First, a disclaimer, I use AOL as my ISP. Yes, I know it sucks but it was easy to use when I started out on the net and I am attached to my email address. I have been annoyed with it much more lately and decided to ditch it and keep my email now that that option is available as soon as I can get a broadband connection. The problem with that is I have several other home projects that I must do before I can get someone out to install cable so that may yet be a couple months away. So please, if your only suggestion for me is to ditch AOL, don’t bother to post. Thank you. Also, I do not want to ask “AOL Help” because that is an oxymoron.
Okay, now the problem. I use AOL for my ISP but I use Firefox for my browser. On rare occasions when a site requires IE, I do not use the AOL browser, I use my non-AOL IE. I only ever use the AOL browser to read news stories that they link to on the main page. Lately, I keep losing my internet access in Firefox and the non-AOL IE. Sometimes after I’ve been online a while and sometimes after having signed off and back on again. Usually restarting the computer fixes the problem but this is annoying and time consuming, especially when I am at home on my lunch break and need to check the message board I administer.
This used to be a once in a great while thing and now it’s constant, I have to reboot after every online session and since I am on dial-up I do not stay online all day but sign on and off a few times a day. The thing is I can access the internet during these times through the AOL browser so this makes me think it’s something to do with AOL. I can use the AOL browser for everything but the message board I administer because AOL and that board do not get along and it constantly logs me out. Every once in a while the internet will come back to the other browsers after a while but most of the time I have to reboot.
I am on AOL 9.0 and I keep getting notices to upgrade my connectivity. I have to ignore them because the last time I did that I could not connect at all and had to use system restore to go back to before I upgraded. So if fixing this involves upgrading anything AOL, I probably won’t do it because I just don’t trust them. I have considered downgrading to 8.0 if I could find it. I do keep Firefox updated but the problem has happened more since the last upgrade.
Does anyone know if there is a little tip, tick or setting change that will stop this browser problem? Again, no “dump AOL” I do plan to do that in a couple months, I just want something to cover me until then. I realize I could try a cheap dial-up ISP but I was hoping to avoid getting another ISP that I will only keep a couple months.
I also have another AOL issue which I have discovered is intentional by AOL. I have tried to use another webmail for my message board, I have used Thunderbird to access it. However, I cannot send mail from it so I haven’t been able to publish that email as my contact. Apparently, AOL actually blocks the ports that the webmails use to prevent spam, which is laughable because it was never that difficult for people to spam using AOL addresses. I haven’t found a way around this either, I have tried another port that was suggested but that didn’t work and I also often have trouble connecting to that webmail because of the same browser problems as described above. It’s possible I don’t have a setting right because I am new at the webmail program thingy and the manual hasn’t helped me figure it out so far. Does anyone know if there is a way around AOL blocking other webmails? I’m not talking hotmail or yahoo type webmail, I have used them before, it’s a specific mail server.