Let's face it, when you're looking for an FWP (particularly for counterexploitation activities), you don't care about chat, EZ page builders, "community" (a meaningless buzzword FWPs like to throw around), help forums, or how many counters/guestbooks/etc. they have available. You want to know the meat and potatoes; how much space they will give you, what kind of ads they will spam your pages with, whether you get an FTP account and CGI-BIN, what your URL will look like, what their TOS allows, TOS enforcement mechanisms, and how quickly you get your megs.

Angelfire Signup	5 megs	None*	The Usual	Popups if >250K Zap	5-15 min.
Directory: www.angelfire.com/hi/you TOS: Standard Enforcement: Very lax; no violations-reporting form The meager 5MB space offering, popups and lack of real FTP make Angelfire a poor choice for websites in general, but the relaxed enforcement of the TOS makes it excellent for keeping files and controversial/offensive texts. Notes: Popups are served on members' HTML files, but can be disabled if total account usage is <250K. *While files can be uploaded to Angelfire's FTP server, no dedicated accounts are provided; the Web-based file manager must be used to transfer uploaded files to your account from /pub/incoming.
FortuneCitySignup	20 megs	FTP	- File size limit (1MB) No promoting competing services	Banner (you-place-it)	30 seconds
Directory: meltingpot.fortunecity.com/washington/123 TOS: Standard Enforcement: Standard; easy-to-delete banners are auto-inserted on weekly (?) scans or can be placed by the user. Instant signups and a spacious 20MB disk quota make FortuneCity a top choice for free webspace. Once at the signup page, you can fill out the forms and get your password in less than a minute total. Notes: Maximum file size on the server is 1MB; files over this size will be deleted by the server.
Xoom Signup	"Unlimited"	FTP	The Usual	Adframe Zap	5-15 min.
Directory: members.xoom.com/you TOS: Must accept "special offers" (spams) in your email - but they cannot keep you from filtering them ;) Enforcement: Vigilant Xoom claims "Unlimited" disk quotas, but there's really no such thing as unlimited. Accounts which show high activity or disk usage are flagged for investigation, so unless you can hide junkfiles and other infractions well, count on your account being toasted in short order. Notes: Xoom's TOS enforcement is particularly nasty; if your account is found in violation it will be deleted, but no notice will be sent--you won't find out about it until your FTP password comes up invalid or you browse to your account and see a 404 error. Further, violation accounts will be locked out so that the same username cannot be opened again, and you can't sign up a new account with an email address that has been used to sign up a previous (violating) account--you'll have to get another disposable email address (hotmail.com) to open a new account.
Tripod Signup	11 megs	FTP, TripodStats	The Usual	Popups Zap	5 min.
Directory: members.tripod.com/~you TOS: Standard; though there is an ambiguous clause against "useless" pages, ones without any educational, scientific etc. value. I don't expect this (judging by some existing member pages) to be heavily enforced. Enforcement: Standard, but I have it on good faith that "they've been having delete festivals lately". "SkinFinder" server process scans for fleshtone (nudity) in incoming graphics files. While nothing really stands out about this service, Tripod was one of first on the FWP scene, before most of the other copycat services appeared. Large number of members can make finding a unique username difficult (bumping up the account-create time) but your username and pwd. are activated immediately when the signup is completed.  Notes: Free "TripodStats" feature gives you usage stats (hits/day-week-month, browser versions, referrers, etc.) built right in; there is no need to sign up with any external (advertising-supported) stats service.
GeoCities (now part of Yahoo) Signup	11 megs	FTP		Popups or banners (you place it) and WATERMARK Zap	5-15 min
Directory: www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/1234 TOS: Standard; although this service has earned a  for censorship and hidden agendas (Dissidents are placed under "house arrest" for speaking critically of company/sponsors, or questioning the activities of its commercial sponsors, even in private email.) Enforcement: Pretty much nonexistant unless complaint received (or account flagged by automated processes, e.g. keyword spiders).  Recent layoffs of 2/3 of GeoCities staff following its acquisition by Yahoo, coupled with rats-from-a-sinking-ship abandonment by volunteer narcs a.k.a Community Leaders, should help enforcement slip even further. With the floating watermark(?) on every page and unrelenting plague of popups and script errors, as well as censorship issues, GeoCities is a particularly poor choice for actual webpages. Considerable success has been noted in storing unlinked files in accounts containing a minimal homepage as cover (see Free File Storage: Ground Cover).
Free-host.com Signup	10 megs	FTP		Banner	???
Directory: www.free-host.com/you TOS: Allows 3rd-party (paid) banners on your page. Enforcement: Unknown.
Virtualave.net Signup	20 megs	FTP, CGI (with SSI)	+ Password protection OK - File size limit (1.2MB)	Banner or popups Zap	24 hours
Directory: you.virtualave.net (supports www.yourname.com domains if you have one) TOS: No MP3s and no files over 1.2MB (they will be deleted automatically), but unlike most servers, you are allowed to have password-protected pages. Enforcement:Unknown. With its comparatively high reliability and space allotment, Virtualave is one of the few *good* servers that allows CGI together with choice of banner placement. A generous 20MB and a green light for password-protected pages are something you won't find on just any old FWP.
Netcolony signup	35 megs	Unknown	The Usual	None	???
Directory: www.netcolony.com/members/you  TOS: Standard. Enforcement:Unknown.   Quite a lot of space for a no-ads page, eh? I don't know what the catch is, but it looks kinda sneaky :) Since the server's new-signups feature was down at the time of writing (it said check back in a day) and the member-directory search was kaput, some aspects such as signup time, enforcement, FTP, etc. are unknown.

Key:
Server allows pornographic content
Server supports free speech; will not impose excessive censorship
Server allows commercial content or 3rd-party paid advertising
No profanity (actively enforced)
No mp3s
Evidence of politically- or idealogically-motivated censorship, hidden agendas, or political/religious/sexual intolerance

Directory: Sample URL for this provider

"The Usual" is the "universal" TOS used on most free web servers. Deviations from the norm will be noted, but the universal ruleset includes:

• No nudity/pornography
• No hate speech, defamation, offensive/vulgar content
• No profanity (on most servers, this only applies in *extreme* cases of profane language, as opposed to letting fly with an occasional "shit" or "damn" on your pages. Exceptions will be noted with a  icon.)
• No spamming
• No signpost pages or using your account solely as file-storage or remote loading (e.g. dumping all your large graphics files to IMG SRC them into pages at another server)
• No pirated software, using copyrighted graphics/webpage content without permission, other copyright infringement, or anything illegal
• No threatening or harassing people
• No password-protected pages
• No tampering with advertising gimmicks (if applicable)
• No collecting personal information from visitors
• Free homepages cannot be used for commercial purposes, and no paid advertising can be placed on them