There are several ways of getting web space on the 'Net. Usually, the main way is to use your Internet Service providers' space which is provided as part of the agreement between you and them. Typical spaces range from 1MB to 5MB. The other, probably more permanent way is to sign up with a Web Site which provides space free of charge. Below are some examples of some of these web space providers.
There are over 250 e-mail service providers on the 'Net which you can use. When you sign up with any one of these, you get to keep the e-mail address for life!! This can be useful if you need a second address, or if you keep changing service providers.
This section will describe the free stuff you can get that will enhance your web pages.
If you are a beginner, then maybe it'd be easier creating a web page with an authoring package. Here are a list for you to check out.
Web Space Providers
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Geocities
Total Web Space - 15MB (or more with it's GeoPlus+ program)
Freebies - E-Mails (username@geocities.com), Counters, Guestbooks, Banners
Description - This Web Site, based in the USA, is a great place to register your web page. Signing up is easy, you just have to fill in a form and the details (username, password and links) are e-mailed to you straight away. Geocities is split into "neighbourhoods", which are basically sub-directories within the main URL. Examples are SouthBeach, Area51, etc. Once you find a "neighbourhood" that you like, you then search for a number that is free (numbers range from 1000 to 9999). Once you find a free space, you fill out the form, submit it and bob's your uncle, you have your 15MB of free space!!
Overall - 15MB is a small amount to play with these days, but with free e-mail, counters and tons of other free stuff, this has to be one of your first stopping points when deciding on who to sign up with. - 
Angelfire
Total Web Space - 50MB
Freebies - Lots of stuff from htmlGEAR, a new web page addons page
Description - This Web Space provider offers quite a bit of space, although they place adverts at the top of your page.
Overall - 50MB is better than what Geocities is offering, and seeing as it seems to be rivalling Geocities with the amount of add-ons, this could be a good one to choose. - 
Fortune City
Total Web Space - 100MB
Freebies - Web Space, e-mail, Web Rings among other stuff
Description - This looks very good and professional...
Overall - Almost as good as Geocities. I say "almost" cos they offer those crap Comet Cursors, which are actually Spyware according to one web site E-Mail services
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Free E-Mail Addresses Directory
Description - This is a free e-mail directory on the 'Net, and this should be your first spot when checking out an e-mail site. It's incredibly easy to use and lists over 250 free e-mail providers. - 
Hotmail
Features - Web-based e-mail retrieval system, HTML-based e-mail retrieval system
Description - This was bought up by Microsoft sometime in 1997 and it's quite a good site. You get a free simple e-mail address and to access all your e-mail, you just log on.
Overall - Pretty good, despite the security scares, but seeing as you can only use Outlook Express 5 to download e-mail (and it isn't perfect at doing it), then you may want to look elsewhere. - 
Yahoo! Mail
Features - Web-based e-mail site, can use plain text or HTML e-mails.
Description - This is a web-based mail site which fits in with the other Yahoo services, offers the usual like POP access, sigs, events sent to your address, and can even forward e-mail to another address.
Overall - Probably the best one out there as you can use any e-mail program to download mail easily and can even check other accounts using POP for you. Freebies
Counters - Everyone needs counters and counters are in big demand!! Counters are graphics that tell you how many times someone has visited your page, and let you know how popular your page is. There are several providers of counters, some are very good with lots of choices of counter fonts, while some are a waste of time as they frequently don't work. Check out the selection below...
Web Page Access Counters and Trackers - A comprehensive directory on all of the 'Net's Counter Providers. Come here first...
Dragonfire
Description - An OK counter service, it's free and all you need to do is to copy ONE line!! Yeah, that's it!! Reliability is average for this service. You also get around 30-40 counter fonts to choose from.
Overall - Not very reliable as frequently you find that the counter takes AGES to come up, or they don't come up at all. Seems to be only for people who use it as an ISP now.
Link Exchange's Free Counter
Description - This is a service from MIcrosoft-owned Link Exchange so you get one design but several colours to choose from. Signing up is easy, you don't need to be a member of the Link Exchange to use it.
OverallVery simple service to set-up, but lack of counter fonts lets it down.
WebCounter
Description - Good counter service, counters very simple and good
OverallIs a very good counter service, now has come back from the dead... -
Geocities
Description - Counters, only available for Geocities members.
Overall - 8 (out of 10) Smoothy Points - Very reliable, and easy to set up (once you're a Geocities member, you just have to add ONE VERY SMALL LINE to your code). Maintenance is very easy, you can check out all your counter pages and hits on one page within Geocities.Guestbooks - Guestbooks are the next big-demand thing on the web, they allow visitors to leave a message to you as proof of their visit.
htmlGEAR
Description - The PREMIER Guestbook site, this site is very easy to sign up with and is the 'Net's most popular Guestbook service. The standard Guestbook's appaearances can be customisable so you can have different background colours, pictures, fonts, colours, etc. The deluxe Guestbook can be fully customised so that even the questions can be edited by the webmaster!!
Overall - Fairly reliable, easily customisable and the ability to use HTML on the Guestbooks make this one tops!!
Geocities Guestbook
Description - Geocities have just recently offered members a guestbook service. It's fully customisable, and you can enter in HTML like in Guestworld.
Overall - Excellent Guestbook site, but it's only available to members who sign up for their FREE Web Space, so there you go. Bad luck for some!!Forums - Forums are interactive Message Boards which are similar to Guestbooks but are set up in a way so as to encourage discussions.
VantageNet
Description - VantageNet provides a forum service which is very easy to set up. Once it's set up, the administrator can edit the appearance of the site, with colour schemes and backgrounds. A very useful feature of the message boards is the 'e-mail if anyone responds to this message' function, which will automatically send you an e-mail alerting you to someone replying to your posts. HTML is supported as standard, which means that you'll be able to type in HTML and see the results!!
Overall - well, this is as good as you're going to get from a Message Board provider, but using CGI scripts, you could get a better look.
Delphi
Description - Another message board offering from Delphi, which strangely doesn't use trees as expected. You also have to sign up every time you post a message, although it is FREE, which frankly is annoying.
Overall - the look and feel of this one is not good and you're better off looking at another forum. Plus the strange signing-up procedure when you try to post will put off some people.
Web Page Authors
Microsoft FrontPage
Description - Microsoft's offering in this field is the infamous Frontpage, now at the 2000 version. The trial version is available at Microsoft's site and it's officially released in the shops. Supporting the latest HTML standards, including Dynamic HTML, this promises to be all that you'll need for web page authoring.
Overall - Quite good, and doesn't mess around with existing code.
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Description - Macromedia, the multimedia specialists, have Dreamweaver for you to try. Beta version available to download on their site, Dreamweaver is found to be very easy to set up and control. You can even use it to automatically upload your files via FTP!! Supports the latest HTML standard, so practically every HTML tag can be tweaked and changed to your hearts content. You'll ve able to edit the source code via a small window.
Overall - Just as good as Frontpage.
accesses to this page since the 2nd of March, 1998, according to Geocities