Publishing to Free

Setting up the connection

1. Open Publish.
2. In Your web host, choose Free (Pages Perso). The FTP Method, Port 21 and Server (host) ftpperso.free.fr are filled in.
3. In Username, enter your Pages Perso username, without “@free.fr”, then your Password.
4. Leave the Remote Path empty: at Free, the site is published at the root of your account.
5. The Site URL fills itself in, with your username followed by “.pages-perso.free.fr”. If your site has its own address, enter it: TOWeb never replaces an address you have typed.
6. Click Test Connection, then Publish site.

What TOWeb sets up for you

• A recent PHP: TOWeb asks Free to use PHP 8.5 for your site. Forms, bookings and the dashboard work, even on an old account still on an outdated PHP version.
• A minimal .htaccess file: Free rejects most of this file’s settings, and a single rejected setting puts the whole site in error. TOWeb therefore only writes the PHP 8.5 request and your own lines into it (Settings › Advanced › Lines added to the .htaccess file, published from the Premium edition upwards).
• Your Free address: at Free, a site only sends email from the account’s address (your username followed by @free.fr). As long as you have not chosen an address, TOWeb uses it to receive form messages and booking notifications, and as the sender. An address you have set is never replaced.
• No “sessions” folder to create: Free usually requires one for PHP sites. TOWeb does without it: the dashboard, customer accounts and protected pages keep their logins in a protected folder of your site.

What is different at Free

Because the .htaccess file stays minimal, a few automatic settings are not sent to Free:

• the redirects from Former addresses of this page: a page’s old address no longer leads to the new one;
• automatic switching to the secure connection (https);
• sending visitors to the home page in their own language (Send visitors to their own language);
• the caching and compression rules, which speed up loading.

Your site works without them. If you want one of them, a host that accepts the full .htaccess file will give it back to you.

Maintenance mode at Free

Elsewhere, maintenance mode (Settings › Advanced › Maintenance Mode) goes through the .htaccess file. At Free, TOWeb replaces each published page with the maintenance page; your site’s dashboard stays accessible.