Hi girl.

I just was cruising along poole's roost and saw a post of your's regarding talking to your mom bout having Aol service. I'm not being nosy, but because I DO have aol was wondering from you (others welcome to chime in) what you feel is the downside of having AOL.

Thanks Pat

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), October 06, 2000

Answers

Hi, me again that pain in the butt Doc.

Numero uno reason AOL sucks is because AOL is NOT the internet, it is AOL. "Everything" they do is to keep you on them, and to make you think "they" are the internet. Venture afar from them, and there robots kick-in and disconnect you.

OK?

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), October 06, 2000.

I don't know if this is still true but several years ago, if I sent an email to someone on AOL, I could not send a hot link. It would come thru as a cold link and the recipient had to copy and paste it instead of just click on it. But an AOL person COULD send a hot link to another AOL person. Likewise, if I sent an email in color or fancy font, it would come thru to the AOL person as a standard font, black.

This is not the end of the world but it pissed me off and typified to me the AOL mentality.

PS to AOL users--don't you gag over all those sound effects and cartoony graphics?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), October 06, 2000.

I don't know if this is still true but several years ago, if I sent an email to someone on AOL, I could not send a hot link. It would come thru as a cold link and the recipient had to copy and paste it instead of just click on it. But an AOL person COULD send a hot link to another AOL person. Likewise, if I sent an email in color or fancy font, it would come thru to the AOL person as a standard font, black.

This is not the end of the world but it pissed me off and typified to me the AOL mentality.

Actually, I'm not sure this is really the fault of AOL. The standard internet email protocol doesn't support hot links or fancy colors and fonts. Most traditional email programs, especially the UNIX based ones used with shell accounts, show everything in plain text. Currently, the only way I'm aware of to use fancy fonts and colors is to use MIME encoding or send your email in HTML format. AOL supports HTML, but I'm not so sure about MIME.

There are many out there, though, who have regular ISP's and still see their email in plain ordinary text. It all depends on their email program and how you've chosen to send your message.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), October 06, 2000.

Hi 'sumer!! It was so cool reading a thread where someone was actually looking for li'l ol' *me* :-)

Anyway, the number one problem I had in using it while at my Mom's was that after about ten page requests to the Internet, it disconnected me ("Goodbye!"). No warning, no nothing....just disconnected me.

Of course, Mom doesn't have the surfing habits I have (e.g., I'll NEVER tell her about this place ;-)), and she goes through the AOL "engine" to get stuff from the Internet. I bypass it and go directly to the Internet, but it kicks me off.

One other thing, and I'm not sure if they still do this, but I know they used to; they block certain sites from access. I wouldn't necessarily go to any of those sites, but I don't appreciate anyone making that decision for me besides *me*. And from what I've heard, some of the sites they block aren't "porno" type sites at all; they're "competitor" sites. Pretty bizarre actions coming from a company as large as they are.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Hope it answered your questions.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), October 06, 2000.

Sumer:

I've had AOL at home for a long time. I only use it as access for the net. I really use very few of their services [really only sports scores].

I have never had trouble with busy signals from home. That was a problem in large urban areas where they didn't have enough numbers. Being cut-off used to be a pain [they once cut me off for sign-on time when I was downloading their software]. They don't do that so much anymore. They let me stay on for hours without interference [may be different where you live].

AOL has only one real advantage for me. I travel a lot. I have never been at a place so podunk that AOL isn't a local call. It helps. On the road, I use it to contact my server at home and work from there.

Best wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), October 06, 2000.