[Fileformat]

I get where you are coming from, and have put some thought into it.

I built the site over 20 years ago, and while it was fun to make, I wouldn't have maintained it this long if is was costing me every month.

I've tried to minimize the intrusiveness: I disabled the pop-up and interstitial ads and I don't serve anything different to people with ad-blockers. And I've stuck with Google Adwords, despite requests from all sorts of questionable alternatives.

I'm not sure about the future: bots are causing all sorts of trouble, and the ad revenue is trending down and is now less than break even.

[xigoi]

Isn’t it just a bunch of static pages? You can get that hosted for free.

[Fileformat]

There wasn't free hosting in 2003 when I first made it. I have thought about converting it to static, but it would be a complete rewrite, and there is always some other new shiny thing to play with instead.

The newer things I'm doing (like UnicodeSearch.org) are static, though I don't like forcing everyone to have JavaScript enabled.

[jfoster]

Is there any free static hosting that has lasted longer than a few years?

[notpushkin]

I love fileformat.info, thank you so much for it!

I know it probably won’t amount to a lot, but have you tried asking for donations? I love seeing websites I regularly use doing that and not just relying on ads.

[catoc]

I’m glad to hear it’s helping you keep the costs down - that’s positive. It’s the type of popup that triggers my allergy - which as allergies go is mostly my problem.

[catoc]

Make a kind remark, get down voted? Why?