox with the following extensions: - Consent-O-Matic (set your responses to ALL privacy/cookie pop-ups in the extension, and it will answer all pop-ups for you. I can see reasons to not use it, but I appreciate it) - Facebook Container ("contains" Meta on Facebook and Instagram pages to keep it from tracking you or getting third party cookies, since Meta is fairly egregious about it) - Redirect Amp to HTML (AMP is designed for mobile phones, this forces pages to go to their HTML version) - A WebP/AVIF image converter - uBlock Origin and uBlacklist, with the AI blacklist loaded in to kill any generative AI results from appearing in search engines or anywhere.

Handbrake for ripping DVDs— I haven’t used this in awhile as I haven’t been making video edits. I used this back when I had a Mac OS

VLC Media Player (ol’ reliable)

Unsplash & Pexels for free-to-use images

A password manager (these often are paid. I use Dashlane. There are many options, feel free to search around and ask for recs!). There is a lot that goes into cybersecurity— find the option you feel is best for you.

Things I suggest:

Understanding Royalty Free and the Creative Commons licenses

Familiarity with boolean operators for searching

Investing in a backup drive and external drive

A few good USBs, including one that has a backup of your OS on it

Adapter cables

Avoiding Fandom “wikias” (as in the brand “Fandom”) and supporting other, fan-run or supported wikis. Consider contributing if its something you find yourself passionate or joyful about.

Finding Forums for the things you like, or creating your own*

Create an email specifically for ads/shopping— use it to receive all promotional emails to keep your inbox clean. Upkeep it.

Stop putting so much of your personal information online— be willing to separate your personal online identity from your “online identity”. You don’t owe people your name, location, pronouns, diagnoses, or any of that. It’s your choice, but be discerning in what you give and why. I recommend avoiding providing your phone number to sites as much as possible.

Be intentional

Ask questions

Talk to people

Remember that you can lurk all you want

Things that are fun to check out:

BBSes-- here's a portal to access them.

Neocities

*Forums-- find some to join, or maybe host your own? The system I was most familiar with was vbulletin.

MMM.page

Things that have worked well for me but might work for you, YMMV:

Limit your app usage time on your smartphone if you’re prone to going back to them— this is a tangible way to “practice mindfulness”, a term I find frustratingly vague ansjdbdj

Things I’m looking into:

The “Pi Hole”— a raspberry pi set up to block all ads on a specific internet connection

VPNs-- this is one that was recommended to me.

How to use computers (I mean it): Resources on how to understand your machine and what you’re doing, even if your skill and knowledge level is currently 0:

This section I'll come back an add to. I know that messing with computers can be intimidating, especially if you feel out of your depth. HTML and regedits and especially things like dualbooting or linux feel impossible. So I want to put things here that explain exactly how the internet and your computer functions, and how you can learn and work with that. Yippee!

[neoskitties]

Welcome to NeoSkitties - your guide to the indie web!

Run by Stahl of Steel-Type and Homura... who doesn't currently have a website or socials (she's shy)

We're here to encourage Trainers to try their hand at HTML and CSS and put together a fun hand-coded website! We're here to help!

Join the tumblr community

//OOC under the cut

this is a parody of Neocities, a web host you can use to host your very own website for FREE! Eventually, I'll have a masterlist of webmastery things and such but we're pretty bare-bones for now. If you have any questions feel free to message me!

Stahl's Rotomblr is @steel-type-stahl

Homura doesn't have any socials or anything yet, maybe with enough pestering you can convince her to make a blog ;)

[liquidcrystalsky]

hey you, make your own website.

sure you can use neocities or carrd or strawpage or whatever whatever but also. make your own from scratch!

there's plenty of free website hosters, github(owned by microsoft), gitlab, and cloudflare have "pages" services which are all free and you can just host whatever html pages even use things like static site generators as well to help yourself from copying and pasting.

if you have your own domains you can also use those, and other than digging deep into web requests or stupid shit there's no way to know you're not hosting it yourself.

i use cloudflare pages, but github/gitlab pages is probably much easier, and if you dont like it, you can just pick it up and move it somewhere else. if you have a custom domain as well you dont even have to tell people "move to the new website". you're not tied down to any service and the site is what you have

It's very flexible too! for beginners you can just put raw html and css and upload it and it'll show, if you need more than this, you can just add more.

my website, ranid.space, also uses cloudflare pages (it can be easily done on the other two), and it's generated using Astro with templates i've created, it has a [shitty] blog Content Management System with an Atom feed, there's pages with javascript, and i even have SEO optimizations (i was really bored okay i really dont care if i show up on google).

it is as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

it is literally JUST hosting your own website you have full and entire control over. note it's a static website so you cant really do things like live updates without connecting it to another server, however for posting to a blog once in a while it's perfectly fine

i've not used gitlab pages, it seems to be a bit more manual setup than github pages, but i think beyond that first setup it's the same

[bloodpraxis]

I finished coding my Rogue Trader character sheet template! It's now open sourced on GitHub 🤖

☆ Features

Display your character's stats in (almost) the same way as you've seen in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader CRPG

Multiple sections for character building:

Summary: Character origin info, alignment level, history, and biography.

Features: Show off your build by listing abilities & talents that your character has gained throughout the course of the game.

Inventory: Your Rogue Trader's equipment, armour, etc. goes here.

Relations: Detail the relationship of your Rogue Trader and their retinue members.

Gallery: Place to show off your fanart, commissioned art, fanfics, playlist. Anything goes!

Cool floating servo skulls (only visible in certain screen sizes).

Responsive. Not horrible to look at even in small screens.

☆ Requirements

You would need a static site hosting service for this to work. I recommend Neocities or GitHub pages. Both are free.

Some experience with using npm.

Some experience with basic HTML and JS object/JSON is recommended.

I really wish that it's easier to use and set up, but it's just not possible due to the tech stack I chose initially... I did write a beginner's tutorial on the repository's wiki, but I don't know if it makes sense to normal people who do not code... If you have any questions, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Tech stack: SvelteKit, SCSS, TypeScript

Bonus:

Name too long? No problem :)

[stellophiliac]

you should make a website!

"my favorite social media site is shutting down!"

"the CEO of the site i use just committed another atrocity!"

"i want a webspace that's all my own!"

if any of these sound like you (and if you're on tumblr, i know at least one applies) you should make your own website!

why make a website?

incredibly customizable

you can put whatever you want on it

it's, well, your own! like a house you build with your own hands

things you'll need

a computer. you can maybe get away with doing this on a mobile device, but i have zero experience there

a code editor. i like VScodium, which is a de-microsoft-ed version of VScode.

a will to learn ;)

site hosting

neocities. everyone knows neocities. at this point i do feel like it's become a bit too centralized, but it's a good option nonetheless. do note that there are filetype restrictions for free users, but that shouldn't be a huge issue for most. what may be an issue, though, is that there's a content security policy that prevents sites made after jan 1st, 2024 to use outside scripts. also, you have to pay to use your own domain

nekoweb. similar to neocities, but there's no filetype restrictions or a content security policy. some differences are outlined in the FAQ (thinking about moving here... i am a traitor...) i'm not sure if domain support is free or paid.

github pages or codeberg pages. you'll need an understanding of git for this

pages.gay: run by besties.house, uses git

teacake: free hosting is currently closed, but paid hosting starts at 2 bucks a month.

leprd.space: i know next to nothing about this.

a web server. don't recommend this if you don't know computer stuff but it is an option (you'll likely have to provide your own domain though)

gripes & solutions (?)

i'm not comfortable maintaining pages in pure HTML / templating with JS sucks!

with a static site generator, you can write pages in markdown and they'll be converted into HTML and (if you'd like) be put into a template of your choosing. my personal choice is 11ty but there are tons of options!

static site generators can be a bit of a learning curve (and you will have to write some html for templating) but if you're making a lot of pages or blogging regularly it's something to consider

there are starters for 11ty online but i might make a more beginner-proofed starter and/or guide in the future? don't count on it

i don't want to write/maintain CSS

simpleCSS is a tiny CSS file you can use to make semantic HTML ("naked" HTML) look nice. it's got decent customization options too. it's not particularly fancy or opinionated, but it's a good starting point if you need something

i don't know what to put on my website!

small list of ideas:

weblog

art/writing/music gallery

movie/show/book tracker

place to store bookmarks/links

scary! i'm scared!

my askbox/messages/e-mail inbox/etc. are open to anyone who'd like to ask for help!

[zarla-s]

how did you start up a website, mainly getting the domain? You ended up making that post about the cool link just as I was going down a rabbit hole of research on how to get my own website up for a bakery I want to start up years in the future.

Personally I use AMS Computer Services for my site, I've used them for an incredibly long time and they've always been very steady and reliable. Cheap too at 4$ a month! AMS also does domain names for you for about 20$ a year. You can buy a domain name separately from your hosting if you want, although that always seemed kind of finicky to me...

There are also free options for site hosting too of course! Neocities is a big one, and for 5$ a month you can get a custom domain name for your Neocities site too if you want. Nekoweb is also an option if you're looking for a free hosting service! Hmm, Nekoweb doesn't have file type limitations... I should look into if it'd be a good place to host an Ukagaka's network updates.

If you're looking more into how to make a webpage in terms of like, HTML and CSS and things like that, there are tons of guides out there to help you! I did a round-up post for them a while back, hehe.

[anstarwar]

Can you tell me how you post your art on Ao3? I keep trying and failing. Maybe it's my image hosting site?

Hey! Sure I'll attempt to explain. It's possible it's your hosting site, but hard to say. I use a site called Maltshop, or more accurately MLTSHP. It's been working great for me since I started using it but the downside is that it is a paid hosting service at $3 per year. I know not everyone can do that though, but if you're able to throw them $3 per year it could be worth it. At that tier they allow for up to 300MBs per month uploads. They have a $24 per year tier that is unlimited file size uploads. Another benefit - and this may not apply to you, but maybe someone who's reading this - is that they allow for Adult/Mature/NSFW whatever you want to call it image hosting.

Here's my process - and keep in mind this is just for adding an image. If I'm adding an image to a fic then I start a new post on Ao3, paste the fic in first, then add the image in the body of the fic where I want it also following this process:

I go to MLTSHP and upload my image. It thinks for a second then gives me two URLs. A "post url" and an "image url." I copy the "image url"

2. Then I go over to Ao3, click "new post," add all that necessary stuff it asks you to add like title, tags, summary, etc. then in the actual Work Text editor box I click "Rich Text." That's key as it defaults to "HTML" editor when you start your new post and while some people are awesome and good at HTML, I am not that "some people" and need my Rich Text editing box.

3. When you're in the Rich Text editor version of the Work Text box, click the little image icon

4. A dialogue box will pop up where you can paste that Image URL link from step 1 above. You can then add your Alt Text (called Image Description) and adjust the size of your image, then click save

5. Then I futz with the sizing for a bit, make sure all the necessary post info is included, add text if there's any to go along with your image - ya know like if you have a whole fic you're posting, then preview, then post the image and voila!

And that's my entire image posting on Ao3 process! I hope it helps, but if you need further help, feel free to DM me!

[komaedalovemail]

komaedas have you tried straw.page?

(i hope you don't mind if i make a big ollllle webdev post off this!)

i have never tried straw.page but it looks similar to carrd and other WYSIWYG editors (which is unappealing to me, since i know html/css/js and want full control of the code. and can't hide secrets in code comments.....)

my 2 cents as a web designer is if you're looking to learn web design or host long-term web projects, WYSIWYG editors suck doodooass. you don't learn the basics of coding, someone else does it for you! however, if you're just looking to quickly host images, links to your other social medias, write text entries/blogposts, WYSIWYG can be nice.

toyhouse, tumblr, deviantart, a lot of sites implement WYSIWYG for their post editors as well, but then you can run into issues relying on their main site features for things like the search system, user profiles, comments, etc. but it can be nice to just login to your account and host your information in one place, especially on a platform that's geared towards that specific type of information. (toyhouse is a better example of this, since you have a lot of control of how your profile/character pages look, even without a premium account) carrd can be nice if you just want to say "here's where to find me on other sites," for example. but sometimes you want a full website!

---------------------------------------

neocities hosting

currently, i host my website on neocities, but i would say the web2.0sphere has sucked some doodooass right now and i'm fiending for something better than it. it's a static web host, e.g. you can upload text, image, audio, and client-side (mostly javascript and css) files, and html pages. for the past few years, neocities' servers have gotten slower and slower and had total blackouts with no notices about why it's happening... and i'm realizing they host a lot of crypto sites that have crypto miners that eat up a ton of server resources. i don't think they're doing anything to limit bot or crypto mining activity and regular users are taking a hit.

↑ page 1 on neocitie's most viewed sites we find this site. this site has a crypto miner on it, just so i'm not making up claims without proof here. there is also a very populated #crypto tag on neocities (has porn in it tho so be warned...).

---------------------------------------

dynamic/server-side web hosting

$5/mo for neocities premium seems cheap until you realize... The Beautiful World of Server-side Web Hosting!

client-side AKA static web hosting (neocities, geocities) means you can upload images, audio, video, and other files that do not interact with the server where the website is hosted, like html, css, and javascript. the user reading your webpage does not send any information to the server like a username, password, their favourite colour, etc. - any variables handled by scripts like javascript will be forgotten when the page is reloaded, since there's no way to save it to the web server. server-side AKA dynamic web hosting can utilize any script like php, ruby, python, or perl, and has an SQL database to store variables like the aforementioned that would have previously had nowhere to be stored.

there are many places in 2024 you can host a website for free, including: infinityfree (i use this for my test websites :B has tons of subdomains to choose from) [unlimited sites, 5gb/unlimited storage], googiehost [1 site, 1gb/1mb storage], freehostia [5 sites/1 database, 250mb storage], freehosting [1 site, 10gb/unlimited storage]

if you want more features like extra websites, more storage, a dedicated e-mail, PHP configuration, etc, you can look into paying a lil shmoney for web hosting: there's hostinger (this is my promocode so i get. shmoney. if you. um. 🗿🗿🗿) [$2.40-3.99+/mo, 100 sites/300 databases, 100gb storage, 25k visits/mo], a2hosting [$1.75-12.99+/mo, 1 site/5 databases, 10gb/1gb storage], and cloudways [$10-11+/mo, 25gb/1gb]. i'm seeing people say to stay away from godaddy and hostgator. before you purchase a plan, look up coupons, too! (i usually renew my plan ahead of time when hostinger runs good sales/coupons LOL)

here's a big webhost comparison chart from r/HostingHostel circa jan 2024.

---------------------------------------

domain names

most of the free website hosts will give you a subdomain like yoursite.has-a-cool-website-69.org, and usually paid hosts expect you to bring your own domain name. i got my domain on namecheap (enticing registration prices, mid renewal prices), there's also porkbun, cloudflare, namesilo, and amazon route 53. don't use godaddy or squarespace. make sure you double check the promo price vs. the actual renewal price and don't get charged $120/mo when you thought it was $4/mo during a promo, certain TLDs (endings like .com, .org, .cool, etc) cost more and have a base price (.car costs $2,300?!?). look up coupons before you purchase these as well!

namecheap and porkbun offer something called "handshake domains," DO NOT BUY THESE. 🤣🤣🤣 they're usually cheaper and offer more appealing, hyper-specific endings like .iloveu, .8888, .catgirl, .dookie, .gethigh, .♥, .❣, and .✟. I WISH WE COULD HAVE THEM but they're literally unusable. in order to access a page using a handshake domain, you need to download a handshake resolver. every time the user connects to the site, they have to provide proof of work. aside from it being incredibly wasteful, you LITERALLY cannot just type in the URL and go to your own website, you need to download a handshake resolver, meaning everyday internet users cannot access your site.

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hosting a static site on a dynamic webhost

you can host a static (html/css/js only) website on a dynamic web server without having to learn PHP and SQL! if you're coming from somewhere like neocities, the only thing you need to do is configure your website's properties. your hosting service will probably have tutorials to follow for this, and possibly already did some steps for you. you need to point the nameserver to your domain, install an SSL certificate, and connect to your site using FTP for future uploads. FTP is a faster, alternative way to upload files to your website instead of your webhost's file upload system; programs like WinSCP or FileZilla can upload using FTP for you.

if you wanna learn PHP and SQL and really get into webdev, i wrote a forum post at Mysidia Adoptables here, tho it's sorted geared at the mysidia script library itself (Mysidia Adoptables is a free virtual pet site script, tiny community. go check it out!)

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file storage & backups

a problem i have run into a lot in my past like, 20 years of internet usage (/OLD) is that a site that is free, has a small community, and maybe sounds too good/cheap to be true, has a higher chance of going under. sometimes this happens to bigger sites like tinypic, photobucket, and imageshack, but for every site like that, there's like a million of baby sites that died with people's files. host your files/websites on a well-known site, or at least back it up and expect it to go under!

i used to host my images on something called "imgjoe" during the tinypic/imageshack era, it lasted about 3 years, and i lost everything hosted on there. more recently, komaedalovemail had its webpages hosted here on tumblr, and tumblr changed its UI so custom pages don't allow javascript, which prevented any new pages from being edited/added. another test site i made a couple years ago on hostinger's site called 000webhost went under/became a part of hostinger's paid-only plans, so i had to look very quickly for a new host or i'd lose my test site.

if you're broke like me, looking into physical file storage can be expensive. anything related to computers has gone through baaaaad inflation due to crypto, which again, I Freaquing Hate, and is killing mother nature. STOP MINING CRYPTO this is gonna be you in 1 year

...um i digress. ANYWAYS, you can archive your websites, which'll save your static assets on The Internet Archive (which could use your lovely donations right now btw), and/or archive.today (also taking donations). having a webhost service with lots of storage and automatic backups can be nice if you're worried about file loss or corruption, or just don't have enough storage on your computer at home!

if you're buying physical storage, be it hard drive, solid state drive, USB stick, whatever... get an actual brand like Western Digital or Seagate and don't fall for those cheap ones on Amazon that claim to have 8,000GB for $40 or you're going to spend 13 days in windows command prompt trying to repair the disk and thenthe power is gong to go out in your shit ass neighvborhood and you have to run it tagain and then Windows 10 tryes to update and itresets the /chkdsk agin while you're awayfrom town nad you're goig to start crytypting and kts just hnot going tot br the same aever agai nikt jus not ggiog to be the saeme

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further webhosting options

there are other Advanced options when it comes to web hosting. for example, you can physically own and run your own webserver, e.g. with a computer or a raspberry pi. r/selfhosted might be a good place if you're looking into that!

if you know or are learning PHP, SQL, and other server-side languages, you can host a webserver on your computer using something like XAMPP (Apache, MariaDB, PHP, & Perl) with minimal storage space (the latest version takes up a little under 1gb on my computer rn). then, you can test your website without needing an internet connection or worrying about finding a hosting plan that can support your project until you've set everything up!

there's also many PHP frameworks which can be useful for beginners and wizards of the web alike. WordPress is one which you're no doubt familiar with for creating blog posts, and Bluehost is a decent hosting service tailored to WordPress specifically. there's full frameworks like Laravel, CakePHP, and Slim, which will usually handle security, user authentication, web routing, and database interactions that you can build off of. Laravel in particular is noob-friendly imo, and is used by a large populace, and it has many tutorials, example sites built with it, and specific app frameworks.

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addendum: storing sensitive data

if you decide to host a server-side website, you'll most likely have a login/out functionality (user authentication), and have to store things like usernames, passwords, and e-mails. PLEASE don't launch your website until you're sure your site security is up to snuff!

when trying to check if your data is hackable... It's time to get into the Mind of a Hacker. OWASP has some good cheat sheets that list some of the bigger security concerns and how to mitigate them as a site owner, and you can look up filtered security issues on the Exploit Database.

this is kind of its own topic if you're coding a PHP website from scratch; most frameworks securely store sensitive data for you already. if you're writing your own PHP framework, refer to php.net's security articles and this guide on writing an .htaccess file.

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but. i be on that phone... :(

ok one thing i see about straw.page that seems nice is that it advertises the ability to make webpages from your phone. WYSIWYG editors in general are more capable of this. i only started looking into this yesterday, but there ARE source code editor apps for mobile devices! if you have a webhosting plan, you can download/upload assets/code from your phone and whatnot and code on the go. i downloaded Runecode for iphone. it might suck ass to keep typing those brackets.... we'll see..... but sometimes you're stuck in the car and you're like damn i wanna code my site GRRRR I WANNA CODE MY SITE!!!

↑ code written in Runecode, then uploaded to Hostinger. Runecode didn't tell me i forgot a semicolon but Hostinger did... i guess you can code from your webhost's file uploader on mobile but i don't trust them since they tend not to autosave or prompt you before closing, and if the wifi dies idk what happens to your code.

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ANYWAYS! HAPPY WEBSITE BUILDING~! HOPE THIS HELPS~!~!~!

-Mod 12 @eeyes