Go to http://www.f2g.net/free/order.shtml and follow the instructions. You will receive an e-mail containing an activation link. Follow that link to activate your account. You should then receive a second e-mail containing your account details. This second message may take a few minutes or even a few hours before you receive it.

The message containing your account details may take a few minutes or even a couple of hours before it reaches your mailbox. Please be patient. If you didn't receive it please try visiting the activation link again.
The message may also have been lost. You will find a password reminder here.
More and more mail servers and relays now filter e-mail for spam and will sometimes stop messages innapropriately. Try registering using a different e-mail address.

If you have just created your account this is normal. Please wait for the webserver to update.
If your website used to work fine, please verify you did type the correct url (e.g. http://mysite.f2g.net/document.htm).
On very rare occasions the webserver may return a 404 error on a whole website, even if the URL is correct. Please be patient.

You can upload your files either by using the online File Manager or by FTP.
The online File Manager allows you to easily manage your files from any computer connected to the internet. It provides a simple interface to those who are not familiar with FTP file management, and is very useful if you want to update your site from another computer (e.g. from your office, school, or when you're on the road). All you need is a computer with internet access and a recent browser with cookies and javascript enabled (standard settings). You will find the File Manager in the "Files" section of the Control Panel
To manage your files by FTP, you will need a small program, called FTP client, installed on your computer. You may obtain an FTP client for free or for a small fee from all major software archives. Use the following details to connect to the FTP server:

• FTP server: ftp.f2g.net
• Login: (as provided in your welcome e-mail)
• Password: (as provided in your welcome e-mail)

When you log on with your FTP program or the File Manager, you will be presented with a directory listing. That is where your files go. You can create any subdirectories that you require. The default file name that will be presented to web browsers when they access the root of a directory (e.g. yoursite.f2g.net/ or yoursite.f2g.net/folder/) is index.html. So make sure you have a file by that name there otherwise users will be able to see other files and directories.
(See also How do I change the default file in a directory?)

Normally, if a browser tries to look at a directory name without being given a specific file name the server will attempt to return index.html. However, the server also recognises the following files, and will automatically try to display them.

   index.html 
   index.shtml 
   welcome.html 
   index.htm 
   welcome.htm 
   INDEX.HTM 
   WELCOME.HTM 
   INDEX.HTML 
   WELCOME.HTML 
   default.htm 
   Default.htm 
   default.html 
   DEFAULT.HTM 
   home.htm 
   index.shtm 
   INDEX.SHTML 
   INDEX.SHTM 
   index.wml 
   INDEX.WML 
   

   DirectoryIndex foo.html
   

.htaccess is the name given to a system file used to give directives to an Apache web server. The most frequent use of this file is to set custom error pages or protect files and directories. To learn more about .htaccess and what can be done with it, you may refer to www.apache.org/docs/mod/directives.html
(See also How do I edit and view .htaccess and .htpasswd files?)

These files are plain text files and can be edited with your standard text editor.
Once you have edited your files, upload them to your account. Depending upon your FTP client, you may or may not see these files in the directory listing. This is because they have a special (hidden) status. To view them you should change a setting in your FTP client, e.g. WS_FTP users should type "-a" in the small white text box on the right.
Please note you will NOT be able to VIEW these hidden files when using the online File Manager.

You may use a .htaccess file. A .htaccess file is a small text file in which you can write server directives. The .htaccess file goes in the directory you want password protected.
Upload a .htpasswd file to the path specified in the .htaccess file.
The encrypted password can be obtained from www.inch.com/commercial/web/server/apache/htpasswd.html
The .htaccess file looks like:

   AuthUserFile /home/username/path/to/.htpasswd
   AuthName "Please Log On"
   AuthType Basic
   require valid-user
   

   username:ed3BAk2gugqxk
   

You will find a password reminder here: http://cp.f2g.net/pw.php

The server path is

   /home/userid
   

There are a couple of ways to do this.
The first is to name your files with .shtml as the extension. By doing that the server will parse the file and process the SSI commands.
The second way is to create a .htaccess file which tells the server to parse all files ending with .html or .htm and process the SSI command as normal.
Create a .htaccess file with the following:

   Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
   AddType application/x-httpd-cgi .cgi
   AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .html .htm
   

We used to offer PHP and CGI on free accounts. Unfortunately, this had to be disabled due to repeated abuse from some users. If you require the ability to run scripts we would advise you to upgrade to premium.

The best way is to use a .htaccess file. Put a .htaccess file in the root directory of the site you want to redirect from (that is, your "old" site) with the line:

   redirect / http://www.your-new-site.com/
   

   redirect permanent /faq http://faq.foo.com
   

   <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url=http://www.foo.com/">
   

CRON jobs (the ability to ask the server to perform pre-defined tasks e.g. daily backup) is only available on premium.

Due to potential security issues, telnet is not offered on free accounts, nor is it allowed.
Any attempt at telnet, whether by shell, script, or any other means, is forbidden and will be grounds for immediate termination of your account.

Different cases are possible.
If the server replies that the maximum of users connected is reached, try a few minutes later. Connections have to be limited to maintain the quality of the service. If you keep getting this error message again and again on a particular day, there may be work in progress on the server, please try again later.
If the server replies "logon failure" you probably have misspelled your account name or your password. Check they are correct and try again. You will find a password reminder here
If the server replies, and then closes the connection without any error message it may be that you are connecting in "passive mode". Please check your FTP client is not set to "passive" mode. Please refer to your FTP client's help if you don't know how to change this. If your FTP client is not set to "passive", then your Internet Service Provider (ISP) probably is. Try connecting using another ISP or use the online File Manager instead.

We used to offer custom DNS on free accounts but this service is no longer offered.

Yes, by default you have a catch-all e-mail address.
This means any e-mail sent "anything"@yoursite.f2g.net (e.g. webmaster@yoursite.f2g.net, john@yoursite.f2g.net, anything@yoursite.f2g.net, etc) will be redirected to the e-mail address you provided when you signed up.
You can modify your e-mail settings from the Control Panel

Go to the Control Pannel and click on the "E-Mail" tab.

Yes, you can have as many aliasses as you want!
Go to the Control Pannel and click on the "E-Mail" tab.

This may happen when one of the server's disk volumes gets full, and is not related with your account. Please wait while a new disk volume is being installed. In the meantime, you may delete some large unnecessary files you may have to free up some space, allowing you to upload your new files.

The free hosting service is a 100% free service. While most so-called free hosts make money from your website by forcing ads on your pages, sending commercial messages to your mailbox, selling your e-mail address and other personal details to marketing companies, forcing you to click on banner ads or to sign up for other services, etc, this service is provided to you without any counterpart, meaning we don't get a cent from your account. Given this, it would simply be unrealistic to offer support to free account users. We have more than 70,000 users. Just imagine providing 5 minutes support per user and per year. 70,000 x 5 = 350,000 minutes per year = 5833 hours per year = 16 hours per day providing support to free users...

You can't compare a bicycle with a private jet! The free service is just what is is, a free service. The free service is intended for non-critical usage such as personal web pages, or for users who would like to familiarize with HTML and web publishing. The free and premium services are completely distinct services operated on different infrastructures. The premium service is run on fast and stable servers with redundant high bandwidth connectivity (> 2.5 Gigs), monitored 24 x 7 x 365 on site by highly qualified technicians in an earthquake proof, state of the art facility datacenter, with UPS and 750 KW diesel backup generator. The servers are Dual P4/Xeon at least 2.6 GHz with 1.5 or 2 GB memory, SCSI hard drives in RAID and backups. Each server is using a gigabit network card. The premium service uptime is 99.9%.