AOL = The short bus on the information superhighway.

LloydChristmas: You just have to go to the right places where the AOL Nazis don't show up. It takes a little looking around. I keep my AOL around for that and I have no problems with the service, fark everyone who thinks it's crap.

I was tech-support for 9 months for an ISP based in Pittsburgh that had customers in western PA, MD and deepest, darkest WV. Oh man, the questions I got asked. And the fun I had on setup calls. The best was when I got people from near the WV/VA state border that just bought a WebTV at a flea market and "wanted to get on that there in-ter-net". Hahaha. Oh mercy. See, WE got them because it's like the ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD that didn't have a local AOL dial-up number for them. And we did. Ohhhh man. I ESPECIALLY loved when the salespeople we had didn't bother to ask them what kind of PC they had and it turned out to be a PowerMac running OS 7.5.1.

So eventually I became an inside sales rep. And I did the same thing and signed those jerks up because I needed the commission. There's a moral here somewhere, I don't know quite what it is.

Just so long as I don't have to use it or support it in any way, it can do what it wants. It probably should die a violent death, though, due to its many questionable business practices and refusal to progress with the times until the very last second.

To anyone who uses AOL because they don't want to learn this internet thing should just not get on the internet, plain and simple. It's not brain surgery. My 55 year old mother didn't know the difference between turning on a monitor or the computer a few years back, but when she decided she really wanted email and to send pictures and do work at home, she buckled down and just did it. She installed Earthlink with not a single phone call to me and had it working the same day.

Like I say to people I support on our system at work, do you get a new car and refuse to learn how to use the new gadgets on the dash or the difference between automatic/stick, etc? I also tell them not to ever install AOL on their laptops or I won't even look at it if they have a problem in the future, whether or not it's related to AOL.

You know, ever since the days of AOL 1.5 when I was a mere 12 or 13 years old, I've known that it was the bottom of the barrel and that in the future it would be put to shame.

However, my family did end up getting the old AOL and I'm sure glad they did. Many and hour was spent just hanging around in various chatrooms waiting for some a--hole to send me a goddam "IM" that I could rip into and log, providing hours of side splitting laughter the next day when I could read them to my friends.

My favorite "brand" of AOL user was the 30-65 year old homosexual trying to pass themselves of as a 15 year old girl.

------------------------------------------------------------
Pedophile: Hi! How are you? I am a sexy 15/f! A/S/L please?

Me: Wow you have great grammar, spelling, and punctuation for a minor trying to solicite text-based erotica.

Pedophile: I'm smart, I skipped a grade. What does your penis look like?

Me: What's your favorite band?

Pedophile: NSYNC. Wanna meet me somewhere? I love to give head.

Me: Name someone in NSYNC.

Pedophile: Pedophile signed off at 04:37:02 EST
------------------------------------------------------------

Sweet memories. Is the sniper taking requests? Because I sure would love it if he stopped killing innocent people and started killing some people who deserve it.

The media should just start saying sh-t like "I bet the sniper would never think to kill Billy Mays, star of the Orange Clean, OxiClean, and GripWrench infomercials."

-Nick

Wow, my grammar is truly craptacular today....my apologies...

a note about AOL Broadband: crap , no matter how fast it runs, is still crap.



may aol/time/warner BURN!

AOL will probably pull through though maybe they'll get a bailout from the gov, blame 911

seriously aol does serve a purpose. I just wish it didn't, if people were too scared of the big bad internet they'd just stay away rather then going with the "easy" aol choice.

that said though I have used AOL (first net access, it was the only isp in the area) and have thought about getting a mobile aim comminicator thing which would force me to get a $5 aim account (which is why I won't do it)

was there a point to all of that? no probably not

A Salon article about whether AOL can be "saved" or not... how ironic.

Kinda like a blind community newspaper writing (in braille) about heat lightning...

AOL kicked me off their servers for abuse -- then charged me twice one month later.

AOL charges me $6 an hour or $0.10 a minute for access in my area.

AOL is responsible for at least three of my current or former stalkers being online.

That being said, the answer is

Ok, Hamsterchaos, your spamming of Fark is getting fark1ng irritating. If you want people to try out your new game then just throw a few bucks at Drew and get an ad like everyone else.

Back on topic, AOL is ok for those who can put up with it. I stopped using it years ago just after they went to unlimited pricing and the networks just jammed solid. Met my wife on AOL.

However, I do agree with Clevershark, it's ironic Salon is writing if AOL could be saved or not seeing they've been insolvent for a bit as well.

:wq!

What are they talking about? I mean come on! New version 34676598766.0 is even better than ever! Lol...

the question should be:

Should AOL be Saved?

Answer should be:

No.

The other reason I have AOL is for my mom. It's the *one* piece of software that absolutely worked first time, no fuss, no mess, to get onto the internet. Other service providers just clashed with her computer.

You do realize that AOL puts a bunch of spyware and other fun stuff all over your hard drive -- right?

You install AOL you'll get that sh-t on your computer for weeks, if not months.

this pic is just screaming...

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!




on topic: hugivafuk about AOL?

The only good thing I have to say about AOL concerns the ability of their software to get someone with a five year old emachine, who's never upgraded the drivers for their soft modem, online.

I don't understand what this hand-holding thing that AOL does is. What could be easier than clicking on a dial-up icon then opening a browser? A half page of instructions is enough to set up a dial-up icon on your desktop, if you're totally computer illiterate.

WoodChipper

Gather a few of the thread links where HamsterCh..s has posted that link and report it to the complaint dept...

[go to forum and rept... the big ones tend to drop in there on occasion]

I agree, spamming is ghey.

Woodchipper beat me to it:

Hamsterchaos I've seen like 25 random and absolutely terrible plugs for that sorry piece of existence you are hawking as a 'game'. And shame on you for trying to drum up support for your worthlessness by adding farkian photoshops into the mix. You are sullying the good names of many farkers, cut the shiate.

ME TOO!!!

The AOL X.X version that came in the TIN BOX!!!! was the bestest thing that ever came from AOL. A er, friend of mine kept his grass in it. He passes it over to me and says, "Have you tried the new AOL X.X ? " Don't mind if I do. Don't mind if I do.

AOL is the internet on training wheels. Its time has come and gone.

woodchipper, stebain

Well said - the game sucks and this is like the third thread Ive had to look at it.

Remember, AOL gives gay men syphillis.

It's tru, I red it on the internet.

I think AOL provides a valuable service: it's like the roped-off "shallow end" of the Internet.

Oh man, who peed in the pool??

There's something about AOL worth saving??

/puzzled

AOL software
Scraping eyes off your own face
Seems to be the same.

The worst thing about AOL was that stupid Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan movie.

I have CompuServe. It is, in a way, the stupid(er) brother of AOL. I got it a while ago, at the beginning of "the great fall", when my old internet provider stopped "providing", the one I tried to switch to "did not work", and the free internet provider provided "enough pop-up adds to crash a super-computer".

Compuserve was just about the only internet connection that seemed too fat to die out.

And it's been pretty good to me. It still disconnects from time to time, but I tamed it pretty well. My connection is about as smooth as a modem gets. I even use the e-mail that came with it, mostly because I never check my e-mail, and for some reason this one gets less spam, so it's easier to find the "once in a while" important e-mail.

I'll be damned if I ever use that piece of shiat "browser" that comes with it, type in a "keyword", or go into a "chatroom".

Well, if it goes under (CompuServe is just an extention of AOL, it started before it, but got bought out in the caveman days of the internet), it will be an excuse for me to finally switch to broadband.

I won't be too sad to see her go. She and I both know I just use her for her internet connection, and have been going to other places for my browser needs and chatrooms. But the old girl puts up with me, and treats me well. I'll miss her, just a bit... The same way I missed Bonzi Buddy after purging it from my computer with a blowtorch. IT was just too funny to make that monkey say things that would get you odd looks even from serial child molesters.

If the @aol.com domain goes away, it will be more difficult to spot the idiots by their e-mail address. But not by very much.

You'll still be able to tell by the first line of their e-mails.
This is not a scam, it's really true.

AOL Sucks... And their email blows. Even Time Warner employees, once forced to use it, have revolted and are back to using real email.

AOL's in trouble? So I guess their acquisitions of Time Warner, CNN, SI, Mirabilis, Netscape, Comedy Central, Turner Broadcasting, etc. haven't done anything for business? Geez...and while the U.S. government had spent so much time and energy into trying to bring down the big Microsoft beast...stuff like THIS happens.

Skaboomizzy

A PowerMac with 7.5.1? C'mon that isn't too bad. Now if they're calling with a PowerMac and 7.5.2, then you know you're in deep shiat.

Ah, the joys of tech support. And every day, I thank god that I don't do it anymore.

I use cable but still pay $14 to AOL because I can't get my wife and daughter to adjust. Me and my son get along just fine without it. I don't know, it just might be a 'girl' thing ;)

I can't believe I just wasted my time reading half of that article.

Damn you! You BROKE THE INTERNET!!

10-15-02 08:58:29 PM Threeve
as long as people are dumb, aol will exist

No, as long as Americans are dumb, aol will exist.

The sooner it dies the better. I'm sick of applying the ffs patch (that's fdisk, format, setup!) on my relatives' pc's after AOL's bloated-ass software farks up their pc.

aol muds? terris. woot. but terris left because it's smart. it sucks now, but they're sucky smart, you know?

jk

They can stay, but only if they stop sending me those goddamn CDs in the mail every week.

10-15-02 09:02:23 PM Kid Vid2
You people think AOL is the bottom of the barrel? I guess you've never seen a WebTVer (or MSN TV, or whatever the hell it's called now) try to post on Usenet.

I never thought I'd say this, but I would have to agree that WebTV may actually be worse than AOL. I have watched friends suffer through both, but I thought it was great, because I had none of the above, and I was in junior high. Anyway, I've never had an account on either service, and now I have broadband while my friends still muddle through the AOL swamp because "it's free and came with the computer." Seems to me the negatives of using AOL kinda outweigh the free part.

I guess that happens when you need to save 100$ and "need" to buy a new laptop every year, and the year of AOL you committed to hasn't even run out yet. My friend keeps saying he'll ditch AOL, but I'm still waiting to actually see it happen.

Maybe it should be "as long as people are lazy/stoopid, AOL will exist."

/Sorry about the ranting

i bet AOL can be saved...but why?

DragonRealms. Whoa. Brings back memories.

AOL sucks because they can't even make their main ISP service compatible with their own programming. The newest version of AIM offers more features than all of AOL 8.0 combined.

Wanna know why AOL sucks? The free stuff is better than the stuff you pay for.

What about AIM and ICQ? (bother owned by aol)

John Kaufeld, the author of "AOL for Dummies,"
Is there really a need for this book? I've been on the AOL message boards. They're all barely literate.

Yeah, those tin boxes do come in handy.

I hope it stays so the newbies have someplace that keeps them away from me. And I hope AIM stays, because that's the cheapest and easiest way to talk to all my friends that live far away, plus it runs at work.