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How can Internet service providers (ISPs) and sites that provide web space and picture storage offer their services for free? Is there a catch? From Karen, Co Sligo, via e-mail

Advertising is one part of the answer. Money might make the world go round, but banner ads are what bring in the money in the Internet world (not enough for the many web businesses that are going bust, but that's another story).

In the specific case of ISPs, they make money on the dialup costs as well as ads. If you pay a monthly charge, which is typically in the region of £15 to £20, the basic cost of an hour on the Internet is just under 50p at weekends and evenings, with daytime rates being twice that.

If you use one of the many "free" services the dial-up costs are slightly more expensive at weekends and evenings and almost three times more at daytime rates. Therefore, depending on how often you use the Internet, it might actually work out cheaper to pay a monthly charge.

Websites that provide free space, such as www.geocities.com, which was the first to do it, make money by putting ads on your site. Unless you are a rabid, anarchic Internet hacker, having some ads on your page is a small price to pay for getting free web space.

Sites that exist specifically to let you create online photo albums are a relatively new idea (new to me anyway), but seem easy enough to use. Photocountry, www.photocountry.com, has a download called Photo Wizard available from its homepage to make using the service easier. It makes money by marketing services such as having your pictures put on coffee mugs, t-shirts, mouse pads and lots of other places you wouldn't normally put your pictures. It makes distributing the pictures to friends and family easier though - just give them the URL and they can go have a look and download them if they choose.

Some free photo-album services have very limited space, meaning that pictures sometimes have to be deleted to make way for new ones, but Fotki, www.fotki.com, offers unlimited storage. There don't seem to be any opportunities to have your mug on a mug here, but there are a lot of ads on every picture page. Still, you can't expect something for nothing.