Just some info on Netzero and AOL. I was doing the bring your own access using Netzero and it didn’t work. The advertising screen keeps popping up to the front of my screen and I can’t type in my password for AOL. It’s hard to explain, but I havn’t been able to make it work. I use Netzero and love it- I love anything that’s free!!
I’m very lucky. The only time I was ever up shit creek, I just happened to have a paddle with me.
–George Carlin
Okay… Here’s the scoop - I hate AOL. I will admit that their pricing is more in line with other ISP’s than they used to be and they are really simple to use. Plus they offer some exclusive content aside from just internet access.
Now then - the bashing… Their software is woefully inadequate for a lot of things. Such as downloading large files. Also, they are notorious for having slow connection speeds. They are equally notorious for being hard to access at times because they sign up everyone who comes with no regard to updating the areas covered with new technology and local access numbers. That means lots of busy signals. AOL also likes to disconnect you after being on-line for 45 minutes - even if you’re still doing stuff - because they are so overburdened with customers. Java is also tough to run on AOL. And AOL Spam bullshit is intolerable! You can’t go anywhere without running into an ad, and I hate that shit!
Also, their newsgroup access sucks, and they are heavily into censorship of content if it doesn’t conform to their wholesome little ideals. Those complaints are subjective to the individual, needless to say, but it pisses me off anytime someone I am giving money to tries to tell me what I am allowed to see, hear or say.
Your best bet is to go with a local ISP. Most ISP’s that are local offer better customer service than the huge conglomerates, and they are not hard to use with Windows or Mac, even without massive technical know-how.
I use Prodigy right now, but I am not thrilled with them. I previously used Cable & Wireless, but they sold out to Prodigy. I got some perks to transfer over to Prodigy + they are keeping my price plan - $14.95 for 150 hours a month billed monthly to my credit card. 150 hours averages out to 5 hours a day, so I don’t need anymore than that. Unfortunately, Prodigy disconnects too easily, I do not like their software or Spam, and I get goofy connections far too frequently.
I might change, but I’m too busy to look into it right now. That said, I would NEVER use AOL at all…
Yer pal,
Satan
AOL sucks. There is even a web page for that. http://www.aolsucks.com
I had it for about 2 months before it constantly crashed my PC, wouldn’t let my web page work, downloading was a pain - I felt this weight of opression when I thought of it. I signed up for Earthlink for a while before I actually ditched AOL. I found myself loving EarthLink, and wondering why I kept the damned AOL account.
When I finally did leave AOL, I had to do battle with the AOL guy on the phone. He argued, told me that all my technical problems were MY fault (including the web page - which is a lie - I saw thousands of messages on AOL’s boards of other people having the same problems.) I felt like the AOL phone guy had the philosophy “Death will not seperate us.” Yikes. I also hated the calls at home from AOL - where they tried to sell me something. And all the spam, and ads. I am SO glad to be rid of it, and all it’s busy signals and slow connections.
AOL SUCKS!
I have AOL. I want to move to a local ISP, but all of them (where I live that is, in Central CA) turn out to be the same or worse quality than AOL (more busy signals, no local phone access, slow speed). So I’m stuck with AOL, for now, until I can afford the cable modem, or wait for the DSL to come here. sigh
BTW, it saves a lot of headaches if you use a seperate browser instead of the AOL browser. I never experienced anymore crashes when I started this.
“no local phone access” should be “no local phone access numbers”.
Oh yeah, and if you’re not too careful, AOL will delete your web page for no reason, then bring it back up the next day. Fuckers.
Well, I don’t know what the problem you had was, so I don’t know if it was the fault of AOL or a problem on your system, but I just want to point out the poor logic here.
I used to work in tech support. I have seen the patterns that often come up in computer problems. Phone techs vary greatly in their ability, and some definitely do suck. That aside, the fact that there were “thousands of messages” from people having the same problem means absolutely squat. There were calls with problems unrelated to our software that were so common that the problem would get a trite label in conversation between techs, and we’d get the same problem virtually every day. Some of these problems were simple, and so we’d fix them for the person (problems like misconfigured modems and network settings). Some of them were not something we could take care of (dead modem, missing Windows files).
My point here is that the fact that a problem is common says little for the cause of the problem.
I see I should have clarified myself on the technical difficulties thing! 
While it is true that my first PC likely had some sort of conflict with AOL software,
the fact that my new PC (fresh out of the box) also crashed within minutes of installing AOL software made me think that there was a bad trend there… Obviously not all computers have a problem with AOL, but considered all the other strikes it already had against it, I felt no need to call tech support AGAIN to try to fix something that I didn’t want anymore. I never get such conflicts with Earthlink’s software. I don’t even install EarthLink’s software anymore, anyway - I just configure dial-up networking, and use Netscape. No muss, no fuss. SO much easier than AOL.
The web page error that AOL had was AOL’s fault. It was with their online web page program - that would automatically generate your web page for you. (Hey - I was a still stinkin’ newbie! I still am a newbie, but no longer a stinkin’ one… ;)) The online web page program did not work. You would try to publish something you had created with their online web template, and you’d just get an hourglass for about 20 minutes, until they bumped you off for being idle too long. AOL’s message boards were full of other users who described the exact same problem with the web publisher. AOL’s response on the message board was something like “We are aware there is a problem with our software, and we are working on a solution, and it will be fixed shortly.” They kept on giving this same canned answer to all of us THOUSANDS of people for about a month, (maybe longer, it still wasn’t fixed when I left.) Screw that.
So, when I finally called to cancel, and the AOL guy told me that the problem was with my PC, I didn’t believe him. After all, AOL itself had admitted that it was their problem. At the time I was a newbie and didn’t know anything about creating web pages, so I was really counting on their web page software to work properly. I tried AOL’s regular uploading process, followed the instructions to a tee, that didn’t work either. I just wanted OUT at that point, and the AOL guy had me argue and struggle with him for a long time before he finally gave up. I don’t know how many times I said “What part of NO don’t you understand?” The guy was a pit bull.
Sigh. (All that strife and in about a month I had figured out how to do the web page and ftp thing with EarthLink. So much for AOL. Phooey!)
Given that, it’s pretty obvious that you were right.
It definitely wasn’t uncommon for AOL to have probs with areas online not responding. I’m sure that a lot of people here can still remember all of the fun that went on when they converted the old AOL SDMB to newsgroup format. 
Why do people stay with AOL?
Enright3