Who of you surfs the net with AOL?

Atahualpa · June 4, 2003, 06:19

Seeing the latest news that AOL has 26 Million Customers in the United States I started to Wonder.

All that I have heard of AOL is that they are crap. That they use their own protocol. That it is slow and what not.

Now I'd like to know how many Apolytoners use AOL as their ISP.

I am also interested in how you are satisfied with the service AOL provides or not.

Please vote.

Ata

Jaguar · June 4, 2003, 06:23

I am using AOL and am not satisfied with it

DRoseDARs · June 4, 2003, 06:26

I use SBC Broadband. "And the Lord said, 'It is good.'"

You forgot something...

Atahualpa · June 4, 2003, 06:30

ah the banana option right

well I never got the origin of this anyway, even though I was actively involved in everyday forum life here.

My deepest apologies!

CerberusIV · June 4, 2003, 07:34

I use an AOL dial up in the UK. I don't use the Internet enough to really warrant paying near double the cost for a broadband connection.

What can I say - it works and I just ignore most of the AOL rubbish.

Urban Ranger · June 4, 2003, 07:45

I don't think you could use an AOL account to register at 'Poly.

reds4ever · June 4, 2003, 08:41

Quote:

Originally posted by CerberusIV
I use an AOL dial up in the UK. I don't use the Internet enough to really warrant paying near double the cost for a broadband connection.

What can I say - it works and I just ignore most of the AOL rubbish.

I switched from AOL dialup to Pipex broadband about six months ago, and dispite being always online now, my firewall picks up A LOT less intrusion attempts from trojans now than it did when i was with AOL.
But yeah, people moan about the indosynchrases(s) but they're not the end of the world, AOL was the best unmetered provider in the UK for several years, in that they were one of the few that didn't diconnect you every 2 hours or send you snotty emails about DLing too much stuff.

Harry Seldon · June 4, 2003, 09:13

AOL is the devil's workshop. It's keeps the money rolling in, though. Much of the side work I do involves removing that cancer from people's machines.

Immortal Wombat · June 4, 2003, 09:19

I used to use AOL for about a year. Worst year online ever. Towards the end, I was getting a connection speed stupidly low, like 20kbps rather than the standard 44kbps, I would get disconnected randomly ever 15 minutes, and it wouldn't let me reconnect until I had restarted my PC. If I tried, the dialup software crashed my PC. I couldn't send email either. It was horrible.

Spiffor · June 4, 2003, 09:28

I gladly never used AOL in my life, and with the experience I have with friends' computers, I'm glad of it. "Cancer" is the right word to describe this horror.

Atahualpa · June 4, 2003, 10:42

hmm well that pretty much confirms what I have heard.

News are floating around that AOL lost 1 million customers during one year.

So if the Apolytoner is not the average AOL user, what is the average AOL user like?

ata

CerberusIV · June 4, 2003, 11:10

The average AOL user in the UK seems to be the person who buys a computer from PC World and doesn't really have much of a clue about how it works.

Many computers sold in the UK have a connection to BT already installed. NEVER use it. My work computer uses a BT dial up (no broadband available here yet) and after half an hour on 'poly it grinds to a halt and says "cannot find server". Cr4p!!! At least AOL never does that to me.

EDIT: BT just died on me again

I was about to edit my post to say that I'm not average

I think they have it in for me!

Immortal Wombat · June 4, 2003, 11:42

BT dialup is far far better than AOL. Sorry. It kicks you off after 2 hours, but at least you can get back on again, and you have a decent speed whilst online.

(all uses of "you" purely impersonal)

I only used AOL because I gave in to their flood of free CDs and promise of 150 free hours of daytime surfing.

Az · June 4, 2003, 11:51

long live broadband internet connection!

dainbramaged13 · June 4, 2003, 11:55

the average aol user as far as i can tell is yes, the person who doesnt have a clue and just wants some internet. Anyone who WANTS dialup knows there are better options and anyone else gets broadband.

Timexwatch · June 4, 2003, 11:56

My parents still have AOL on top of our Time-Warner Cable connection. I think they keep AOL because they don't want to lose the e-mail address...

reds4ever · June 4, 2003, 12:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
BT dialup is far far better than AOL. Sorry. It kicks you off after 2 hours, but at least you can get back on again, and you have a decent speed whilst online.

AOL was still the better choice for me when I had dial up, I could leave Kazaa on all night downloading ebooks, music and other, shall we say 'specialist', material

, also I was playing a lot of CivIIMP at the time and getting kicked off every two hours was no good for that either

I switched from BT to AOL after they charged me 50p a minute to access their helpline to fix a problem that turned out to be at their end and refused to re-imburse me!

JohnT · June 4, 2003, 13:04

I pay for both broadband and AOL. Broadband for home, AOL for portability.

Atahualpa · June 4, 2003, 15:29

I had ISDN once when Broadband was not available. Charges were real high because we were surfin and playin a lot (counter-strike mainly).
The we got Broadband (ADSL), though our ISP (the one who resold its lines and connections to every other ISP here) thought 1GB of downloaded data should be enough, everything you download atop of that is charged. That sucked pretty bad as 1GB is next to nothing. With lot of control we managed to get around 1.2-1.4GB per Month but we weren't very happy with this offer.
Since April 2002 there is now a 4GB limit and they disable your connection for the rest of the month if you hit 4.5 GB (you are warned though when reaching the 4GB border and you can check your status anytime through their website).

4GB are okay for me. I typically use around 3GB per Month.
On top of that Datalimit they disconnect you every 8 hours.

If you think this Broadband connection sucks then you are right in that it is not really a broadband connection. But since it fits for me I do not complain.
The speed is okay too 1Mbit/256kbit (with some special agreement, though they might downsize me in the near future).
That they disconnect me every 8 hours is also not much of a problem. My homegrown linux router cares for a fast reconnect.

Btw, does AOL work with Operating Systems like *BSD or Linux?

ata

Gatekeeper · June 4, 2003, 15:35

I have a broadband connection courtesy of a cable TV company that's expanded into not only the Internet, but now phone service as well.

Gatekeeper

Victor Galis · June 4, 2003, 16:52

Been using it since 1994. How good it is depends on where you are. At some points, the connection was really shitty, and when I use it in Georgia, it can't seem to keep me online while I try to play a MMORPG during peak hours (works fine off peak). In California, I have no complaints about it. I keep it for the e-mail address and because it provides me with an access number almost anywhere in the country.

I also use a variety of broadband connections depending on where I happen to be, so I can't say I use AOL nearly as much as I used to.

devilmunchkin · June 4, 2003, 19:02

I'm now using AOL and it screws up ALL the time..or shuts down....or just won't boot up....and it's slow...

Dis · June 6, 2003, 02:33

I have used AOL in the past

Once you go broadband, you cannot go back.

Victor Galis · June 6, 2003, 02:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Dissident
I have used AOL in the past

Once you go broadband, you cannot go back.

, given a choice between broadband and my AOL connection here, it really is a tough choice. The broadband has the bandwidth, but it seems to have massive lag spikes that make it impossible to use for streaming media or multiplayer gaming. The AOL connection on the other hand is perfectly reliable, but slow. So for casual web browsing or downloads the broadband, gaming (which I haven't much time for right now) AOL. Obviously this isn't ideal... I miss my college connection with is mostly reliable *and* relatively fast. (It got really fast after our Office of Information Technology suggested we all select the turn off file sharing with other users option in Kazaa

). The sad thing is, the day after that mass e-mail, everyone's connection worked more than twice as fast for downloading and had a lot fewer lag spikes for gaming. AAll it took to fix the problem was one mass e-mail

.

Skanky Burns · June 6, 2003, 02:56

I would never subject my poor computer to the evil that is AOL.

Dis · June 6, 2003, 03:07

how is it they have AOL in England? that seems to make no sense

Rasbelin · June 6, 2003, 04:30

AOL? No, thanks.

Kramerman · June 6, 2003, 05:07

I used AOL for a year up until a little more than a year ago... I was not satisfied with it at all. But im a hardcore internet junky... if i wasnt, then i wouldnt need broadband and im sure AOL would have been fine.