Earthlink Wants Total Access (to Your PC)

PBS.com ^ | 6 February 2003 | Robert X. Cringely

[ShadowAce]

Mozilla

[ShadowAce]

Tech Ping

[dandelion]

I like Mozilla, but for privacy, I LOVE Opera!!

[jimkress]

http://www.panicware.com/

Pop-Up Stopper. It's free and nothing like the trash Earthlink is pushing.

[Petronski]

The sweet thing about Mozilla is that you can tell it NOT to open 'unrequested scripts' which are the source of almost all popups. I switched from Explorer 5.5 to Mozilla 1.2 just for this reason. And the people at X10 Webcam and Cheap Tickets can eat my shorts.

[DeFault User]

I was able to uninstall the popup blocker and Total Access 2003 with little or no problem.

Of course, long ago I gave up the idea that there is any privacy on the Internet unless you have a secure page with 128 bit encryption behind you, which is seldom.

[ShadowAce]

Ping

[Clara Lou]

Mozilla and Proxomitron-- perfect combination.

[DeFault User]

Some printers get blocked by Pop-up stopper. It took me several days to discover why my trusty ol' Epson wouldn't print on the network. Spooling errors, etc. Reinstalled the printer several times, didn't work. Dumping the pop-up stopper did.

[Yeti]

I hate earthlink.

I had them a few years back, and they were like that then.

I signed up for mindspring, who was by all accounts very good at the time, but got shifted to earthlink instead.

I got a free webcam with a service agreement, but after awhile I go so paranoid that I kept the camera pointed to the wall!

Even after I reinstalled windows, I could never get rid of earthlink! IE components that were placed there by earthilink could not be uninstalled! I went through the whole rigamorole of uninstalling and reinstalling windows, and still, the little earthlink symbol was in the corner of my browser, and little anomalous packets being sent and recieved whenever I was connected to the internet. Sometimes the total bytes of info sent through my connection was very large relative to the number of bytes received.

I finally reformatted my hard drive and did a clean install of windows, and only then was I rid of earthlink's legacy.

I remember a few years ago, there was an article posted on FR about the feds talking to all of the ISPs about installing some intrusive monitoring software to track users. The article quoted one of the feds as saying that one large service provider was particularly eager to cooperate with the effort. I instantly thought "earthlink."

[Cicero]

I was going to suggest a fresh install. Glad to see you already did it.

I swear by Ad Muncher, because it not only removes PopUps, but removes most banner ads as well. And it loads web pages quicker because it blocks that stuff without downloading it. It's shareware, but worth every penny, IMHO.

The new AdAware 6.0 weeds a lot of Spyware out, and so does Spybot Seach & Destroy.

[Gun142]

A good hosts file stops a lot of ads and blocks their cookies too.

[Overtaxed]

I started with mindspring and ended up at Earthlink too. I don't have any of their software installed anymore. All I do is connect to their server.

BTW I use Pop Up Stopper and Ad Aware

[chance33_98]

Thanks for the ping! Earthlink sucks. For some real fun try the snoop command in solaris, or get a packet sniffer and examine what is coming and going on your PC....

[UB355]

I tried mozilla on my MAC, had some problems. I downloaded Netscape 7 the commercial version of mozilla. I have no problems with it whatsoever. It's much faster then the IE I use plus it has a built in pop up blocker that is flawless.

[Midwestguy]

Have to say I love using my Mac with the new Safari browser. The pop-up blocker built into Safari seems really effective thus far. Plus, it is definately the fastest-rendering browser I've every used (even beats out Chimera, imho).

[defeat_the_dem_igods]

Avant Browser

without the UCmore Search Accelerator.

integral pop-up blocker, multiple windows, "groups", and other neat features.

[js1138]

How is it free if it cost $29.95?

[No_Doll_i]

Great, I wish this would have come to light a week ago cause everything this states is true.

Yeah I downloaded and installed Total Access to get rid of the annoying pop up window that kept telling me the old one was expired and things have been screwed up ever since.

My question is HOW THE HELL DO I GET RID OF THIS THING?

I don't use the total access part of it at all just wanted the pop up blocker.

Gee do I ever feel like an idiot!!

[js1138]

I have earthlink dsl, but I've never installed any of their software.