MySQL 8.0 has been released as stable (GA) earlier this month. For db4free.net this means it’s time to make MySQL 8.0 the default version and to deprecate the MySQL 5.7 server instance.

The new MySQL 8.0 server is running on the default port 3306. All new registrations will have the database created on this server. It is fresh and empty and will start from scratch.

The previous MySQL 5.7 server will remain available on port 3308. All users who have data there which they want to keep should migrate it to the new MySQL 8.0 server. This will require you to sign up again.

The previous MySQL 8.0 server will remain on port 3307. Both the old MySQL 5.7 and the old MySQL 8.0 server on port 3307 will be available until June 15, 2018. Data which isn’t migrated to the new server instance by then will be lost.

The new MySQL 8.0 server instance will come …

db4free.net was born in 2005 (which makes it older than Twitter or Google Chrome) when MySQL 5.0 was in early development. 11 years went by but one thing always remained the same: the 5 in MySQL’s major version number. MySQL versions went from 5.0 to 5.1 to 5.5, 5.6 and recently to 5.7. There was always this 5.something.

While this 5 will stay around for a bit longer, it is not alone anymore.

Now there is a duplicate of the db4free.net website at

https://mysql8.db4free.net

where you can create a database on a newly set up MySQL 8.0 server!

MySQL 8.0 is in very early development, the first Development Milestone Release (MySQL 8.0.0 DMR) has just been released on September, 12. It will take several months until there will be a final release.

db4free.net makes it easy to try new features early. The …

db4free.net finally runs MySQL 5.7 which was released on October 21.

Rather than upgrading the existing MySQL server I set up a new MySQL 5.7 server. This is cleaner and it helps to get rid of accounts which are no longer used.

For active users, the MySQL 5.6 server will stay online

until January 15, 2016.

You can access it on port 3307 (the new MySQL 5.7 server will again run on MySQL’s default port 3306).

Users who want to keep their data need to migrate it to the new server:

• create a backup of your data on the MySQL 5.6 server
• signup for a new db4free.net account
• restore your backup in the new MySQL 5.7 server

If you use the MySQL default client and …

Finally! The new db4free.net Website has launched and along with it comes a new (slightly stronger) server and some simplifications with the service itself.

So what is new? Of course the new website which now is up to modern standards again, using a responsive design. While the old site was only designed for desktop (no surprise if you consider it was created in 2005 and remained more or less unchanged since), the new site adopts to small screen devices like mobile phones and tablets as well. Also the look is totally different:

db4free.net old

db4free.net new

The service now has a few simplifications. It is no longer allowed, or necessary, to …

db4free.net‘s server has reached its limits, and it was time for a new one. Now here it is, a shiny new server, with 8 times as much memory than the previous one, and also more disk space. Time for a reboot.

Only recently, MySQL 5.6 has become GA with much better performance than 5.5 and earlier, so the combination of a faster MySQL server and a faster machine should result in a very significant performance boost for db4free.net.

I have not migrated any user databases, but they are still available on the previous/old server. The old server is available at db4free.org, the new server at db4free.net. I will leave the old server running until end of March to allow users to transfer …

db4free.net is joining the protest against SOPA & PIPA and will stay down for 24 hours, starting January 18, 2012 at 02:00 UTC.

Learn more on what this is all about at americancensorship.org …

… and why the WEB GOES ON STRIKE …

… or watch some of the many videos related to SOPA on YouTube.

db4free.net has been updated again.

The server now runs MySQL 5.6.4 m7, the very latest, and lets hope, the very greatest.

Enjoy!

Recently there were some server issues at db4free.net which raised some concerns over a possible soon end of db4free.net.

Here are 3 facts that should convince you that there is no reason for concern:

• db4free.net has doubled (!) its visit numbers in quite a short period of time. And this doesn’t look like a temporary increase, but very likely to continue and maybe even become more. So db4free.net is currently more successful than it has ever been before.
• db4free.net recently moved to a new server, which is even slightly stronger than the old one, but costs less than half the money.
• I invested quite some efforts to clean up the web site infrastructure (which was in a very messy state not long ago). Even though this isn’t entirely finished yet, it allows for new perspectives which seemed unrealistic before. Working on the code becomes …

A few months ago I wrote about how to do language detection correctly, to respect the user’s preferred language setting in his/her browser, aka the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE header.

Now, finally, db4free.net has received exactly this implementation. Took me a while, but now it’s there :).

Especially German speaking people will notice the difference. If German takes priority over English in the browser settings, the German version of db4free.net will be loaded by default. No more need to click the German flag. If neither German nor English is set, the site will default to English.

However, the English and German flags are still available, to change the language if a person chooses to. This allows for maximum flexibility.

Noticed the new navigation item in the MySQL Developer Zone?

Sarah Novotny and Sheeri K. Cabral have picked up the OurSQL Podcasts again which were on hiatus for a while (well, they have now been back again for a while as well). The Podcasts are available on several resources:

• The OurSQL Podcasts page
• Technocation, Inc.
• iTunes
• …