I'm getting ready to launch a blog. I've done some planning already, have ideas for content, but I don't know where to host it. I see a few posts complaining about Google Blogger, so what else is there? I would really prefer not to buy a hosting package when I can easily get this for free. Also I'm not planning to run ads, so that's not important.

Thanks! I don't usually spend much time on the computer evenings or weekends, but will keep an eye on this thread.

I used to love and praise blogger, but since the change over to "new" blogger it's become a pile of rubbish.

I would suggest downloading wordpress, Getting a domain and doing it yourself, But if you don't want to get a domain and hosting you can still use wordpress and have them host it for you for free.

One more thing i would say is that if you create a blog somewhere and it gets popular you will curse the day you decided not to host it yourself on a domain you own.

Either way, Stay well away from blogger, At least untill they get thier act together again.

Well, I agree with stOx. Blogger sucks. But it sucked even before the new release. I hate blogger because it doesn't allow us to access internal stuff. Wordpress is well built, fast, robust and has all the new advanced features. So, I recommend that you go for Wordpress.

Even though you don't want to host it yourself I'd still suggest downloading WordPress and hosting it yourself. It may not be important to you now to have ads or to run it from your own domain, but it might be at some point and if you do later want it all under your own domain you'll be glad you started it out that way.

It's not like hosting costs all that much. You could host your blog for a year for less than $100.

If you have no intention of ever monetizing the blog then it probably doesn't make that much difference where you run it. In that case either blogger or running it from the WordPress site is probably fine.

If its just for the pleasure of writing, why not just go to Google's blogspot? It is free and you can get started with great utilities. With a litle knowledge of programming, it is just as good as any proprietary blogging software, yet its free. If you're going to blog, its defntly worth knowing how to program. Hope that helps.

i would suggest to get your own domain name and also use word press