Free web hosting service
Encyclopedia
A free web hosting service is a web hosting service
Web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet...

 that is free, usually advertisement
Internet marketing
Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, online marketing, search marketing or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing of products or services over the Internet...

-supported.

Free web hosts will usually provide a subdomain
Subdomain
In the Domain Name System hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain.- Overview :The Domain Name System has a tree structure or hierarchy, with each node on the tree being a domain name. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain, the only domain that is not...

 (yoursite.example.com) or a directory (www.example.com/~yourname). In contrast, paid web hosts will usually provide a second-level domain
Second-level domain
In the Domain Name System hierarchy, a second-level domain is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain . For example, in example.com, example is the second-level domain of the .com TLD....

 along with the hosting (www.yourname.com). Many free hosts do allow use of separately-purchased domain
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....

s. Rarely, a free host may also operate as a domain name registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...

.
There are also some free domain companies which may provide free 3rd level domain names free with dns and other facilities.

Usually free webhosts are based on Linux based servers with support to php,mysql and cgi based scripts.
The most commonly used control panel for these type of hosting is WHM
CPanel
cPanel is a Linux based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site...

 and vistapanel.

File hosting on free webhosts

Many free web hosting services discourage the use of their free web hosting services for file or image hosting only in which no web page
Web page
A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...

 is established or setup resulting in the use of bandwidth due to hot linking of files with no revenue gain to the service provider in the case of advertising supported services. As a result, hot linking or remote linking or inclusion of many image, media and download file formats is disabled or not permitted on many free web hosting services.

Other common limitations on file hosting limits on free hosts are limits on file size, for example no files over 5 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

 or file types such as programs or large media files such as MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

.

This has resulted in the growth of free hosting services dedicated to image hosting, video hosting and general file hosting which permit remote hotlinking of files and larger file formats.

Co-branding and resellers

These let you brand fixed plans with your own company. Other services, offer WHM
CPanel
cPanel is a Linux based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site...

 or panel reselling. This allows the client to develop his or her own web hosting plans and business.

Some customization commonly afforded to the co-branding or reseller owner would be the ability to set service quotas, to add, enable, disable or remove features of resold accounts, custom reseller or co-branded website, private label DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

and backend services among other items to differentiate the individual's service from the parent company of which they are a reseller or co-branded provider.

The key difference between co-branded and reseller services is the level of customization afforded to the individual setting up their own free hosting service and the level of autonomy afforded to the individual service owner.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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