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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 11/9/06, EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net> wrote:
> That was the first thing I did!!! I hate all that AOL stuff....there
> must be a million shortcuts alone!
Thought you might be interested in this:

Regarding AOL:

AOL buys lots of ads in magazines. The company may not be buying too
many more ads in _Windows Magazine_ following editor Fred Langa's
editorial:

Editorial
by Fred Langa (Windows Magazine)

*&@$#)(^$$ AOL 5.0! AOL hosed another system of mine. I recently tried
to upgrade a system here from AOL 4 to AOL 5; I'll spare you the
details, but the punchline was "Format C:\" For beginners, AOL is a
godsend -- an all-in one package that combines an Internet Service
provider, organized (non-Internet) content, and software. AOL also can
be good for parents with young kids because the built-in "nannyware"
can help reduce (but not eliminate) the amount of sexually oriented
spam that all AOL users suffer with.

For everyone else, I think AOL is the pits.

For as long as I can remember, AOL has aggressively altered the
networking settings on machine's it's installed on. It changes your
TCI/IP settings, and may even delete (!) non-AOL settings. It installs
its own "Windows Socket" (winsock) and Dial-Up Adapter, even if you
have a perfectly good setup already in place. It even reinstalls some
of Windows' most basic Internet plumbing, overwriting or duplicating
whatever you already have on your hard drive.

And it wants to make you use a customized version of Internet
Explorer; that version of IE is notoriously troublesome: IE itself is
fine, but once AOL is done diddling with it and placing it atop its
own special networking plumbing, it can become an unstable mess.

AOL's own tech support admits that -- oops! -- installing AOL may make
your system unable to connect to other ISPs, and that -- oops! -- your
Internet-sharing software (such as Win98's ICS) may no longer work.
But these aren't bugs. It's the software installing itself in exactly
the way AOL intends. You simply have to do things the AOL way, period.

OK, forget the software -- even as a service, AOL is pretty bad. If
the force-fed ads don't get you, the spam will. If the spam doesn't
get you, then you'll get tripped up by AOL's proprietary and very
nonstandard email system, which works well only when talking to other
AOL people. (Can you say "captive audience?")

When AOL5 destroyed my system, I was seething. These problems weren't
because AOL was trying to do something cutting edge and wonderful: It
just wanted to alter my system its own unnecessary, hyperagressive and
proprietary way. In the process of needlessly changing things it had
no business changing and adding stuff it didn't need to, it reduced a
perfectly good computer system to a paperweight. Sheesh. If Microsoft
tried anything halfway as boneheaded as the AOL install, the peasants
would light the torches and march on Redmond. But AOL gets away with
it -- I guess because they buy tons of ads to convince you that it's
friendly, fun, and easy.

Baloney.

If you're a novice with a standalone system that has no Internet
software installed, isn't on a network, will never share a connection,
and (ideally) is running an older version of Windows, AOL can be a
great way to get your feet wet. But almost everyone else will have
better service, more control, and just plain better results with a
real ISP, a real email client, and a real (unmodified) browser.

Fred Langa, 11-1-99