As moxliukas said, most FTP clients allow you to set your permissions when you're uploading. While I've never used their servers before, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't allow FTP access. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if .htaccess files don't work as you would expect in the normal user directories they offer.

It would appear that with what you want to do, a normal free server won't work. There are other hosts that offer limited access including the things you need for free, although I don't know any offhand. If you're looking to test out scripts (in a non-production setting, obviously), perhaps you could contact jcwren about an account on Perlmonk.org.