Jake Ludington's Digital Lifestyle

Download BadBlue Personal Edition

Setting up a Web server at home can be tricky. The options built into Windows XP are less than ideal and finding the right app to help you out is confusing. Once you get the server configured, there's still the difficulty of securing your computer, making sure your network is locked down and figuring out how to connect to the server from outside your router. One of the best personal Web servers I've ever tried is BadBlue Personal Edition. It's great whether you want to share files on your internal network or provide limited access to files to the greater Internet. The software adds a search function to any directory you share, offers a wizard driven interface for configuring shared files and folders, handles slideshow presentations of photos, and can act as a P2P server in some configurations. Password protection options let you lock down files and folders to keep things secure. If you want to share files with a select group of people, this is an easy way to setup access control. A number of preview features for Microsoft Office documents are available to demo, but require the paid version for full support. The downside to this free version is banner ads display on Web pages as part of the deal. While you still need to operate with security in mind, BadBlue PE goes a long way to setting up a home PC as a Web server for virtually any application. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]