Why AOL is the enemy

[Tummy]

'impossible to uninstall' - add/remove programs.

When my dad got a brand spanking new Dell pc ( fair few years ago, talking 6 years maybe ?) it came with AoL installed

He took it off, and had lots of problems with it, in the end the HDD died, and Dell sent a repair man out to fit another one
remember the Dell man saying that they were having lots of complaints about AoL and that it was causing more trouble then its worth, don't know if it made the HDD die, but I hold AoL responsible

Never being near them since.

 

[D18241]

That annoying voice *** You have email***

its a bloke on new version


ive been with aol for last 7years never had no problems using broadband on a wireless router all is good

 

[Fido McNasty]

My dad melted all the discs together to scare off the birds.

This is good

 

[EffBee]

As I remember America OnLine (AOL) provided a useful social need.


Users of AOL came to be seen as a group of technically naive no hopers who formed a subclass that became fair game to those who thought they knew what they were doing and wanted to have a go at someone.

ie

No one would do that except AOL lamers...


became the sort of thing that was frequently seen online.

These days I guess we have console kiddies as an example of something similar.


RE: Compuserve - I don't think it is possible for younger people on this forum to understand what a revolution it was at work to get access to compuserve on one of the IT department machines. Live immediate access to drivers and technical resources instead of phoning suppliers, haveing long conversations and then waiting for floppy diskfulls of stuff to be posted back to us. Unbelievable

 

[BigglesPiP]

At one point 40% of AOL users didn't have a computer, so the relentless shipping of CDs worked. People believed they "had to be on the internet".

Also explains their 40% customer satisfaction rating.

 

[POB]

The annoying woman (Connie?) from the TV ads.

Did she get beaten up or something?

 

[Jumpingmedic]

Yes... terrible service... but they'll always be my sainted first provider of porn.. respect!

 

[indup]

i keep on getting mail through the post from virgin adverstising there super duper fibre optic internet connection is worth a punt or not?

 

[Ucof]

2 reasons I didn't like AOL:

1) No shell account, then again, hardly any ISPs do these days anyway.
2) There are more free AOL cds, than PCs in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_disk_collecting

 

[Margaret]

I used to take loads of AOL discs from stores and just keep the CD sleeve.

Good stuff, thanks AOL.

 

[dovey]

Aol used to give me a great ping on 56k, never paid for it just got a screen name from a friend. Mate of mine has broadband with them and has never had a problem, always seems to run quickly

 

[gillywibble]

I took them to court when they were Compuserve.

 

[Cosimo]

I took them to court when they were Compuserve.

Why did you do that?

 

[Hxc]

I seem to remember one of the reasons doing the rounds for why the AOL dial-up software was difficult to remove. It was because, at the time, the CIA had a part share of AOL and the software had a keylogger built in. The logger "dialed home" every time you went on line, the upshot being of course, the CIA knew everything they wanted to know about every AOL customer. The logger was still installed even after the AOL software was uninstalled. It sounds far fetched, but we all know how stupid the CIA is, so it must be true

That's complete trash mate

 

[gillywibble]

Why did you do that?

For not cancelling my account when I asked them to. Fairly typical tactics that as far as I know they still employ to this day.

 

[Dracata]

Shoddy software that wouldn't detect your 56k modem correctly. I had this on several different machines.