I’m not the brightest bulb in the patch when it comes to computers and such. I turn 'em on and use programs with real simple instructions.
I was on LYCOS earlier doing a search and discovered that they are offering free Internet access. Now, I’m on AOL, with all of the goodies which pop up when I sign on. I’m also getting weary of getting dropped off line at night and – since I dislike credit cards – I pay by automatic check withdrawal and get socked a $5.00 additional charge by AOL.
Dose anyone know anything about this LYCOS thing? There HAS to be some hidden charges somewhere or some problems because I know of no Internet service that provides access for free.
Usually, the way it works is that the browser that comes with the account has continual advertising, which pays for your use of the ISP services.
I haven’t heard anything bad about free ISPs, but be aware that they won’t have the whistles and bells you may like, and tech support is usually few and far between.
They put a little ad banner on your screen in exchange for access. THey are legit.
As for the other stuff, free email is easy to come by. AIM is free, and lets you keep a buddy list of internet and AOL users and do IMs and chat. ICQ does that and more, and it’s also free. shrug I dunno, I pay for a cable modem but I don’t use the email address they gave me and it doesn’t “come with” buddy lists or anything, does that mean it’s crap?
To me your internet access should never be tied to your internet identity–for example your email address should not be dependant on your ISP. What if you change ISPs? You ahve to tell everyone your new address. LAME. If you have nothing better, get a free forwarding address from somewhere like iname.com
ok this wandered from the original point…
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I have over 2000 posts, dammit! Show some respect.
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
I am not sure about the free ISP thing, but if you get a Visa Debit card on your checking account, you will avoid the extra charge ($5.00 seems awfully steep).
If you get one, and are tired of AOL, there are a lot of options out there. http://www.thelist.com
We have free Internet, courtesy of Juno. I grump at it sometimes (you can’t send or receive attachments with their e-mail, which is a pain sometimes), but all in all I’m pleased with it. There’s a permanent banner ad which you can move around so it’s out of your way.
And hey, it’s FREE! Which counts for a lot around these here parts. They offer a premium service, but I’ve never gone for it because the plain vanilla suits my purposes.
Correction: I should have said, “You can’t send and receive attachments with Juno’s free e-mail.” You can have attachments if you pay for the premium service.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
Everyone seems to be rushing in with these. Besides Lycos, Excite and Yahoo! have the same thing, as well as advertised places like iFreenet.com. But they all have banners that are always on top of everything else, including your browser.
“The truth does not make a good story; that’s why we have art.”
It claims to provide free DSL service, including sending a tech to your house to install it if necessary, 24 hour tech support, and a 10 BASE-T Ethernet NIC ADSL Modem if you need one. All for free.
The site doesn’t mention any floating ad or any other catch.
Okay, I’ll bite, what gives? Is this for real? Has anybody tried it?
How about all of the nifty things that one gets on the AOL start up screen? Like keywords, dozens of listed places to click on, the daily news, free game downloads and program files? AOL pops up a complete screen with all sorts of things kind of cool. Do other ISPs have this also? I don’t know? I’ve only been around AOL.
I am kinda irritated with AOL, not just because of the afore mentioned reasons, but I upgraded some time back to 5.0 and inherited a glitch. I purged it and reloaded and the glitch stayed. AOL sent me like 10 pages of instructions to cure it – that gave me aa headache – but it remained. I purged AOL, reloaded from an old 4.0 disk, upgraded again and got the glitch again. I finially found a way around it on my own. Essentially, when I browse the net, sometimes the screen pops up this big icon letting me know that something in my browser cannot find something – and if left alone, it locks up. Then I have to restart the computer. I found if I hit altxF4 twice, it clears the icon and I can continue on.
Plus, with the BIG MERGER with Time Warner, AOL seems less willing now to make things easy for us ‘little users’. They’re too big. However, AOL seems to have managed to get a handle on SPAM because, after loading in a lot of SPAM into my e-mail block – which doesn’t work all that well, forewarding tons more to AOL, I’ve dropped from 50 or so SPAM e-mails a day to something like 4.
Now, if they could just do something about the browsers. I get tired of punching in a simple word like ‘it’ and getting 50 porn sites popping up!! Each time I try to look up something about a celebrety, I have to wade through screen after screen of lists offering me celebrety nude shots!!
as we speak, I’m on AltaVista’s free ISP…
It’s not the best I’ve seen, but at least it’s not costing me anything… for the money (none), it’s a pretty good deal…
I signed up with it, when I anticipated that my Sprint ISP was about to disconnect my account, cuz I never had the money to pay them.
I also signed up for freedsl, who are going to launch the service (supposedly) this month, but I’m not sure if it’ll be available in Canada. I’m hoping…
But if I get 10 referals, I get the use of a free DSL modem… http://i.winfire.com/s/isapiEng.dll/wf.exe?cmd=rl&452,60030718&wf.exe is the url to go see freedsl (while giving me a referal, of course… hehehe sneaky me)
I don’t suffer from insanity…
I enjoy every minute of it!
I declared my independence from AOL a while ago, and am using AltaVista. I do occassionally get kicked off, but no more often then I did on AOL. When I called to cancel my AOL service they offered to reduce the charge to $9.95/mo. I told them I liked free a lot better. I don’t mind the banner, which is small, and I don’t need AOL’s keywords and news.
Regarding the FreeXdsl above, I’m really curious. The page is suspociously lacking in details. It seems you basically have to install the software to learn more.
I know they’ll be spending a couple hundred dollars a month for each customer, if they’re really providing free dsl service. Where does it come from? Anybody?
I am in the process of dumping AOL (22 bucks) for Juno’s premium serivce (10 bucks). There is tech support, access to better connections, and the advertisements are kept up in the toolbar under a heading called “advertisements” so you don’t have to look at them if you don’t want to. Juno works with AIM so I can still do instant messages.
It isn’t quite the same as AOL, but for 12 bucks less a month I will get used to it. As long as I can get here and to other sites on the web, that is good enough for me.
You know you are a vet tech when: Your pets eat premium food, but you have to eat Ramen noodles.
If you have Juno free web, just get yourself an email at Yahoo or Hotmail, or one that accepts email attachments. Then use that account to get attachments.