The word free has a very powerful appeal. Various advertisements for free FTP hosting also cast a powerful spell on the web surfers searching for a solution to their file transfer problems, and they therefore are easily taken in, only to realize later on that they had been trapped into reading unwanted advertisements or irritating pop-ups.

Internet hosting or web hosting is a lucrative business. The hosting firms charge according to the quantity and quality of features, support and more. But some hosting firms are absolutely free.

Web hosting is an Internet service whereby you are provided online storage space for images, data and other user information that you would like to share with other surfers. The idea is that you can host a web site without investing your time in technicalities. That is taken care of by web hosts, the companies which provide you with storage space, either in their own servers or by allotting a server for you. They also sometimes host a server at a remote location and take care of it for you.

The very purpose of the Internet and our interest in it is to share information or knowledge, free or sold, which can be transferred through emails, links or messages. But transferring this information can be tedious if it is in form of long texts, web pages, graphics, images or even music. This is where the FTP comes in. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a method of transferring data over a network or the Internet. It is quite like HTTP or Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

The relationship between a business and a Web host resembles that of a tenant and landlord. The tenant decorates and operates his/her store but leaves the duty of maintenance to the landlord. Similarly, a business builds its own Web site but the Web host maintains the network of web servers. Businesses prefer Web hosts as it means no huge investment, nor any technical headache.