FWS hits the Pits?

A

admin

Administrator
Staff member
A free web hosting community and forums i`ve followed for almost a decade called FWS ( Free Web Space.net) is starting to worry me recently.

Something is up in camp FWS which I suspect is doing damage to their image. Firstly revamping their well established forums to look like a brand new forum with a default theme. And now ruining their once trusted free web hosting directory to a pay for viewing listing, not taking into account trusted nor well established hosting provider. Which means the highest bidder wins!!

What are you thoughts?

Their URL: www.freewebspace.net

fws2.jpg
 
Yozora

Yozora

Moderator
Hmm, I don't know. Maybe I'm just happy it shows they're working on the site, and not leaving it to rot.

Remember those php errors which used to be on the homepage? I'm glad that at least they're gone now, and the site & forum are finally responsive. I don't know that much about free web hosting directories, but I've done directory submissions for small businesses, and what they offer for free now is pretty standard for free directory submissions. Sort of depressing, but standard. I've mainly just lurked in the Free Hosting Offers forum on and off for the last few years, and have recommended looking there to others before. I first found out about Gigarank there in fact! That said, I definitely don't know as much about the forum as a long-time member would, and I only really regularly visited the forum, not the main site.

My guess is that running that big a site can't be cheap. On the other hand, I guess it looks like they removed all the listed hosting sites that were there before the redesign. Gigarank was ranked 1st wasn't it? Ugh...That's pretty awful!

What does everyone else think?
 
Genesis

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
I was shocked to say the least. Did they announce the change in advance? Truly, if it hadn't been for the FWS logo, I'd have wondered whether they had sold their domain and given it to someone else. The layout of the home page looks as though it belongs to a tacky upstart free host. The design of it doesn't give credit to the dignity and longevity of the Website.

What happened to the directories? I click on something that looks like a listing and nothing really happens. This is weird, particularly given how long FWS has been around for. I'm looking for some announcement to explain what happened but can't see any. Since it's a WordPress page, plenty of tools for Peo to write a very detailed blog post to explain what he is up to. Hopefully that is still going to happen.

:unknown:

Note: Have just checked out the Forum - my first experience with XenForo. Only part that is interesting. The rest I don't have a clue what it is about. Once I'm home in two days time and have more Internet time available will check through the background. Did Peo just do this out of the blue, or was there a discussion about it ahead of time?
 
pan1

pan1

New member
Its nice enough to have a responsive layout and I think its natural to monetize the website.
 
Sander k

Sander k

New member
I never visit their homepage, so i didn't notice that. I noticed Xenforo instead of vbulletin tho, not sure why they changed. I don't think that you get more activity by changing the software. A forum is dead or it isn't.
 
GigaGreg

GigaGreg

Moderator
Staff member
Maybe they wanted to update their website? Now it looks modern though, but also the content seem to be empty. The forum looks neat than Vbulletin.
 
Genesis

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
Sander k said:
I never visit their homepage, so i didn't notice that. I noticed Xenforo instead of vbulletin tho, not sure why they changed. I don't think that you get more activity by changing the software. A forum is dead or it isn't.
Click to expand...
Excellent point Sander. That is probably exactly it.

I did notice the homepage previously because of the directories. Gigarank was really doing well on that page for a long while. Then first something happened to the directories so that gibberish appeared when one clicked on the Website links. Quite long before the big change was made. And now we get free hosting on the home page. Has Peo changed direction to free hosting? Sort of confusing to me.
 
J

jaran

New member
FWS is rather late to redesign their template. On the other hand similar forums already change the look more fresh.
 
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