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Same here. .tk was the only one back then that allowed you to have your own domain name without subdomains. My memory is that: 1. freeserver.com/~userna <- Thi
by 101008 3y ago
Same here. .tk was the only one back then that allowed you to have your own domain name without subdomains. My memory is that:
1. freeserver.com/~userna <- This was the first URl you could have, sometimes with something inside another directory (freeserver.com/users/u/~usernam).
2. username.freeserver.com <- This wasn't that bad but it didn't look professional. Tripod used to do this.
3. username.fs.com <-- A service with a short domain that provided free subdomains. This was similar to 2 but shorter. Some of them allowed you to chose the domian part.
4. username.tk <-- Among all the free options, this was the best one by far.
Then we grew up a bit and started paying domains :')
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoFriend of mine had a .tk domain for a while, last one he used was a .aa.am domain for his Minecraft server, lol.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoIm trying to remember I think it was 8m.com or something like that? Which also let you have stuff like username.8m.com its probably gone now. I also miss tripod, not sure if its still around how it used to be. Angelfire comes to mind too.
- moltar 3y agoOh ya. I had my first website on 8m.com still available in the archives!! Best days!
- davchana 3y agoThose sites are still up, the control panel is at freeservers.com my Site davinder.8m.net is still up after 22 years. I chose .net because it was cooler than .com :)
- giancarlostoro 3y agoHah! Thats awesome, I don’t recall any of the names I used to be honest, its been too many years.
- ljm 3y agoI remember 20m in the UK, which did basic hosting. Good times.
- echelon 3y agoThe problem with .tk was that it would inject ads into your content. And the whole TLD was filled with low quality spam and hacks. I never liked it. $7/yr for a domain was one of the very first internet purchases I made. Then that set me down a path of finding free dynamic DNS services. For a short time my website and Invision forum were only online when I was, but I felt like I'd beaten the advertisers.
- thangngoc89 3y agoI remember there was scripts that remove the ads .tk injected
- jesprenj 3y agoI don't remember this. I started using TK domains as a kid in 2017 and you set your own nameserver records and they didn't serve ads.
- reidrac 3y agoWhen I used .tk briefly in 98-99 it was using iframes and they injected ads and/or opened pop-ups IIRC.
- echelon 3y agoThis was in the 90's and 00's. .tk was the only top level domain you could get without having to give them payment details or personal information. It was a huge deal at the time for kids, students, and spammers. They made their money by injecting scripts onto your pages to display banner ads.
- broast 3y agoI remember one around the year 2000 that gave you yourname.com for free but it would host your site in a frameset with a bottom frame serving banner ads. IIRC it was called NameZero, but I don't think it lasted long.
- Kye 3y agoThat was definitely NameZero. Their problem was they had no way to control what you ran inside your frame, so everyone ran a well-distributed code snippet that removed the ad frame.
- pests 3y agoSimilar to Angelfire, which only inserted ads into the top of .html files, so you just built your entire site as .txt files and rely on the browsers "be lenient in what you accept" to render it as HTML.
- Semaphor 3y agode.vu was popular in Germany for subdomains, I had a few of those. Also a .tk one later.
- V__ 3y agoYeah, also .de.tf. I just looked it up and my old site is on the wayback machine. So many memories.
- tarsinge 3y agoIn France .fr.st was a popular free option
- Biganon 3y agoYup, and .fr.fm too
- hnbad 3y agode.vu always rubbed me the wrong way because it kinda looked/sounded like DVU, a far-right political party that eventually merged with the neo-nazi NPD (which, fun fact, recently rebranded itself as Die Heimat - Homeland). To be fair, the party didn't have much political relevance for most of its history but it did manage to win seats in some state (Land) parliaments in 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2007 so it did come up in the news around the time those domains were most popular. On the other hand, .tk was in my mind mostly associated with German hobbyists and piracy. I think my old StarCraft/CounterStrike clan had a .tk domain at one point.
- Semaphor 3y agoNever got the DVU connection, my AoE1/2 clan had .de.vu before we got a .de, I also know several other people in my class who had one. On the other hand .tk is more something I remember in connection with spam and scam :D
- Bluecobra 3y agoI recall using *.8k.com because that was one of the shortest free *.com options around.
- davchana 3y agoMy site davinder.8m.net is still up after 22 years. Only 2 years ago I managed to find its password.
- jonathantf2 3y agoI remember putting up Minecraft servers under .uk.to, also co.cc