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I remember trying it out several years ago, when I was experimenting with hosting my website for the first times. The UX was terrible just as it is now, and I ended up never actually using it for much. I then went on to try https://biz.nf, and I think they belong to the same category - free web hosting, provided by actual profit-driven corporations as opposed to orgs/collectives such as NeoCities, which seems to be stuck in time. Both continue to work in 2025, neither offers free HTTPS (which means those sites won't even open by default on most modern browsers), not much is known on who runs them, and neither has upgraded their graphics in (tens of?) years. But they do work. I still have my Biz.NF account. I don't actually use it - the lack of SSL is a deal breaker for any potential serious use one might have - but I log into it from time to time, when I'm feeling nostalgic.
There's something so charming about it, it's hard to explain. It might be the early 2000s web design aesthetic, with the cartoonish clip-art icons, heavy shadows and gradient backgrounds. Or it might be the memory of those times, when I thought that anything I could think of, I could develop, with my silly little free web hosting account. I can't convince myself on how these sites still exist. Sure, they provide abysmal specs for the free tier, and they're quick to ban everything that they think is abuse. But they have staff, including the support agent who kindly explained to 13y/o me that the free tier doesn't allow your PHP scripts to fetch external resources, and the people taking care of the actual servers, providing support for the latest PHP versions, and more. I'm fully convinced that these hosts will not be here in 10 years. It simply can't work. Biz.NF has paid services, but they're overpriced when compared to almost everything else. You can't convince me they're much profitable. Even their free hosting offerings are outdated - most of the comments here are talking about better alternatives. Biz.NF has recently discontinued the free website builder, without announcing any replacement. FreeWHA runs entirely on outdated software, and most features have been "coming soon" since before 2017. They're probably the sites that best allow people to experience the "dead mall vibe" on the Internet (alongside Decentraland, for Folding Ideas fans). To me they feel like they're just going by inertia, surviving off of a handful of paid subscribers, some of which have probably forgotten they're subscribed at all. At some point, some random guy is going to decide they can't be bothered to keep the lights on anymore - as little as that electricity bill might cost - and that will be the end for this corner of web history.
And just like when I read in the news that the mall where I used to go as a child was closing down, I'm going to be sad when I receive the email of Biz.NF's end of service. |