Hello, I'm new here and I have some questions.

1 - I'd like to know how credits system works?
2 - How astahost free hosting service works?
3 - Can I host copyrighted material?
4 - Does SMTP, PHP mail, Sendmail features available?

1. For each post you receive a certain amount of credits, depending on the length of the post itself. Some sections (the general talk ones) do not give you credits, and the Tutorials section gives you additional credits. When a posts get deleted for some reason, you are penalised, and you are taken 150% of what you gained for that post.

2. It is a post-for-host system. You earn credits by posting, and then use them to "maintain" your server. Astahost is mostly funded by ComputingHost (paid hosting), which is just another part of the Xisto family (just as Astahost is), but there is also a small revenue from ads on Astahost.

3. This is a very delicate issue - if you are the copyright holder, of course you can. On the other hand, if you are not, there are now special Astahost rules you would have to abide, but bare in mind the copyright laws existent in the real world also apply for the Internet. So, if you copy a text without even linking to it (even with a link it might be "illegal"), you definitely have a problem.

4. I can confirm that PHP's mail() function works properly, and am pretty sure that SMTP and Sendmail are enabled, but you will have to wait for a confirmation for the last two.

If you have any more qualms, feel free to express them

Thanks for answer! How could I consult my earned credits? I have earned 30 credits what should I do now? I mean how can I get my cPanel login and password? What do you mean "You earn credits by posting, and then use them to "maintain" your server."? How long can I host my web site? There are some file size limit on upload? What its features? (Sorry about my english, I'm brazilian, so I don't speak english verry well).

Once you have earned 10 or 30 credits (which you can view near the top of the index forum page), you need to apply for hosting in the FREE WEB HOSTING : NEW ACCOUNT REQUEST forum. With 10 credits you can apply for the hosting package #1, and 30 for #2. After doing so, an administrator will review your request and posts and approve your hosting account (or deny if your post quality isn't high enough). Only then can you access your web site, including the latest cPanel.

You can use your account as along as you maintain your credits above zero. When your hosting request gets approved, your credits start decreasing - one credit for one day. That means that you constantly need to post in order to keep the above zero, thus keeping your account alive.

As for the maximum upload size, once again I am not sure - my account on ComputingHost shows 2MB when PHP info is display, but I know I have uploaded larger files. Other features include both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, Cron Jobs, addon and parked domains, web statistics, mail accounts etc. I didn't list all the features, so if you need a specific one, you know where to ask.