Hi admin,
Yes, I learned that after I saw the alias list for gmx last night.
You see, I am writing a complete how to (which actually works, not like most) get a website for free, free domain which has free privacy, free ssl, free cloudflare, 1st page ranking, and reasonably fast loading times. It was just the part for sending emails with the custom free TLD that was the missing piece of the puzzle as I have only ever worked with hosting that offers at least 1 email account. There’s so many negative posts about free hosting services like infinityfree that are just completely false which is why I started the whole ‘get it online for free’ vendetta to prove it can be done easily, just takes a bit of time on the backend side of things.
So, GMAIL offers the upgraded to the paid platform for alias as per all the other providers, but information I read on posts saying they didn’t offer that for free was obviously outdated, hence looking at other email providers like gmx.
However last night when I was trying to get it to work I found out, gmail let’s you have I think 3 free alias email addresses to use with your custom domain for sending emails. Then using the free opensource forwarding site of forwardemail.net to handle any incoming emails (after making the MX changes on cloudflare ofcourse) negates the need for infinityfree to offer 1 email address. Had to use their 2 factor auth to get it to add the alias without flagging an error (even though it seems you can as it doesnt specially ask for the 2 factor code in the password section of setting up the alias), but that’s probably a good thing.
As a lazy programmer, if email was offered on infinityfree, it would make my life easier, but understand from any misuse by a user, it would make your life harder lol. Yeah i get it, using your free hosting, your life should be easier, but it never hurts to ask haha. Which was the original subject of this topic I created here.
Yes there are issues using a free email forwarder with email addresses being publicly visible (there’s other email forwarders that have a free side I believe with emails hidden from public like app.improvmx.com or similar but I just used forwardemail for testing).
Now that infinityfree seems to have fixed the no zip ability issue after the php upgrade, and it seems to no longer flag a resources violation just installing an app (like wordpress) from your cpanel, I think infinityfree is awesome for small sites. The email work around is possible, even though a lot of work and involves a few third parties which is acceptable on a free hosting site like infinityfree.
It all can be done for free if someone does not want to pay for a domain and hosting and domain privacy (and all the renewal fees). Is it worth saving money? Depends on the individual, but a lot of people starting out might not be able to afford all those fees. Most hosting companies and domain registras take your credit card details and store them and can automatically debit that card at any time, or their servers compromised and those card details stolen. That’s the part I don’t like about paid hosting. I believe in Australia it’s offense for a business to store credit card information without consent, but still every hosting company I have seen, stores credit card information without consent, or option to allow the customer to allow the company to store those details or not.
A lot of free hosting companies like Infinityfree offer limited bandwidth but at 50,0000 visitors to a site a day before being suspended (I guess that is a guide figure, it would be php calls etc as a deciding factor to that I presume) and a conversion rate of 1:100 ad clicks (1 click per 100 visitors), depending on a websites niche, over time, the effort could pay off if the website is just for LEGIT marketing/affiliate purposes.
So that was the reason for posting the topic anyway. As I put up last night, I had sorted it out, and thanking you and the others for their replies and suggestions. It good to see a helpful community, and an admin who offers help. Even on paid posting through other hosts, getting support can take days or weeks for them to reply.
When I have finished the editing, I am happy to post the complete guide on infinityfree or just a link if that’s easier.