OK, I tried izFree. No good because they are closed, no new accounts being accepted.
x10: now this is different. It looks like this may be the first genuine web hosting service out of all the ones I've tried.
However the signup procedure is the biggest usability nightmare I've seen in a long while. Absolutely unbelievable. So I guess they try to keep the number of people down by making it very difficult to actually get an account
The next problem is that I've managed to find what their nameservers are (tricky, that), and now I have to find what the rest of the procedure is to host the domain there. Like all free webhosts they are mainly into providing free subdomains, as that's problem-free, requires no work to set up, and ends up by boosting their site (and not the site owner's property much).
Hmm. It's like banging your head against a wall, it'll be lovely when I can stop. Maybe paying $10 a year isn't so bad after all...