If it is free, there will be restrictions. Either in number of pages, in number of days without updates, in number of MB, ... Services will usually provide limited packages for free with the hope you will like it and upgrade to a paid package, or they may pack your site with ads. A small company giving away its server room for free without asking anything in return will not survive long term usually, so if you want it free and reliable it may be a good idea to go with one of the big players who have lot of money and are established many years. Not saying the likes of Yahoo or Google are without flaws, but they will be around in a few years and they have the money to actually provide things for free without the risk the service will be terminated in a few months...
So...
www.geocities.com www.googlepage.com
are safe bets despite their few flaws.
Few more...
www.frac.dk (very good reputation, but you need to understand Danish)
www.freewebs.com (but package is limited to a small site unless you pay to have more pages... friends of mine like it though)
Of the free ones out there, why not try Googlepages.com? It is very easy to use even when you dont know any programming language or HTML, it gets you into the Google rankings immediately, Google will surely survive many years so no worries there, and there are not many ads. It is not perfect but it is good for a free service, remember Gmail is also very good and this comes from the same company. I believe Blogspot.com is also from Google and also relatively reliable.
However, if you want a top of the bill host, it will require some cash. I recommend
www.vodahost.com, I got a site there as well. It cost me 100 USD more or less per year (including free .com domain) but their sitebuilder is top class, the support forum and tutorials are great as well, so its value for your money.
