AOL Stinks

[The Real Bingo]

I used to have AOL, but I have had my cable modem for about 6 months now. For you people that dislike AOL, what are your reasons?

Personally I hated the high price and constant connection problems.

[Optimus Prime]

Never used it, my mate finds it OK though.

[jmichna]

This thread could easily turn into a an encyclopedia...

We gave up AOL in favor of DSL back in early 2000.
Reasons:
Buggy software/constant updating upon disconnect
Resource hog
Slow connection speed
Too many ads
Poor email capability
High Cost (was $19.95/mo/unlimited when we quit)
Too restrictive browser

[thePh@r@oh]

my girlfriends roomate used the free period long enough for the stuff for DSL to get there. When the free period was over that wasnt it they called here every day sometimes 2 and 3 times a day for the next 2 weeks.

[The Real Bingo]

Yeah, I hear their customer service stinks. Never used it though.

[The Terk]

Originally posted by The Real Bingo
Yeah, I hear their customer service stinks. Never used it though.

back in the 2.0 and 3.0 days, AOL was very useful because the internet wasnt as mainstream as it is now. Now with every company out there is offering dsl/cable w/competitive pricing, y not go with a faster dsl when u can find the exact same stuff on the net that aol offers? after 4.0 it just got stupid imo

[The Real Bingo]

Yep, now all AOL is good for is AIM. They better not start to charge people for that.

[SiRK]

They do everything in their power to keep you from cancelling. Due to money problems I disconnected my cable modem and started using a free aol disk. When my money got back to normal I hooked the cable back up and cancelled aol before i had to pay for it. The person I talked to was almost refusing to cancel my account. That conversation took about an hour, just to cancel my account

[Bovon]

I have never had AOL on my own machine, but I have worked on other peoples that did. One of my big beefs was the way AOL replaced Windows files with their own..which prevented a simple return to 'normal' Internet service. Among the several files that were altered or replaced was winsock...when going off AOL to a 'respectful' ISP.. it would not work (TCP/IP I think) because of the replaced winsock.

At that time period in my expertise with trouble shooting a machine.. I have formatted and reloaded Windows to fix a machine.. today, I would have replaced some files and it would work.

AOL is a p** poor outfit and pressures their customers a lot.

I host a rather large e-mail list, and we have a huge amount of AOL users..mostly women, and as I try to help some of these with problems using the service, it becomes apparent they are intimidated by AOL, and do not ask them for assistance.. and some are even afraid to cancel their subscription with AOL and get setup with a normal ISP..

AOL is weird.

[meese]

I hate the commercials.