How many here use AOL?

[Ichingcarpenter]

What the hell is with all the AOL polls

[mwooldri]

1. Well... not directly.

I don't subscribe to AOHell, nor do I visit their site.

But I have RoadCrawler. RoadCrawler is owned by the same people who own AOHell.

Mark.

[EC]

2. Just going to their site hurts my computer

it screams and cries...I can't do that to my dear computer...it's not nice...

[cynatnite]

3. My computer hates you now n/t

[monomach]

4. I used AOL back when Cindy McCain's drug use was new news.

Not since then.

[Awsi Dooger]

5. I do, but I never look at their polls

I like AOL. But I realize it's chic to hate it, just like it's fashionable to claim national polls are meaningless.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. AOL

AOL's free Internet client software has earned the company a slap on the wrist from StopBadware.org, a consortium set up to combat malicious software. In a report released today, the group advises users to steer clear of the software because of its "badware behavior."

The report blasts the free version of AOL 9.0 because it "interferes with computer use," and because of the way it meddles with components such as the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows taskbar. The suite is also criticized for engaging in "deceptive installation" and faulted because some components fail to uninstall.

The main problem is that AOL simply doesn't properly inform users of what its software will do to their PCs, said John Palfrey, StopBadware.org's co-director. "We don't think that the disclosure is adequate and there are certain mistakes in the way the software is architected in terms of leaving some programs behind," he said. "When there are large programs, some of which stay around after you've thought you've uninstalled them, they need to be disclosed to the user."

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum "PC-Link" in 1989, users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service, and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination earned the world's biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom feeders.

AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force marketing techniques. In the 90s you couldn't open a magazine (PC World included) or your mailbox without an AOL disk falling out of it. This carpet-bombing technique yielded big numbers: At its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide, though it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.

Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult. Several states sued the service, claiming that it continued to bill customers after they had requested cancellation of their subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a $1.25 million fine to the state of New York and agreed to change its cancellation policies--but the agreement covered only people in New York.

Ultimately the Net itself--which AOL subscribers were finally able to access in 1995-- made the service's shortcomings painfully obvious. Prior to that, though AOL offered plenty of its own online content, it walled off the greater Internet. Once people realized what content was available elsewhere on the Net, they started wondering why they were paying AOL. And as America moved to broadband, many left their sluggish AOL accounts behind. AOL is now busy rebranding itself as a content provider, not an access service.

Though America Online has shown some improvement lately--with better browsers and e-mail tools, fewer obnoxious ads, scads of broadband content, and innovative features such as parental controls--it has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for people who don't know any better.


http://www.pcworld.com/article/126928/aol_90_accused_of_behaving_like_badware.html

[autorank]

8. They started going down when they got cute with their book keeping and

did the Time merger. It was all about boosting the stock price and conspicuous consumption by
key players.

There was no real love of online services and no appreciation of what they had, the core of an
amazing business. That was all swept away by the over sized egos and greed. The people who made it
work in the late 80's were long gone when they were really needed.

[autorank]

7. I've used it forever, since the '80's

I'm about to dump it though. The main page is entirely too much of a time waster. I have
a sense of dread after looking at that slide show of lunacy, even for a nanosecond.

They were terrific in the 80s, platform specific software, etc. Now the mail product is just
average and their damn web search blocks out my tabs on FireFox, so I never integrate searching
with email. Was that what they wanted? I can't tell you how sick and tired I am of cheap control
tricks like that and items that try to return to start up after I remove them. I'll stop now.

[Window]

9. AOHELL......NO

[renie408]

10. I use Firefox to browse. But I have to confess, I still have AOL mail accounts. Their polls

lean pretty far right. I will say I have noticed them getting less enthusiastic about Palin as time has worn on, though.