I cant comment on free hosting as the only free host I've used was lycos, and they sucked. After that I went right to paid shared hosting, and now a dedicated :)
www.amik.biz is the best i've used but they may have to shutdown because someone told google that they were using the AdSense ads wrong and they were making people click on them, which they weren't. :(
I use http://www.instaspace.com, Theyre good because you can add them to your MSN, AOL or Yahoo Messenger and there will be a person on hand to help you 12 hours a day
... and you get loads of space really cheap, and unlimited bandwidth!