StarDestroyer.Net BBS

My dad is about to get AOL. Could anyone tell me all the ways in which it sucks in order to dissuade him from making him such a terrible mistake.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Netscape is cheaper. ~Jason

Poor speed, aol image compression mangles pictures,...

When I had AOL, I was frequently disconnected. I was surprised if I could stay on for 30 minutes at a time.

It will also close whatever website you were looking at when it disconnects you.

Tell him that he can get the same service for about $10/month less if he goes with a local dialup ISP.

AOL is part of Time-Warner. That's 50 evil points right there. Also, AOL takes money away from local businesses. That's more evil points. Moreover, AOL makes you use their software, which has been so bad in the past that it spawned class-action lawsuits. How many evil points do you need?

With AOL you have to use their crappy UI. Unless your dad is a complete computer novice you are better off using your own browser, email program, picture viewer, etc. Power to the people!

I use AOL but I can still use IE and pretty musch everything else I'm used to, although my comp seems alot slower when I'm online...

I starting useing AOL back in the days before pentium processors, when the best modem you could buy was a 14.4kbps, and 16 MB of RAM was considered excessive... Ah! The memories...

Back then, nobody knew what the internet was... hell you couldnt even access the world wide web from AOL, that feature would be added later in the future version of 2.0!

Of course back then accessing the Internet was limited to only three choices: AOL, Compuserve, ot Prodgy. Since these were the only ways to access the internet, they provided you with everything you needed, e-mail, encyclopedias, forums, chat rooms, shareware and freeware, tech support direct from the big companies...

As the Internet grew, AOL shrank, most of the companies that supplied AOL with services and databases departed and set up their own web-sites. Alot of the information and downloads that you could access was moved to other web-sites until all that was left was e-mail, fancy graphics, chat rooms and forums. Not that many people use those forums anymore today...

All the things that made AOL great at the beggining are now gone.... Their is no need for AOL in todays world of high speed internet connections, free-email, and web-services. AOLs time has come and gone.

But, I suppose if your new to the internet, stuck with a 56 k modem, and have no idea what the hell your doing, then AOL may be a good place to start.

Disconnects in the middle of e-mails with a "Not Responding" error and you can't save your e-mails.

All the browser windows open up in the same window, but restore instead of keeping them maximized, even when someone IMs you or you open a JavaScript help window.

~ver

AOL is a fucking ripoff. Surely there is a local ISP in your area that will serve you much better for less money.

AOhell's software modifies so much stuff in your OS (and some that does not need modifying) that it has been classified as a virus. That alone is evil enough...

AOL is ridiculously high-priced for a dialup service, their technical support is absolutely abominable, their unsubscription service is practically nonexistant, they spend more money on advertising for new customers than on upgrading the service for existing customers, and their business practices are extremely questionable.

Not to mention their absolutely horrid security, almost zero protection against crackers, an email function that is outclassed by Netscape 4.7, the worst USENET interface on the face of the planet and the fact that AOL tends to hijack your network adapter.

I heard that you need to leave AOL itself open if you want to keep connected to the net. I think this is why many AOLers have problems with online games.

BTW, I used AOL back in '97, and it was a hellhole. Pedophiles in every other chatroom, spamming chatroom bots, IM bombing, email bombs, etc. I don't know how bad it is today when it comes to that stuff, but since it's AOL you know it can't be good.

AOL spams as much as it says it hates it.

~ver

$21.95 for basic dial-up service!

You also cannot customize any of the setup options on AOL. It creates it's own dialer interface that if you change one thing: it stops working and you have to completely re-install the adapter. I changed my DNS once when AOL's was down, and I had to completely re-install AOL to get my Internet to work (of course, AOL worked fine).

Not to mention that AOL broadband will only work for one PC. No proxies, nothing. My mom still uses AOL and I've been trying to break her of it for so long. Unfortunately, it's what she first learned to browse on so she's developed a crutch for it.

www.aolsucks.com

Plenty of reasons there.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot. AOL sued and made them take it down.

I've been using AOL since around 94-95 and admitedly its what I'm most comfortable with as a provider, but I use other browsers straight from the beginning like Netsacpe, then IE after Netscape's demise and now the last 2 months or so I've been using Mozilla thanks to recommendations from people here.

My biggets gripe about AOL is that it tends to fuck wth the settings on your computer. I just downloaded 9.0 this weekend and I spent nearly a day fixing the settings that AOL decided I needed set. AOL 9.0 treats you like an utter noob when it comes to web surfing and goes on and sets things without telling you until you stumble onto it later on.

I am NOT happy with this latest incarnation. UGH.

That's why you try the .org version. Just click yes, and it takes you to aolwatch.org.

Remember, you can't spell AsshOLe w/o AOL.

Lessee, $22 and change for arguably the world's WORST Dialup Scam, or a few dollars north of twice that for COX Cable Internet? One which doesn't phuck with all your OS and stuff like that? One which allows you to gang together a massive Thousand-Box LAN on your side of the cable modem? One that lets you use ANYTHING YOU DAMN WELL PLEASE as long as it's legal?

Easy choice. Take the Cable.

I also heard Comcast is good too

Here's a rather nice list:

1) It's overpriced at $22 a month. You can get a much cheaper and equally capable ISP for half the price.

2) It's unreliable and slow. You'll be lucky if you can connect half the time. And if you do, you'll be lucky to be able to crawl along.

3) AIM, which is free, gives you all the chat features of AOL and you don't have to pay a dime.

4) It's got security problems out the ass. That ones rather self explanitory.

5) Spam beyond belief. I've gotten free accounts that have less spam than AOL. And the worst thing is the block feature's crap. You can either get spammed or block whole domains at a time.

6) Popup adds. There's blocker's crap for this as well.


All in all, you're paying an exorbinant price for an inferior service.

Did anyone mention how fucking apalling AOL tech support is?

Any problem, any edifficulty connecting, no matter the cause, and they will tell you one of two (invariably bollocks) things:

1. You need to update your modem drivers.

2. Your modem is broken.

I should start taking the names of AOL techs who refer their victims to the support line I work on. Then there would be blood. Oh yes...

Dalton wrote:AOL is ridiculously high-priced for a dialup service, their technical support is absolutely abominable, their unsubscription service is practically nonexistant, they spend more money on advertising for new customers than on upgrading the service for existing customers, and their business practices are extremely questionable.

Not to mention their absolutely horrid security, almost zero protection against crackers, an email function that is outclassed by Netscape 4.7, the worst USENET interface on the face of the planet and the fact that AOL tends to hijack your network adapter.

Don't you work for AOL?

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:I also heard Comcast is good too

I'll give Comcast credit. For a huge corporation, they're very responsive on the tech support side and the price is reasonable for what you get (I hear they charge more if you don't have Comcast cable TV, but I can't confirm this). Fgalkin's in New York, right? I think that's Comcast territory.