[Skywalk]

Can anyone tell me where this anti-AOL bias came from, and I refer to the NON-POLITICAL aspect of the company. I know years ago they signed on too many new customers and created some bad feelings because their servers couldn't handle all the simultaneous traffic.

However, we've had AOL for years, and now we have DSL, but have long-standing accounts with them and they are good in a pinch(dial-up) if the DSL is down. Now that they are offering their own broadband(we can't get it in our location) they can now directly offer high-speed and their augmented services. How is this better than those commies at NetZero(hated that ad campaign) who offered it to you free, but now charge you?

Don't earthlink and assorted others just provide the ISP, do they have any other services or features? If not, what's the big deal about these other companies?

I made my own web page nearly a decade ago before everyone and his momma had one up. I was also an AOL user. What is the deal with labelling people who prefer convenience stupid?

[Las Vegas Dave]

A former co-worker signed up for AOL, gave them his credit card number for billing and has NEVER had any AOL charges applied to his bill, FREE FOR YEARS!

[ThinkFreedom]

First off, there was the issue of signing up more people than they could handle. Secondly, in the good 'ol early days of the net - before Al Gore even knew what the net was and the world wide web was a new concept - the main uses for the net were newsgroups and e-mail. Newsgroups were an early equivelent of e-mail mailing lists, and were relatively difficult to get on to. Unfortunately, AOL's software blurred the lines between their private message boards and the newsgroups, meaning that first time users would post inane messages not realizing the conventions that existed for them. This annoyed old time net users.

Secondly, I doubt there's a person this side of Afghanistan who hasn't been inundated with the stupid start up disks they flooded the rest of the world with. This has annoyed a lot of people.

There are other reasons... do a google search for "AOL sucks"...

[beckett]

Can anyone tell me where this anti-AOL bias came from...

Geeks latched onto the hate-AOL refrain as long ago as 1994. It's a status thing. Personally I always thought it was dumb. They seem to think that it's a sign of low testosterone if you find ease of use attractive.

I say make it as easy as possible. I don't need intimate knowledge of the OS kernel to make myself feel special.

As for the liberal bias on AOL's frontpage, it is egregious and highly irritating. One good thing though. Whenever AOL polls, the loaded liberal answer choice usually gets hammered by the token conservative one.

[zip]

Can anyone tell me where this anti-AOL bias came from, and I refer to the NON-POLITICAL aspect of the company

There is no "NON-POLITICAL aspect" to AOL. Its bias permeates every facet of its business existance.

[RedWhiteBlue]

Have you ever looked at AOL's chat rooms? The descriptions of some of the chat rooms are not very wholesome, to put it mildly. That is what you are supporting by using their service. AOL's dirty little secret -- they present their service as something for the whole family, but there is no way children should have access to those chat rooms.

[xdem]

There are many reasons to dislike AOL. The political ones have been well-covered here.

But there are technical reasons too.

When you install AOL, it often installs a proxy cache. After that, even if you change ISPs, every single http request will go through AOL's servers. This will slow down your transmissions. I've people's cable or DSL that works only slightly fatser than modem pseed because of this proxy. The proxy also endanger your privacy.

How do you get rid of this proxy cache? Edit the registry. Best of luck if you aren't IT savvy. Further, AOL tech support will apparently not help you remove the proxy.

The best to deal with AOL is to never use it, or totally re-install Windows from a bare hard drive if you have.

[Jeff Chandler]

Can anyone tell me where this anti-AOL bias came from,

• Their software is like the Borg, and sends its tendrils into areas of the OS they have no business being.
• Their browser behaves in proprietary ways which prevent the user from experiencing the more sophisticated features prevelant in other browsers, and their software prevents you from using other browsers. This defect is also a pain for for web designers.
• Their proxy caches utilize proprietary graphic object compression which often degrade the appearance of the graphics.
• You must know how to edit the registry to get rid of their software.

AOL is designed for people who don't know anything about the Internet, and don't want to. That's why I wrote:

>>In describing the ease with which one can learn HTML, I like to use the example "even some AOL customers have learned how to write it!"<<,.

[Commie Basher]

AOL ruined CompuServe.

I signed on to CompuServe in 1995 because they advertised on Rush. Then AOL bought CompuServe. Now, CompuServe is full of dropped connections, it's slower, etc.

I still use CompuServe because it's my email, and everyone knows it. But I plan (hope) to drop CompuServe and switch to DSL or cable latter this year, after I buy a new laptop.

Here's my laptop quandry: I'm torn between a Toshiba 1955-S803, which has a beautiful 16" SXGA (1280 x 102 screen), or an IBM Thinkpad G40 with a 15" SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) screen. (I've not been able to find the Thinkpad 40 in any showroom.)

I wonder, will icons and fonts be too small on a 15" 1400 x 1050 screen? The Toshiba has a great screen, but the IBM appears to have a more ergonomic keyboard.

But as soon as I get a new laptop and move all my files and programs to it, I'll look into dropped CompuServe.

But here are some laptop screen issues that concern me:

Mobile Trax article.

Penn University article.

Dell article