Hi. I'm 21 years old, just finished a Computer Science Degree at Swansea University. Originally from...
Hi. I'm 21 years old, just finished a Computer Science Degree at Swansea University. Originally from Pembroke, South-West Wales, I've just moved to Bath in August.
Member since:19.04.2001
Reviews:61
Members who trust:9
AOL is the biggest ISP in the world, but is their status justified? Well, after several disaster stories with other ISP’s that won’t remain nameless if you carry on reading, I simply wanted a good quality ISP with free 24/7 access for one monthly fee.
Now, the choice at the moment for 24/7 ISPs is pretty large – AOL, Freeserve, BT, NTL, and many more, far too many to mention here. So why did I choose AOL. Well to be quite honest, I don’t know if there was one thing. My fiancées father has been a member for several years, with virtually no problems. So, I was pretty happy that what they said they would offer would indeed be what I got for my money.
Money? OK, that’s a pretty important factor when choosing an ISP for most people, and at £14.99 a month, AOL is one of the most expensive of the non-Broadband ISPs, though its not much more expensive than the like of BT and Freeserve. But of course, there are no bills to
worry about after your monthly fee, and to be honest even if I don’t get my moneys worth from the service, I happy knowing that I’m unrestricted when I surf the internet.
Unrestricted? That’s right! AOL is very relaxed in how long you stay connected to the service. Unlike almost all other ISPs, there is no cut-off point of 2 hours (or whatever the others choose to set), and no kick-off for periods of inactivity. For me this is great. I don’t want to sit at my PC and constantly use it to ensure I’m not disconnected, and I know that with programs such as Stay Connected you can avoid this, but its still there in the first place, but not with AOL.
The best thing is not being disconnected after two hours. Instead, I can set downloads off and be confident that they will still be going when I get back, without even using a download manager.
Connection to the AOL service is also great. There are quite a few dial-up numbers to choose from. Not all will work in your area or on your telecoms service, but there is bound to be several that will work for you. Personally, I haven’t once connected on anything other than my first attempt. And if for some reason it doesn’t connect, it won’t repeatedly try the same number, but will attempt to connect on all the possible numbers (which are of course 0800/0808 numbers). So, even if by some chance it doesn’t connect first time (which seems very rare), it will almost certainly connect on the second attempt. AOL also provides a Best Number search facility once online, which will find the best number for you to use based on your phone number. And it seems to work as well, and has certainly picked a pretty good number for me.
The speed of the connection is also great. Speeds of almost 50k are commonplace, and the download rate is easily 4k per second, which compared to my old ISP is pretty darn fast. And once connected, you stay connected. You won’t get kicked off after any amount of time, whether you are actively using it or not. Also, there has never been a problem with the connection dropping for other reasons, such as poor line quality. Also, in the two months I have been using the service, AOL has not been down once, which again compared to my old ISP is pretty good.
And if you’re asking, “who was the old ISP?” the answer is TheFreeInternet (TFI). Basically they offered the same service for just £99 a year, but kicked you off every hour or after 5 minutes of inactivity. For the extra that I pay with AOL, I am much happier, as they provide a more reliable and fast service.
One of many peoples gripes about AOL is being forced to use the AOL dial-up and browser software, because they think it is pretty poor. Well, I don’t think it’s too bad. Now that it uses IE as the back end to the browser, it seems pretty reliable, and displays everything IE could. Navigation isn’t quite as easy as it with IE, but who cares? Simply minimise AOL, and open up IE, Netscape, Opera, or whatever you choose. The only disadvantage (if you can call it that) is that you have one extra program running, which doesn’t seem to use that much in the way of resources.
AOL also provides ‘additional content’ to what you would get with most other ISPs. It provides 21 channels on varying topics, from News to Technology, to Sport, to Kids, and many more. They aren’t that wonderful, but have a few good competitions lying around and are good if you want to keep up to date on topics quickly and easily. You also get the infamous chat rooms. There is a fair selection of topics being discussed, but generally you get the same immature rubbish being spouted in all of them, and you do well to find a sensible person out there to talk to (though it can be done). You also get the Instant Messenger service, which allows you to chat one-to-one with another AOL member.
I am, at the moment at least, perfectly happy with the AOL content and service. It’s a decent price considering the high quality service that they provide. Finally, I can go on the Internet when I choose, I can do whatever I want to do, and I don’t have to wait forever for things to download. If you are getting hassle from your ISP, or don’t get a very good service from them, try AOL. You get the first month for free, and after that you won’t want to change to any other service. I certainly don’t.
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Enjoyable Op! - I am always interested in other peoples ventures with the AOL service, I am a big fan myself. I have been with AOL for a long time and I have been around seeing all the new enhancements over the years. Stick with AOL as we are Beta testing at the moment and a new version is out this summer. Great Review and look out for AOL 8.0 (Coming Soon) NB: I am an AOL Guide.
Evep 18.07.2002 12:26
Thank you for your very reasurring op.
I have just signed up as we speak. I am paying £41 a month at the moment for a great service with Flexnet but it's costing too much so after 2yrs I have to say goodbye which is why I chose AOL. I am a little wary of it after comments that it's slow and connection can be difficult but your op has lighten my opinion and I hope it will be ok!
Advantages: Well...it IS convenient. Disadvantages: It has a price. Oh dear God, it has a price. How many times has AOL taken out my ENTIRE hard drive? Three, four...FIVE! *sighs*
Sarah_B 20.01.2002 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of AOL
Advantages: The service is too easy to get asnd too hard to get rid of. Disadvantages: Total and deliberate refusal to cancel contracts or rely to complaints.
wamaker 29.08.2005 (29.08.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of AOL
Jan 11th, 2002
very helpful by (100%):
