in , ,

FreeWebs Abuse

People posting their website in the Web Site Announcements forum at the GMC are often met with a barrage of complaints about their choice of web-host, particularly if they have opted to use FreeWebs.

Let’s take a look to see this in action at the GMC: Sheepdawg Games – the first response simply reads ‘>.< freewebs’, Stubbja Productions – again the first reply tells the user not to use freewebs. Undead Gaming hold the record for managing not to have their choice of host mentioned until, wait for it, the third reply. Until that is someone with a username of at least 25 characters who obviously thinks that they look like a monkey replies with the highly intellectual phrase seen below:

This monkey member can’t spell. And so full of reason, I like the way he justifies his attack on freewebs with a double b by doing nothing.

An article posted on the GMC last year attempted to explain What is wrong with FreeWebs, it summarises by giving 5 main points:

  • FreeWebs contains ads, and other addons which most people never need.
  • FreeWebs is a premade web builder, and it proves to be better to make a site by yourself.
  • They have guesbooks, bad hit counters, and background music, which can distract people in some cases if your going to make a game site.
  • The templates on FreeWebs rarely correspond to what content you use on your site.
  • FreeWebs is becoming a mock-up copy of MySpace.

I don’t think that offering a wide range of addons is a bad point, nor is the fact that FreeWebs have their own WYSIWYG editor. Although it’s true, everyone does seem to use the same darn layout [1], [2], [3] but you can’t blame FreeWebs for the lack of creativity that some people who use their services posses.

P.S My first gamemaker website was hosted by Freewebs, in fact it is still online but is not maintained and so is several years out of date.

What do you think?

4 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. I quite agree, I don’t think the issue about freewebs having ads or features that often go unused is a fair one at all. As for, “FreeWebs is a premade web builder, and it proves to be better to make a site by yourself.“, that depends entirely on the HTML skills, or lack of them, the site owner has. Fact – people use freewebs because of its WYSIWYG web editor, purely because it means they don’t have to spend time coding the site.

    Part of the reason that freewebs sites are slow, part but not all, is because of the large page sizes people insist on using. For example a page may contain many uncompressed graphics, e.g. screenshots, and of course annoying background music that has no place on a website.

    I wish you good luck with your freewebs competitor, please keep me informed of your progress 🙂

  2. Yeah, what I don’t get is that guy who wrote the five points didn’t mention what the real problem with freewebs it.

    The real problems are:
    1 – It’s slow… Very Slow
    2 – The templates are ugly and there isn’t many to choose from so people know when they see a template from freewebs (if not from the design then from the adds :P)

    I personally want to start my own freewebs competitor, and as soon as I get time. I will make a start on it 😀 Just because the real issues are above and are all easily fixed.

2 Pings & Trackbacks

  1. Pingback:

  2. Pingback:

Leave a Reply to Screenshot formats Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Issue 3 of MarkUp released

Annoying newbie trait (3)