The TANSTAAFL Principle

COMMON PROBLEMS WITH FWPS

• Advertising
• Technical Difficulties
• Not Taken Seriously
• System Abuses

Most FWPs require advertisements on users' pages. Some FWPs allow users to place the ads on their pages, but most FWPs insert the ads automatically. Most FWPs are using pop-up windows to display ads, but some insert ad consoles (like GeoCities' GeoGuide) directly on to the page.

"What's the problem with advertising?" You ask. Plenty. Here are some of the nasty side effects of FWP advertising:

• Browser crashing. JavaScript pop-up windows require a new browser window to be opened. A new window sucks up system resources. If the amount of resources is already running low, this can cause the system to become unstable; possibly resulting in a crash. No one likes it when a stupid ad causes a Blue Screen of Death. Java applets and the GeoCities Watermark can also have this effect.

• Doesn't fit into the page. Ads inserted by FWPs stick out like a sore thumb. They can look downright awful. Some FWPs allow users to place the ads themselves; these usually look better. (Pages without user-inserted ads are usually served with pop-ups.)

• Irritates users. Some people purposely bypass all sites located on FWPs loaded with ads. In particular, a number of people have stopped visiting GeoCities sites since the Watermark was introduced.

• Draws visitors away. Webmasters spend large quantities of time designing and promoting their pages to attract visitors. Usually the first thing visitors see are advertisements, which draw them away from the site. What's the point of building a page if all the traffic is driven away to advertisers?

Some FWPs have millions of members and are continuing to grow at an explosive rate. Free webpage are a hot commodity right now, and many FWPs can't keep up with the demand. Therefore, technical difficulties are common among FWPs. Performance is often a concern; bandwidth and server CPU cycles can easily be eaten up by too many visitors. To keep up with demand, FWPs must upgrade their servers, which results in downtime.

In comparison, paid hosting companies have much better performance and less downtime. Some hosting companies boast "99.9%" uptime. These companies have more revenue from users so they can upgrade their systems faster. Some times it's worth paying to have a reliable website.

FWPs have gotten a reputation of hosting mediocrity. Many of the pages hosted by FWPs are "personal homepages", which often contain little or no content. Some just plain suck. Pages with "Hi, I'm Bob143. I like fishing and cow tipping. Here's a picture of my cat..." are prolific on FWPs. As such, many outsiders don't take FWP-hosted sites seriously. Some search engines and award sites don't bother considering FWP-hosted sites at all. Getting a GeoCities site listed, for example, is virtually impossible on some search engines. This isn't to say that all GeoCities sites are crap, but the search engines don't want to wade through 2.2+ million GeoCities pages, the vast majority of which are dormant or mediocre.

FWP accounts are free and easy to obtain. In many cases it's possible to obtain one with a fake name and email address. Because of this, FWP "throwaway" accounts can be used by shady characters for questionable purposes.

Porno and warez are common. Many FWP accounts are used to store pornography and warez (pirated software and music). While all FWPs ban porn and warez, it still pops up frequently. There's so much of a demand for this stuff that no one can stop it. The quickest way to attract visitors to your site is to put nudie pictures on it. Porn and warez are bad for FWPs because they eat up a tremendous amount of space and, mostly importantly, suck up vast quantities of bandwidth. A FWP loaded with porn becomes deluged with countless employees surfin' smut on company time. This slows the FWP down for all users.

TaoTree put this message on its homepage a few months ago:

We regret to report that we are being attacked by what appears to be several individuals who incessantly attempt to host pornographic content on our servers. We have attempted to notify the parties that this was unacceptable, but in vain. Until we can put in place a way to screen for this, we will not be able to process new signups for free web space. We hope to put a solution in place soon, but we do not know how soon it will be.

That Hormel meat product. Spam (unsolicited commercial email, or UCE) is a significant problem for FWPs that offer email accounts. "Throwaway" email accounts are used by unscrupulous spammers to send mass mailings. When the FWP finds out and terminates the account, the spammer moves on to another free account. This places a huge demand on the FWP's mail servers, causing performance to degrade for everyone. Since spam is prohibited by all FWP and free email providers, spammers in effect 'steal' bandwidth and CPU cycles from them. This is just plain wrong. Unfortunately, there is no clear way to solve this problem.

Security breaches. Since FWPs are public accessible, they are vulnerable to cracker attacks. Any server connected to the Net is vulnerable in some fashion. Crosswinds' mail server was recently cracked into. The cracker did a poor job, however, and is now rotting in jail.