Freeserve

Freeserve

When the Internet really took hold of the UK market in the second half of the 1990's, the thing that probably drove the massive increase in popularity was the product offering promised by Freeserve, who were the first internet service provider "to offer a mass market, subscription-free Internet ... Read review

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Reviews of Freeserve »

1-5 of 112 reviews of Freeserve Show all reviews

To serve is our mission to malfunction our duty

Advantages: Innovative
Disadvantages: Patchy service

...to boast "Within five months Freeserve had opened one million customer accounts and became the clear market leader, revolutionising the home Internet access market in the UK. On 2 August 1999, after only ten months of operation, Freeserve was listed on the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, with Dixons continuing to own approximately 80% of Freeserve. The IPO allocated to institutional and retail investors 153,043,478 shares, of which 90,000,000 ...
...shares to cover over-allotments. The Freeserve Offering was over 30 times subscribed, with more than 50,000 applicants for shares in the UK retail offering. At the Offer price of 150 pence per share Freeserve was valued at £1.51 billion."

Clearly the numbers game is a critical one for them and they like boasting of how successful they have been as an organisation, but for months there was suspicion about whether the Freeserve ... more

dave27 27.11.2001
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Freeserve

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So long, farewell, goodbye..

Advantages: Ummm, errr, pass on that one!
Disadvantages: Poor service

...NTL. Well, back then Freeserve had no monthly subscription fee but I had to pay local call charges and being newly addicted my phone bills were horrendous. The service cut off regularly – whether it was supposed to or not, I don’t know – and it was quite often engaged on my first connect attempts. Luckily I’m free of all that now. Their website at the time was fairly simple and self-explanatory –sometimes I log into ...
...I used to use Freeserve chat in my newbie days but often found it slow or difficult to load, got thrown off regularly for no obvious reason and the functions were not very advanced – this still seemed to be the case the last time I looked (a few months ago). Although I no longer use Freeserve as my main ISP I am forced to log in to their dial-up (and pay the call charge) once a month for at least a few seconds to enable my old Freeserve email ...

blurbubble 31.05.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Freeserve

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Not a bad ISP and it is free

Advantages: 15mb free webspace, 3 sign-up options, unlimited email addresses, newsgroup access
Disadvantages: the service disconnects you after 2 hours of being online

I’ve been using Freeserve as my ISP since soon after it was launched. It is very easy to get hold of and install - grab a CD from your local Dixons/Currys/PC World, and it comes with all the software you need, such as the latest version of Internet Explorer. Or alternatively, if you already have an internet connection, you can sign up at their website - http://www.freeserve.com. Incidentally, I still use the site as my homepage; it’s ...
...The basic membership that Freeserve offers is the No-Ties package; there’s no monthly fee but you have to pay for the calls you make on the 0845 number, but that’s just local rate anyway. I used to use this at my parents’ house and it’s okay if you’re not on the net all that much, but if you sit online then I’d advise you to try one of their other packages. I live in London during uni term time though, and there ...

carys 04.08.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
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Freeserve - The Good The Bad The Ugly

Advantages: Good Packages & Extras
Disadvantages: Prices

...originally I was not with Freeserve but I have now come back to Freeserve as they provide one hell of a lot better service! Let us begin! Packages: Freeserve has 3 pay plans that gives you time on the Internet. They are: . Freeserve Anytime. Freeserve Anytime is £13.99 a month. Over the last few months this price has gone up by £1 but this is because they have recently installed more servers.. to cope! For your £13.99 You get unlimited time on ...
...in the day. . Freeserve Hometime. Freeserve Hometime is £10.99 a month. With this package you get unlimited surfing time at evenings and on weekends. You get the normal benefits of a Freeserve membership and although you get unlimited surfing time at evenings and on weekends you can still access the Internet during the day. The only catch with Freeserve Hometime is that you have to be a BT Customer. And the billing will be on your phone bill. This ...

Roberts 20.04.2001 (21.04.2002) · Read full review
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Great Portal

Advantages: Portal
Disadvantages: Speed

Freeserve is very higly rated in some ways it deserves credit in other ways it doesn't. The website is great and has everythin you need from the web on one page. The new unmetered service is unfair because it only provides for BT customers. The service isn't all that fast. It has the usual stuff from an isp- free webspace, email chat etc. The website is too slow at peak times so beware!! The help section needs to be more helpful and add new features ...

arifaslam 05.08.2000 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Freeserve

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Good

Advantages: Free
Disadvantages: can run up quite a phone bill

Freeserve is a nice simple free isp, you simply pay for your phone calls and thats it. It was te first free isp that got heavily publisized when it came out in 99. Though the advertising bar in outlook express, and start up page in internet explorer can seem quite anoying, it is very simple to choose not to view them. On the whole, freeserve is good if you are not planning on using the internet much and using email, but if you like to surf for long ...
...no phone bill isp (freeserve offers its own free after 6 and at weekends for £5.99 a month, bt also offer the same deal for £9.99 a month, also with breathe.com you can make a one off payment of £50 and get 24/7 internet acsess totolly free, or you can inquire into spending £20 to get a box that ataches to your phone line to get totolly free 24/7 internet acsess but you have to use there phone company ...

wior85 20.07.2000 · Read full review
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Compare similar products to Freeserve »

See opinion
See opinion (*)
Good back bone
Email server sometimes not working (*)
One of the cheapest around, easy to set up, no connection problems, decent connection speeds.
For people with a BT phone line only. (*)
Easy to remember domain names, no banners required
Tech Support is 75p per minute (*)
the cheapest 24/7 isp (but now with limits)
all unmetered packages now have month-hour limits, can't always get connected at all! (*)
Fast, Reliable, Unlimited, Cheap Internet Access, Support has improved
None (*)
none
no Service, no support, no acknowledgements (*)
Great sense of loyalty within community
Sometimes slow e-mail response times (*)
One week in three free
Not totally free (*)
Fast, Cheap.
registering is a pain. (*)
easy to use
none (*)
good connection speeds, good service
pay for the phone calls (*)
Fast WAP gateway which you can use via any network, and lots more useful services
The SMS service is often down due to the volume of users (*)
Reliability
Call costs (*)
(*) Reviews by Ciao members


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