Freeweb.hu

Freeweb.hu is a Hungarian free webhosting service provider.
It was launched in 2001, and it has changed owners many times during the years (SWI --> Interware --> Generál Média --> Epicenter Market). It offered 500 MB, later 20 MB disk space. Users could register their websites under subdomains of freeweb.hu, fw.hu, later also under x3.hu and tar.hu. It seems that, as of 2020, its last owner has been Epicenter Market Limited (a company that bought many soon-to-be-dead websites, including myVIP).
Freeweb.hu has a long history, so there may have been more milestones other than the ones listed below. However, according to web records and Wayback Machine captures, there were probably two cases of mass deletions of websites.
== Deletions ==
=== 2012 ===
In 2012, under the banner of Generál Média Kft., freeweb.hu became a "full-scale" webhosting company, and warned users that unless they move to the new hosting service, their websites would be deleted. According to main page entries, it seems that users could continue using the service for free. Also, they soon re-introduced their free plan providing 20 MB disk space. (Earlier, it was 500 MB.) It seems however, that inactive users' websites got deleted.
In September 2012, freeweb.hu introduced a rule that users must login every two weeks, otherwise they lose their website.
=== 2019 ===
In 2019, the Register button stopped working (gave a 404 error), and later it started to redirect to sas.hu, where by clicking another button, we can reach a page that reads that "Epicenter Market Limited (the owner of the Freeweb.hu website) is soon to terminate their offered services". (At the same time, the hosting plans, including the free plan, were removed from freeweb.hu main page, and sas.hu seems to provide only paid plans.)
According to this page, users received an email about the change (and this email is mentioned on freeweb.hu main page as well). Those who followed a few simple steps, could continue to use the service, now probably provided by World Web Data Kft., operator of freeweb.hu. (It is a company different from Epicenter Market Ltd., that is the owner of freeweb.hu.) Probably for free, but it is uncertain.
Bottom line is, it seems that users who wanted to, could keep their freeweb.hu website. It is unknown, however, whether and when inactive users' websites were / will be deleted.
Unfortunately, I (user:bzc6p) wasn't able to find any references on the web related to this 2019 change.
=== 2022 ===
In March 2022, the freeweb.hu website was shut down (at this time, the last announcement was from 2019, see last capture). Freeweb.hu started to redirect to sas.hu, which is the website of the new service provider.
=== 2024 ===
Websites under the freeweb.hu subdomains still seem to be working. Users could perhaps keep their website for some fee, like extra.hu users could.
== Site reconnaissance ==
It is unknown how many registered websites are there, as there is no browser that would list them. Once we want to archive the websites, we must rely on web scraping for the discovery.
== Further reading ==
Gábor Agárdi wrote a CC book in 2006 about the history of freeweb.hu (in Hungarian). 
== Sources ==
* Wayback Machine captures
* freeweb.hu and sas.hu (retrieved: 2020-10-03)
Category:Web hosting