Why Would A Webhost Not Support Certain File Formats??

[DavidDavidDavid]

Hey, I'd be much obliged if anyone can shed some light on this: why would a webhost not support certain file formats? Like, does it cost them "space" or "bandwidth" or something??

I just found out my host doesn't support .cur, .ani, .bmp, or .ico files...no big deal, in a way (though I was rather enamored by the idea of having my own flavicon!), but it seems very odd, all the same, given that these files (at least the .cur, .ani, and .ico) files are often minuscule but pretty standard for the web these days....

[Jennihul]

I just tried to re-download Webshots after a rebuild and it doesn't seem to like this version of Vista even though two days ago it did.

I'll have to have the hubby unit do some magic when he gets home. I have to have my Webshots! I have a premium account.

Jennifer

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by DavidDavidDavid

Hey, I'd be much obliged if anyone can shed some light on this: why would a webhost not support certain file formats? Like, does it cost them "space" or "bandwidth" or something??

Most web hosts oversell their bandwidth and web space, meaning that they tell you that you can use up to, say, 1GB of space but if everyone using their service suddenly did then they wouldn't be able to provide it.

Usually this isn't so bad but some overdo it and suspend sites that use up too many resources for made-up reasons or restrict what you can upload to make your site use less space/bandwidth than it would overwise. A host could also restrict formats for legal purposes or to artificially make one of its plans worse than the other.

Bandwidth is dependant on space; the more space a file uses, the more bandwidth, assuming it's downloaded the same ammount of times. Usually higher bandwidth use is worse for both you and the person visiting your site.

Your host's reasons for restricting these are probably:
Cur, Ani: You can use CSS to specify a custom cursor for your page. If you do, practically every client who visits your site will download them. This will increase the total number of requests a lot without really increasing the bandwidth used which could put a lot of strain on your host without having it affect you.

Bmp: There's no reason to host a bitmap on a site with things like PNG and archives. They probably restricted this to save some bandwidth on less popular sites that use it and would never reach their cap but would still use up a lot of bandwidth.

Ico: The favicon is downloaded every time the page is accessed unless it's in the browser's cache like a custom cursor.

So basically, one reason hosts restrict which formats you can upload is to make your site use less resources. A byte is a byte no matter what type of data it comes from but in practical applications certain types of sites with certain files will use more space or bandwidth. Cursors and favicons put more strain on the server by increasing the number of requests and the web host doesn't charge you for this.

Your webhost really shouldn't be doing this unless it's free.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Thanks for the 411, man. I'll be asking my webhost; I just wanted to hear a third-party's opinion first (and no, my webhost is definitely not free!).

BTW, I like your site. Your Linux rant was funny, actually, even though I know nothing about Linux, really -- but I guess I had to laugh because it's exactly the kind of thing I would have experienced myself (actually, I didn't even know Ubuntu was a Linux distro until I read your post there). Free downloadable games? Hmmm...since you're a programmer, I think the only way to go these days (and moving forward into the future) is a "social networking game" of some sort...make a kind of World of Warcraft or The Sims, and somehow integrate a social networking aspect to it...that's my layman's feeling...it'll be a lot of work but I think that's where the money will be WRT online gaming sites...I wouldn't download a free game simply 'cause I don't know what's in the code -- but if the game were playable online (Java applet I guess or some-such) and there's lotsa folks playing and I have my own "space" in that world I would be sold (or would have been, years ago, when I wasn't so busy)....

[ragtag]

I would just find a webhost without such restrictions.

They're not limiting files such as .iso, .zip, .mov, .avi and others, which can be huge.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Ragtag: yeah, I'm actually thinking about it.

Thing is, I use SBI! and it's got many good things about it...mainly it's been a great "hands-on textbook" for me, but I'm starting to get disappointed with its increasingly apparent cookie-cutter approach, and the limitations thereof...I mean, not allowing .ani and .cur files?? It's just very strange. And trust me, asking them why not is no help -- you ask them why they don't offer something, and they just tell you it was a policy decision. Uh, yeah, like I didn't know that it was a policy decision. Or they get defensive and say you don't really need it, it doesn't help you make money online, only two other people have asked for such a feature, etc., basically making you feel like you're asking a stupid question, like asking them why they don't do pizza delivery and vacation packages to the moon.

On a brighter note, they do allow flavicons, though there's a "special way" of doing that, and it's not simply loading up an .ico file.

Anyway, I still recommend SBI! as a hands-on learning tool for newbies, but it only works for "cookie cutter situations" and not if you want to get too "cool" about your website...I'm currently having problems getting a simple rollover-button-style image-swap to work through them...everything works fine on my end, but uploading the page to them (along with all necessary files) presents a broken webpage where the image-swap is concerned. I can't believe I've come up against this webhost's "design limits" already in three months!