There are many free hosting providers and a lot of them offer advanced services like CGI, shell access, PHP, SSI, and other advanced topics. Free hosting is usually supported by advertising.

Free hosting is best for personal Web pages and very small business Web pages. Because they are supported by advertising, they are not ideal for any serious business. If you plan to run a business on your site, free hosting is great for testing your site and preparing the pages, but not good for running the business unless you can turn off the advertising.

Free Hosting Services

Free Web Hosting for Your Personal Web Pages under 20mb
Reviews and information from the Personal Web Guide at About.com for free Web hosting for personal pages under 20MB.

Free Web Hosting for Your Personal Web Pages for Large sites
Reviews and information from the Personal Web Guide at About.com for free Web hosting for personal pages over 20MB.

NetFirms
Free hosting with Perl, CGI, SSI, and Flash capabilities. You can also get a free copy of NetObjects Fusion. 25MB, free domain hosting, FTP access, and email.

50megs.com
Get 12MB free, paid for with banner ads. And it's simple to pay just a little and get rid of the ads, and 50MB or more.

Angelfire Communications
Free advertising supported Web pages. 5MB storage.

BizLand.com
The Basic membership is free, but you don't get a lot, just a one-page Web site "business card". But they also have a 30-day free trial of their next level of service.

Brinkster
Brinkster is an ASP information service, but if you join at the free "General Membership" level, you can post to their forums as well as get 30 MB free Web space with ASP support. One good thing about this service, there are no ads on your site, instead you agree to receive email ads.

The Burgh Network Solutions
This is a nice service as you get 20MB of ad free Web space. There is no FTP or CGI support.

Catalog.com
Catalog.com offers free Web hosting "forever" when you register a new domain with them or transfer your existing one to them.

Crosswinds
Crosswinds offers both free email and unlimited Web page hosting space.

dotEasy
This free hosting service has devised a new way to pay for their service. Instead of a banner ad on your site, you must agree to receive their newsletter. For this they offer: 20MB, free domain hosting, unlimited email addresses, FTP access, and more.

Dreamwater
50MB free, and you get guestbook, form email, clip art, and more. Plus it's free with no annoying pop-up ads.

EasySpace
25 MB of free Web space. It's easy to upgrade to more space for a low price.

Free Webspace.Net
If you are looking for a place to host your Web page for free, then Free Webspace.Net is the place to start. As of this writing they have 136 listings, and it can only go up.

Freeservers.com
You can have your name in your URL for free. Get 20MB free with this great hosting service.

FreeYellow
This service offers 20MB of free space, a wizard to help you create your pages, lots of graphics for your site, placement in the FreeYellow search engine, and best of all, it's free.

GeoCities
GeoCities is one of the first, and best known, Web hosting services on the Web. I had a GeoCities page for a long time.

Freedom2Surf
Frontpage 2000 support is a great feature on this free Web hosting provider. Plus you can get Perl CGI scripting access and PHP4. This is a free service suitable for more advanced developers.

Homestead
This is a free Web page builder where you don't need to know any HTML to create your page.

Hypermart
Hypermart will host business Web sites. The only "charge" is an advertisement is placed on your site.

MSN Communities
MSN uses TalkCity to help you create your Web pages quickly and easily.

Netfirms
This site gives you free 25MB of Web space, with no set up fee. It is paid for with an ad at the top of all your pages.

Netscape Site Central
Free Web hosting made simple

WebWowser
WebWowser offers an interesting service. You have to use their software to work on your site, but it's pretty easy to use. One caveat, your site must be updated regularly. If it is not, after 30 days of inactivity it will be taken down.

Spree
Spree is a shopping site that provides unlimited space free Web sites to its members.

Stormloader.com
25MB space with lots of tools to make it easy for you to make your Web page. Special features include free guestbooks, free message board, unlimited bandwidth, and free online support.

Tripod
Tripod divides the personal pages into categories and your site will be within one or more "pods" to facilitate searching.

XOOM.com
Xoom offers 11MB of free Web space. As they say, they will "always go the extra megabyte for you".