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crashing AOL

floandal — Mon, 09 Sep 2002 15:14:49 GMT

I looked forward to the delightful Connie from the TV ads holding my hand when I first signed up for AOL. --- imagine my despair when I found that they had actually palmed me off with her ugly sister in the browser ! ! !

VERY quickly turned her off.

Alan, - (or as H Steptoe would say, - "You di - rty old man !")

crashing AOL

Adrianhants — Sun, 08 Sep 2002 01:20:15 GMT

So that's at least £5 a month dearer subscription than BT Openworld or Freeserve home ADSL, a LOT more than Pipex, PlusNet, Nildram, Eclipse, etc. Plus of course there's STILL all that AOL consumer junk. I seem to remember passing some sarcastic comment on this value for money in ianjacks' broadband thread a while ago...

If of course Joe Public is happy to sign up for it notwithstanding, well, it's up to them - probably find all they want without leaving the er... safety of the AOL Portal if the people on their latest telly advert are anything to go by!

And I wait with interest to see how Conn(ie)ectivity holds up under ADSL!

crashing AOL

floandal — Sun, 08 Sep 2002 00:44:11 GMT

Adrian, --- AOL Broadband, --- high speed Connie and all --- £34-99 per month plus activation fee plus Modem !

Alan.

crashing AOL

Adrianhants — Tue, 03 Sep 2002 20:49:47 GMT

Well that explains why my e-mails to you didn't appear to get through! Persevere with PlusNet, Alan, I couldnt go back to something like AOL now, with its consumer-junk orientation, all neatly lined up into all those categories thay just KNOW you want The latest TV ads for it are winding me up nicely...

Apparently the actress who plays Connie was unfortunately mugged a while back - couldn't help wondering if this was a genuine mugging or someone who flipped while waiting for a connection...

AOL Time Warner probably couldn't give a flying wotsit, but perhaps, just perhaps they could still make themselves a few bob by offering an alternative, good, honest, no-frills but ultra reliable dial-up/broadband ISP? And pay UK VAT? Oooh look - a nice heard of pigs in V formation at 2,500 feet!

crashing AOL

floandal — Tue, 03 Sep 2002 13:48:38 GMT

That is a lot of hate Nosiop !

My ADSL connection is now up and running, - just a little problem with my mailbox at Plusnet not receiving mail ! ! ! - (Server not found) - I have a ticket in at Plusnet tech support, so it will probably be sorted.
In the meantime, I have kept my AOL account on for another month, - just for e-mails, - but have configured it to connect via the ADSL modem rather than a phone number. --- it is a little faster, but nowhere near as fast as working via Explorer --- (58/60 Kb/sec downloads via Explorer). --- which shows just how restrictive on bandwidth the AOL software is.

I have logged on here today via AOL, in answer to an e-mail notification of posts answered, and the pages don't load half as fast as if I had logged on via Explorer
I will be glad to see the back of AOL. It does have one or two redeeming features, but the connection became so slow and unreliable this past three months.

As it no longer drops the connection using my ADSL modem, it may be their phone numbers at fault. Have a trawl through their numbers until you find a couple that log-on fairly quickly, and don't drop the connection without warning. --- ignore their requests for you to update your numbers, - which they will, - until they pull the numbers you are using, - then search again, - you should be able to keep "out of town" numbers for 6 weeks or so.

Alan.

One other thing I tried during the last week or two of AOL- dial-up, ---
Log-onto AOL, then minimise and browse with EXplorer, - it is a little better.

crashing AOL

Nosiop — Tue, 03 Sep 2002 03:06:23 GMT

AOL urrr send shivers down my spine, used one of those 100 free hours cds while waiting to join cable about 4-5 years ago, and i canceled it just before the time was up, the Fu£$krs sent me a bill for 260 quid, i was straight on the phone and gave them hell, they gave me some BS about going over the time i ended up paying about 1.50p. I never went back to them i hate it as much as i do Microsoft

crashing AOL

Chris665 — Sun, 04 Aug 2002 08:38:12 GMT

Im with BT, and while in the past it has been very slow, its now been very good for the last year or so, just looked at connection and at the moment its 40bps

crashing AOL

Adrianhants — Sat, 03 Aug 2002 22:50:05 GMT

I despaired of AOL for reasons of poor connectivity. FreeServe was a much better dial-up ISP and £2/month cheaper.

crashing AOL

floandal — Fri, 02 Aug 2002 23:46:54 GMT

You are supposed to use the phone No.s designated to your area, but I used to trawl their access numbers untill I found one that was not so busy, and would give me fast access and max. bandwidth. I had a Yorkshire number a while ago that was really good, but after a few weeks, they cut that number off, and force you to select new ones again, - Trouble is, they all seem slow now.
Alan.

Nearly forgot, the most reliable version of AOL is Version 5.0 but you can only install it on Win 98se. versions 6.0 and 7.0 are flakey but are the only ones you can install on Win 2000/XP.

crashing AOL

floandal — Fri, 02 Aug 2002 23:37:25 GMT

The thing is D. you can have a choice of up to four phone No.s with AOL. If one is busy, it will dial, - say five times, - then just choose the next one.
I really think that the problem is at AOL's end, it started about a month ago, coinciding with my installing XP, so I thought it was my settings. It throws up the "main module, - error report to M/soft" box, then shuts down AOL.
as I am dual-booting with Win 98se, I eventually went back to that O/S for internet access, but it throws up "illegal ops" on that O/S now, and that was solid a month ago.
Bandwidth is very restricted too, downloads down to 3Kbs/sec. at times, yet if you try it after 1 am. all the problems disappear, no crashes, and back to 5.0 Kbs/sec download speeds.
The problems ironically coincided with AOL putting their monthly subs up to £15-99. which has finally decided me to sign up for ADSL broadband with Plusnet for £20-99 per month. - Just waiting for BT to test and enable the line.
Alan.

crashing AOL

gsteve — Fri, 02 Aug 2002 20:01:58 GMT

no problem

you need to find dial up networking either in my computer or the control panel and then select make a new connection.

the info you need is the telephone number that you dial and the username and password and that way you dont need the aol disk

crashing AOL

dwgwilliams — Fri, 02 Aug 2002 14:27:46 GMT

Quote: gsteve said on 1 August 2002 at 17:28:15
aol is the bane of my life at work

really the best bet is to uninstall it and make a manual dun connection

Dont whant to sound stupid but how do you do a manual dun connection?

crashing AOL

gsteve — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 17:28:15 GMT

aol is the bane of my life at work

really the best bet is to uninstall it and make a manual dun connection

crashing AOL

dwgwilliams — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 14:07:44 GMT

Does any body have any tips on stopping aol 6.0 crashing.Nealy every time you on the net you get an ilegal operation window.
thanks