[ryan]

I've used various free website hosts in the past and to be honest, I would rather just have paid hosting.

One service in particular was horrible to me and that was Freespace.net. My whole site got deleted and everyone else's that was on Box 13 because of some goof-up on their part. I then re-created my site with them. They promised 90% uptime but the site went down for well over a month and never ended up getting my problems resolved. The only reason I was trying to stay with them is because they allowed the MySQL databases (needed to install wordpress) which most free hosting doesn't offer and they do not show any ads.

The best free hosting that I have used has been 110mb.com. They also do not show any ads on your site and provide site builder tools and etc. The log-in was pretty goofy but manageable. The only downside was they did not offer MySQL databases free. You could buy them for $5 each to add to your account but this was not a good deal to me. I recommend them out of all that I have used but paid hosting is always better in my opinion.

For paid hosting, I absolutely love HostGator. They are among the cheapest on the net but one of the best! I chose the middle of the road (baby croc) hosting for 9.95 per month. They use cPanel with Fantastico so wordpress can be installed in about 2 minutes. I have not had a single complaint while being with this company and wish that I had quit wasting my time a long time ago. For 4 months I dealt with the horrors of free hosting while I finally came to my senses.

If you would like to use HostGator, when you sign up enter the coupon code "wordpress" without the quotes and you will get your first month for $0.01, after that it's just 9.95 (or which ever one you choose)