Creating an account takes less than a minute. Homestead farms out 12MB of space to start with, then lets you add 100K for each person to whom you give editing rights for your site, up to a maximum of 1MB. So you essentially get 13MB to play with. Don't look for many extras, here, though: Homestead doesn't hand out free e-mail accounts or provide a premium service to host, for instance, small businesses.

What Homestead does offer is a Java-based, page-making utility that gets you going with nearly 40 template designs. Modifying those templates adding new text or your own digital images is click-and-drag simple. The tool's biggest problems are that it works only on PCs running Windows 95/98/NT and thatit's 300K, so it takes time to download over a slow connection and you must download it each time you modify your site.

Fortunately, Homestead is running a beta version of a non-Java tool (we tried it in early October). Titled Express, it is accessible to Mac and Linux users as well as Windows, offers templates, and is even easier to use than the Java tool. Warning: You are limited to Homestead's included tool set, so you cannot upload files made with another Web designer, such as FrontPage, onto this site's servers.

Homestead may seem friendly during construction and the idea of several people contributing to a page may make great sense to you but there are far fewer pages here than at giants like Tripod or GeoCities. A directory does help you browse generic categories, but minus a search engine, you can't easily lock in on a specific site.

America Online has enough members to swamp even the most populated Web-pages-for-free site, but until now, AOL's real estate has been tough to Homestead. That'schanged, though, with the appearance of AOL's more graphical 4.0 interface and the introduction of Hometown AOL. At the moment, only AOL members can homestead at Hometown. Anyone with Web access can view Hometown's content.

Hometown's contemporary look is slick and easily navigated. Credit the tabs at the topAdd Pages, Find Pages, Site Map, and Help as well as the clean, nearly ad-free interface. Even the directory is attractively designed.You can browse its categories or use Hometown's search tool to root out more specific sites among the themed communities into which Hometown is organised.AOL members receive a total of 10MB of server space to host their Hometown homesteads. Though that total is divided among the five AOL screen names allowed for each account, you can manually link a particular name's allotment to another. To stock that space, you can use the online page maker, Personal Publisher 3 (Windows only). This graphical, 11-step wizard guides you through template choices, text entry, link making,and finally, uploading to the server.

It's simple enough that kids can publish pages, though it also lets you build advanced components such as tables. You can also create pages with other Web editors, then manually upload files via AOL's My Place area.For AOL members, Hometown is the smartest pick: members don't have to stray out into the big bad Web; Personal Publisher is first-rate for rookies; and the server allowance is nearly as generous as the best. But until AOL opens it up to all (the company claims it will, although it hasn't set a timetable), Hometown can't be the homestead for everyone.

Another dukedom in the Lycos kingdom (along with Angelfire), Tripod manages to walk the line between page-building power and simplicity without stubbing its toes too many times. In fact, after GeoCities, this is the next-best place for the non-AOL crowd to stake out Web real estate.

The deal is in line with most other homesteads: 11MB of server space, page-making tools, directory of member pages, and searchengine for finding content. And for $3 per month, Tripod's premium service doubles the server space; pay another $3 per month and you'll lose the annoying ads too.Tripod interface looks cleaner than most homesteads the opening is particularly tidy and the organisation of its more than 2 million pages is as logical here as anywhere. Tripod groups its content under familiarly generic labels such as computers, jobs/careers, and entertainment, but also offers more than 130 special interest groups called pods, naturally which combine Web pages, chat groups, and message boards in one place. Pods are a growth industry (five months ago there were only 80), and Tripod's open to suggestions for new pods from members.

Two very different page-making routes lay open to newcomers. The simple stand it is very simple is Quick Page Builder. You choose between two templates, then walk through the construction of an elementary (and bland) site. The alternative? Use Custom Page Builder, which waits for you to enter HTML codein a text-entry box. It's clumsy at best, at worst impossible for anyone not versed in HTML.

If you'd like to avoid those extremes, you can use your own Web design tools. Tripod is particularly well suited to Microsoft's FrontPage 98; you can even use it to maintain your site. This option should be available on every homestead (there's plenty of info on GeoCities, for instance, to help you publish with FrontPage, but it's not nearly as easy there as here). Note that if you use a Web builder other than FrontPage 98 or GeoCities' own tools, you will have to manually FTP your files using an FTP client such as WSFTP or CuteFTP. We highly recommend the FrontPage 98 route for Tripod users.

There's a reason why Xoom typically places third (behind GeoCities and Tripod) on most monthly Web popularity reports: this homestead is mired in the middle neither great nor god awful.

The trouble starts as soon as you hit Xoom's home page. So many ads, both banners and spot advertisements, appear in this tight design thatyou wonder what's content and what's not. For a nice change, however, Xoom doesn't stick irritating ads on your pages, as GeoCities and Tripod do.

But unlike that homestead pair, Xoom's missing a content directory on its front page. Instead, you must click through a button to reach the site's list of communities and sub-communities. Xoom also lacks a search tool, so you're limited to browsing through these collections to find useful member pages. Not good.

Xoom does hand over homesteading's standard 11MB of server space, as well as a new (and free) e-mail address. And sign-up is simple, as is the single page-making tool, a template-based, click-to-choose sequence on the site called Easy Page Builder 2.0. You choose from several thematic templates animals, business, personal, and the likepick backgrounds and graphic elements, and then enter your text and select images (which, in a poor turn, you must have already uploaded to Xoom). Xoom's biggest deal, though, is the 75,000 pieces of Web page art animatedand Java-based buttons, and photos which you can grab.

Another nice touch: you can easily add a chat room to your site. Page building may be a breeze, but getting the files onto Xoom isn't. Rather than give you an easy on-ramp, Xoom makes you manually FTP your site's files to its servers. Your best bet is to download an FTP programme such as WSFTP or Cute FTP, or use a commercial Web design package with FTP skills (such as Claris's Home Page or Microsoft's FrontPage). To its credit, Xoom includes several programme-specific and screen shot heavy FTP tutorials.

This FTPing will shake out some first-time homesteaders, who, to be frank, should look somewhere else for their first page. Page vet? If you don't care for extras, and just want more real estate, Xoom will do.