About hosting company

I think most people when talking about drupal hosting, they want their own domain name, so you have to pay for it. Free hosting is good only for test purpose, and I don't think it deserves the time and effort spending on it, getting your own domain and hosting isn't that expensive nowadays.
As for ads and affiliates, if this borad still exists, they should exist, it won't hurt anyone as long as there's no trap or spam, but it benefit those who need information.
I have some recommendations on my website:
www.netregist.com/webhosting
www.netregist.com/coupons