Special Note 
The 'images' on the left side of this page are not missing. There really are images there, it's just my idea of funny to use a missing image symbol as a border decoration for this page.

 A frequent complaint - My images are missing! 
I used the images stored at [free host] and they show up fine on my site there. I use some of those images in my guestbook or forum that's a free service from somebody else.

The images showed up fine yesterday, but today all I see are little boxes with x's in them .... or ... my images will not show up at all!

I'm certain that I used the right address (URL) for my images, so why don't they show up?

And, the same thing happens with 'music' files ... what follows applies equally to them.

 Why free web space is free! 
Well, nothing's free really. The reason (almost all) free web space providers do not charge you for the space is that on every page of your site they add an advertising banner or pop-up - and somebody else is paying for it.

 Why do I get a broken image (or no music)? 
Each time an html file needs an image, a request is sent to the image 'home' server to send that image to the requesting server and then on to the computer viewing the page. If the html file and the image are on the same server, then image loading is said to be 'local'. And if your server is a *free* service, then the page you are looking at will normally carry advertising to support the free server (that's why it's free!).

Remote loading is the act of loading files (such as images) from a *free* page to one hosted by another service. This is a drain on the *free* service's resources. It interferes with their ability to maintain the quality service and offer the Web space their members expect (that's how the *free* service providers put it - actually, it means no advertising revenue for the *free* service supplier).

So, when an 'outside' server tries to load an image (or midi, etc.) from your *free* server space, the *free* server either rejects the request and you get a 'broken' image or no sound, or they send you an image of their logo instead!!

At present, major *free* services where you can expect missing images/sounds include Tripod, Xoom, Angelfire (and other Lycos family members), Freeservers (and 8m.com), and Geocities. This list is not complete - just the ones I know about. And there's not much doubt that more will follow - if it happens to you, contact me and the information can be added here.

This site includes the stated positions of seven *free* service providers. Click any image below to read what their Terms of Service mean.

 Crosswinds 
It looked as though Crosswinds had joined the ranks of *free* hosts who would not permit remote loading for their users. However, that appears not to be completely so. This information was recently provided to us indirectly from Crosswinds.

"As you can see, we are much MUCH faster. Almost 90% of our bandwidth was being leached from links on other servers. We have installed anti leaching protection and we know initially it will be too strict. There are many valid domains such as guestbooks, etc, that should be able to link to files in your Crosswinds accounts. We have setup an email address for those that run into this problem.

Please email the full domain name to bandwidth@crosswinds.net and we will allow appropriate domain names to link."

 Mystery Problems?? 
And then, sometimes - your images just don't work. Here is a classic example from gurlpages where trying to load an image directly (the same thing really as remote loading) generated this message:

You are unable to access this file directly because we do not allow files to be served to other sites.

Please contact the owner of the referring page if this causes you any inconvenience. If you need any further assistance, please visit our support page.

Well, it was no good contacting the owner as they didn't know what the problem was, and clicking the link to the gurlpages support page generated a 404 error!!

 Is there a solution? 
The only permanent solution today is to pay for web space. That way your site will not have any advertising and you can use your images anywhere. Often your ISP (internet service provider) included a few megabytes of web space with your account. That will do nicely. You don't have to move your whole site - just the images that you want to use on 'remote' services like guestbooks or forums, etc.

You could try another *free* service - but there's no guarantee that tomorrow they will allow remote loading. If you're interested in free web space, take a look at www.freewebspace.net.

 For Bravenet members only!! 
Bravenet offers a variety of 'remote' services such as guestbooks and forums. In response to Bravenet members requests, Bravenet provided a service through Photoloft for images used by Bravenet members. Unfortunately, that service has proved unreliable and was discontinued.

On May 22, 2001 Bravenet launched their own storage service for images to be used with Bravenet services.

 I've seen quite enough, thank you 
To return to where you were, use the BACK button (top left) on your browser's tool bar, or you can come and visit my main help site - with links to all my other help sites: cut and paste, FAQs, counter help, beginner design tips and who knows what else.

 Special Note 
If you are aware of a similar position with other *free* service providers, please advise the webmaster here so that this site can be more useful to our visitors.

 Who is responsible for this site? 
Just a Bravenet member, trying to help. If you really want to contact me, then Click here.


And if you need help with getting a small site designed for a really economical price, just go to our professional design site at halfadot smallwebs - just click the logo on the right.