Wow, this comes to a bit of a shock that one of the worlds largest free, web hosting platforms named 000Webhost has announced that they will be permanently shutting down on Monday, October 14, 2024, which is two months away.
When I first started getting into creating websites, I originally used GeoCities, which was by Yahoo Small Business then when they decide to shut down GeoCities, I then moved my website over to 000Webhost for quite a while until I wanted to venture out into the VPS (virtual private server) which I came across host1free, and stayed with them for a while until the very end when they decided to permanently shut down and transition into Host1Plus and then when they decided to permanently shut down they transitioned into Heficed until they where completely purchased by Hivelocity, which is where I am today.
000Webhost has been in operation for 17 years and over the years, they have evolved, although it seems at some point during my time when I use them sometimes it didn’t seem that they would modernize and really update their site and they would often be accused of suspending peoples accounts, claiming that they would use too much resources which I believe is somewhat true, but I think for the mass majority of people posted pretty basic HTML websites.
Community forum:
Often times when you use the service for free, you don’t have access to live chat, email and phone support so the only way of really getting any type of assistance is either through the self-help pages also known as the knowledge base or KB for short or relying on the community form by asking your question and waiting for a fellow community member to offer their assistance and every now and then a representative from 000Webhost may occasionally offer some type of assistance.
My time while using their free web hosting, you would often meet people some with barely any knowledge in web design then you have others who are really knowledgeable in web design. One person in particular who I met in the community form by helping them fix their website I became friends with them and today I am still friends with them on Facebook.
Victim of data breach:
The hosting company was a victim of a data breach where over 13 million plus users were affected by a bata breach, exposing email address, username and password. If that was not bad enough, the stolen information was then posted online. (source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/000webhost-hacked-13-million-customers-exposed/) It seemed like after this massive data breach, they fixed any vulnerabilities by giving the whole entire website a complete makeover by changing the way that users login, allowing all users to secure their website with HTTPS were before this was a paid feature, and updating the PHP, MySQL (PHPMyAdmin). Thankfully, the hackers were only able to access the server containing where they kept people who are using the service for free, so no credit card information was stolen as I saw no reports.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
On July 8, they will stop accepting new users from registering and allowing anyone to create new websites. ( This has already passed)
On October 14 is when they will begin to start permanently deleting files so if you want to keep your site you MUST either download your files and find a new hosting provider or migrate over to their paid services. (Two months)
My overall experience using them is very positive, looking back if there were other web hosting providers to use I would use them over again. It seemed they made the use user experience meaning like functionality and navigating through their control panel was pretty easy and straightforward and they also had a much better up time compared to some of the other free web hosting companies out there. They also didn’t force users to have advertisements on their site, and later on, they did away with forcing users to have their logo or text automatically be displayed on your site and they allowed users to have their site secured by HTTPS.
Did you ever use them to host your website? What is your thoughts? Did you like them, did you strongly dislike them?