First, I am looking for a hosting company that charges monthly. I don't want to pay in advance and get stuck with a company. Found chime host - http://www.chimehost.com but I can't seem to find many sites advertising them. I see justhost on hosting review sites but they require yearly payment for the low price. so who do you recommend?

 

I use godaddy, but I just saw a banner of HF called LimeDomains, and it says free web hosting

 

I can tell you that HostGator is awesome. I've been hosting 11 websites with them since 2002 for only $9/month

unlimited space and unlimited transfer. they have cheaper packages too

 

i read that hostgator places a limit on the number of files. I am planning to use gallery2 and uses a lot of files. I guess i'll call them and ask. thanks

 

You are correct. If you want to pay $5-9/month and use a host service provider as a file repository like Box.net or something like that, then they won't allow it. However, you can use their website tools like Gallery2 to upload as many photos as you want. I currently use Gallery2 to create a backup for all my digital photos. I have 10GB worth of photos hosted on a gallery2 with HostGator.