Free learners may want to implement HTTPS/SSL for various reasons and you can use CloudFlare to do just that!
This should only take you 5-10 minutes to be up and running, any issues please open a new thread and be detailed with what you’ve done and what isn’t working.
The ORANGE clouds should only be ORANGE once you’ve SUCCESSFULLY added your domain to the control panel at 000webhost. They MUST BE GREY prior to adding to 000webhost successfully.
Head over to CloudFlare.com and signup a new account or login to an existing one.
Add a new site and input your custom domain you own at the registrar.
If it is a newly registered domain you may have to wait a few minutes or sometimes up to a few hours for CloudFlare to register the domain is now registered.
Select the FREE PLAN
CloudFlare will now scan for existing DNS records -
You’ll want to DELETE ALL THE RECORDS IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY FIND / ADD UNTIL THERE ARE NONE LEFT
Now we have a fresh canvas and ready to input the TWO CNAME records required to work with 000webhost free web hosting.
Hit the drop down and select CNAME
Type in @ and then your example.000webhostapp.com URL into the next box, MAKE SURE TO SELECT THE GREY CLOUD / DNS ONLY
Now again select CNAME, type in WWW then your example.000webhostapp.com URL into the next box, MAKE SURE TO SELECT THE GREY CLOUD / DNS ONLY
Now with your TWO CNAME records that is all that is required to allow your custom domain to load over WWW and NON-WWW.
If you are planning to use 000webhost free email forwarders you can add one MX record of mail.post.000webhost.com
I would fully recommend looking to use alternative free service like ImprovMX.com or Zoho.com, GSuite, Migadu.com etc
CloudFlare will now inform you to login to your domain registrar and switch your nameservers to CloudFlare to enable DNS to be managed by them.
Login to your domain registrar and update as required
If you are stuck ask your domain registrar support to do this part for you or Google “REGISTRAR updating nameservers” and you’ll likely find an easy tutorial.
Since you are using free 000webhost hosting you will need to select FLEXIBLE MODE for CloudFlare to work with our services as only Hostinger Premium allows you to use other modes.
You’ll more than likely want to select ON for Always Use HTTPS
If it doesn’t prompt you to setup now then don’t worry you can navigate using the menu later on.
You can enable Automatic HTTPS Rewrites also
Now that is most of the work done on CloudFlare we just need to add to 000webhost control panel
MAKE SURE THE CLOUDS ARE GREY UNTIL YOU’VE ADDED YOUR DOMAIN TO THE 000WEBHOST PANEL.
Add the domain to 000webhost by POINT DOMAIN
Then type in your custom domain and select the 000webhostapp you want to link it to from the list displayed
Once you add to 000webhost successfully it will look like this
NOW YOU TURN THE CLOUDS TO ORANGE TO REAP THE BENEFITS OF CLOUDFLARE ON YOUR FREE WEBSITE.
If you get an error message like this you’ll need to wait a bit longer
After successfully added to 000webhost you can turn the clouds orange on CloudFlare.
Now your site traffic will be filtered through CloudFlare before loading the content from our free services, CloudFlare offers benefits of caching and custom rules and applications viewable via CloudFlare control panel.
Just one cool feature is Welcome Bar application via CloudFlare, you can implement on all pages of your website an information bar that can tell visitors of latest news, information or important messages.
An important topic on Flexible Mode while using CloudFlare would be a wise read for those using CloudFlare with 000webhost.
You can obtain FULL SSL with upgrading to use Hostinger.
You can view the control panel demo here -
http://bit.ly/hostingerdemopanel