I know there are good PAY sites, but I want to be cheap for now. I’m using Geocities, but the data transfer lock-out they have is lame. Any good free web hosting sites out there?
Define “good.” Between bandwidth limitations, pop-up ads, banner ads, slow servers, and the tendency for free services to disappear in the blink of an eye, they all give meaning to the old axiom, “you get what you pay for.”
I pay $12/month for web hosting, and I consider it well worth the effort because I get to complain if something goes wrong. The only free site I use (as a data backup more than anything else) is Apple’s mac.com domain – they have bandwidth limits as well, but avoid the other problems that other free services have. Even then, I wouldn’t host my high-bandwidth heavily-visited site there, because of the traffic I get.
Good for now means I can store a bunch of photos and link to them from other sites, not have to worry about the site going down because of too much data transfer. I have no desire to create an actual web site; I just want it for file storage and access.
I use (and like) www.brinkster.com
zwaldd - lots of free sites like Yahoo and Geocities, IIRC, will replace your image by a “HOSTED BY ***” image when you link to them externally. I know I had this problem with Xoom (now defunct, I think).
We’ve had a few threads on this subject in the past few months. Do a search on here for “free hosting” and you should find something. Unfortunately, you can’t search for “web” 
Apple’s mac.com will definitely let you do that, and without any image-blocking tricks. I’m using it to store a few MPEG files that my paid site links to. As long as you don’t exceed their (very high) hourly bandwidth use limits, it sounds like a great fit.
I use www.boomspeed.com
I find it generally quite reliable, and it’s very easy to use. However, there have been times when my pictures take a little longer to load (perhaps 10 seconds on my cable modem). I’m not sure how often this occurs though.
This will be a matter of opinion, so I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
mullinator - tried your brinkster suggestion, but the free option doesn’t allow linking.
rjung - I’m assuming mac.com is only for mac users? I checked the website and that’s what it looked like. Please tell me if I’m incorrect.
Kayeby - it looks like boomspeed also will let you link only for their paid options. Still searching for that crazy free site that probably doesn’t exist. Looks like paying is the only option for such services.
Technically, yeah – it’s one of the benefits of being a Mac owner. 
But you only need a Mac to sign up for an account; after you do that, I believe you can use a Windows PC to access the features. I check my mac.com e-mail through their web interface from my Windows NT PC work computer on a regular basis.
Yeah, this guy made quite alist of them:
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/smk39/photohost.htm
e.g.
www.clubphoto.com
Seems to allow offsite linking, but I can’t find more info w/o signing up.
www.printroom.com
Seems to offer 200MB free storage (plus $0.20/MB above that) and allows remote linking (albeit with a “Hosted by…” strip at the top). Only supports JPGs.
www.shutterfly.com
Some people are using it, I have no additional info.
www.xoasis.com
20MB space. Allows remote image linking, FTP access to web space, online file management, mail forwarding, POP3 mail service, and many other features. (Recommended by ossie, used by me)