Can I get ‘online’ with using a service provider? If so, how?
There are a lot of Windows only, special software, continuous ad banner ISPs (which making playing some games really difficult, the ads keeping flickering in)
I’m lucky to have found a free ISP in the Washington,D.C. area that has no ads, and works with any platform.
You live around here?
I thought I was imagining things. I felt it had been discussed before, but couldn’t find the thread in a search.
Guess I should have looked around more before posting…
You have to put up with a few hassles but you can. excite.com has a free ISP called freelane. It works quit well and the only downside is haveing a banner window on your desktop. You can’t minimize it and it stays on top. You have to click the banner every once in a while or it disconnects. Apart from that I’ve never had a problem getting a connetion and the speed seems reasonable. Go to excite.com and download the free software.
You misinterpret my question. How can I configure my PC to access the Internet without having to go thru a service provider of any sort? Can it be done?
Thanks again
Well, you would have to make your PC part of the internet backbone for that. Got several thousand dollars worth of communication hardware laying around? And being part of the backbone you would be responsible for routing packets through. Plus, you would need to create a DNS, or else you would be forced to surf the web using only IP addresses (199.199.122.3 instead of http://www.somesite.com). And of course to get e-mail, you would have to provide your own mail server. So it may be technically possible, but not practical.
madd1, the short answer is you cannot. that is why they are called internet providers. Anyone who connects you to the Internet is an “internet provider”. Some you pay, some are free. Personally I prefer to pay because the cost is minimal and I’d rather pay than put up with bad service and banner ads.
madd1,
This seems obvious, but I’m not sure how technical you are.
You don’t really need to hook yourself up to the internet backbone to be “online” 24/7/365. You just need your PC to be networked with someone who is.
That’s all your ISP is - another computer that is connected to the internet that lets you conenct to it via your modem.
Or, you could insert one more computer into the mix: At work, my computer is networked with the rest of PC’s in my office, and one of them is connected to an ISP.
Did this help?