For some reason, I haven’t been able to open the Chiff forums on AOL for the past two days. The blue progress bar goes up very slowly, even on our cable connection, and finally hangs up about halfway. Then I get a message that the host is not responding. I CAN get to the forums using internet Explorer directly (which is what I’m doing at the moment). I can also get to other forums which use the same host directly via AOL. What gives?
I have noticed this annoyance also. I have been thinking about switching from AOL… hmmmmmmmmm…
I ditched AOhelL way back in the day of 56k…My experience with them was absolutely horrible.
After I cancelled with them, they continued to charge my credit card for a year and a half and I ended up having to sue them to get my money back. They apparantly have been doing this a lot in our area, and there has been talk of a class action suit.
My personal advice to anyone using America Off-Line is to ditch out before something similar happens to you. There are better and less expensive ISPs out there.
I used AOL for a very brief period and never regreted making the switch to another ISP.
Same as that. Their insistence on a slightly non-standard browser set-up has given me headaches over the years: briefly as a user, but more often as a webmaster.
I don’t know of anyone who regreted the move to an alternative provider.
In the old days when people were very new to the internet, AOL’s easy-to-understand integration of browsing and email was helpful to many. These days there are far more efficient ways to get email and web access.
I take the cds that AOL sends and string them up outside for Christmas decorations. They look really pretty in the sunlight or when the Christmas lights reflect off them. And I don’t care if somebody steals them! 
That’s a great idea!
In West Virginia I had AOL for a long time because it was the only semi-local ISP available. I grew to love it.
I don’t have it anymore (I have the college’s Internet instead), but I sort of miss the way it cost $30 more than any other ISP and the way it messed up so often.
AOL SKS
This isn’t just in your area. They seem to do it to just about everyone. We had a problem wish some other business that kept charging our account at one point, and when we went to our bank to see what could be done, the person we talked to brought up AOL as one of the worst companies for this. And the worst part is that because they have tons of money to put into it, they more often than not win any case brought against them. Most people just don’t have the money to put into a case, and AOL uses that to their advantage. The bank person we talked to said that in the end, the only way to get them to stop is to kill your bank account completely. So for anyone that cancels their account, make SURE that you put in writing (not just email) that you want to cancel your account, and make sure (I’d say with numerous letters as well as phone calls) that you make your intent well known to them. Keep all correspondence, just in case, and make sure to check your credit bills each month to make sure they are not still billing you.
Nice one, Cran.
A lot like the way Linux users think of Windows… 
AOL software is crap. AOL company is evil. I don’t let my web site customers use AOL. If they insist, I tell them to find another webmaster.
I used to use AOL, through a friend’s account, but AOL hasn’t even got a local telephone number where I live.
I got Cable. I never used AOhelL even before I got high speed.
What is this “Dialup” of which you speak?
I don’t recall using the term, but I think it refers to modern telephone systems that use a dial with numbers on it, which you turn with a finger, in place of the older hand crank phones.
This is what a dialup telephone looks like:
This is what the older form of telephone looks like:
EDITED first to add images, then to fix broken image link.
Either your sarcasm trumped mine (I hope so, that would be awesome),
or you missed my meaning.
I’m goin’ for both…
He trumped your dialup…but missed that it was sarcasm. 
Perhaps. For the record, I was talking about using a POTS (Plain Old
Telephone Service… an actual technical term, I swear!) modem to
connect to your ISP instead of a Cable or DSL modem.
Seriously, if your computer can’t even dialup AOL, you’re pretty rural,
so you probably don’t have anyone offering you cable modem or DSL
service. So, I was really just doing what I like to call “rubbing it in”.
Ya, I got it…
I would guess that Walden did not read into your change of terms that you were being sarcastic.
Walden , being a reasonable person, went even farther back into history to explain the term, reasonably.
To the best of my knowledge Walden not longer keeps carrier pidgins.