AOL for Free? - Comments Page 1

what you do not mention, is that if you go with the free service, if you have problems, you do not get support. no 24/7, no tech people. I pay 4.95 per month for broadband. On the rare occasion I have to use tech support, it's worth the $4.95 per month. I'm not sure if I will cancel the billing...something tells me there is really hanging there that will come back and bite me in the butt. I guess that they are counting on that, eh?

EDITOR'S NOTE: $5/month for Broadband??? The average price is about $40/month. What service do you use?

I wouldn't recommend AOL "services" even though they're now free. Heck, I wouldn't recommend AOL at all, even if they paid me to use it. I was one victim of their notorious membership scams. AOL promised me a free trial month for broadband services and instead locked me in to a six-month contract, then lied about it and would not correct the problem, then made me say “no” for 15 minutes on an overseas call when I finally could cancel.

I would be very suspicious of AOL. Your note about their being happy to continue overcharging at $25.90 is one justification for such suspicion. In any case, companies such as these richly deserve to go out of business. Why support customer-abusers? You can easily find alternatives, often better, to everything they offer.

Every time I had an issue with AOL, I would sit on hold forever...finally I told them I wanted to cancel my service. No one seems to know what will happen for tech support if it's free. The real question is whether they will still have any tech support staff members left to handle the phone calls!

My price would increase back up to $9.95 if I had to start paying them again for tech support. Have you heard back from anyone who's gone free and tried to get tech support? Everyone I know is waiting for someone else to cancel their service charges with AOL!

Hi all. It's true that you don't get customer support from AOL with the free plan. But you don't get phone support from Yahoo, Google, YouTube, MySpace, or anyone else you DON'T pay, do you? If you still need dialup, you can get it for $10/month from AOL, or from Earthlink or anyone else. If you want to buy dial-up from Earthlink, you can still use your AOL screen name and all of AOL's other services once you're connected via dialup.

Most of the things that Bob mentioned in this article do not rely on AOL's client software in any way — you can access all of them using a browser. (I'm a Mac user, and AOL hasn't update the Mac software in a long time, so I use all of AOL's services via my Mac Safari browser.)

If you use a non-AOL browser and get broadband access from someone other than AOL, then why would you even need to call AOL for support? Some people think it's probably better NOT to call them, in fact. The good news is that most of the new, internet-based AOL stuff Bob mentions is just cool, and it works well, and gives a lot of value. Why not try it? Just like any other Internet company's products, if you don't have to pay for it and you don't like it, don't use it. If you like it and it's free, then you're getting something for nothing. I especially like the 5 Gb of online storage from Xdrive -- Xdrive was a great product long before AOL bought it, and now AOL has added more value by using its huge server farms for something really good!

Bruce, Do you mean you can access all of AOL's services without installing their big messy client software? (at least it uninstalls more cleanly now) I guess AIM is the only thing that would need an install then?

Thats pretty interesting. A friend of mine collected those omnipresent CD's from people for about a year, then built a lamp out of them - about 100. It glows out the sides. I've warned people away from AOL for years due to their software and practices. They've always been a headache for business clients with vanishing email, proxy access to the Internet (it was never direct) that blocked web services, and impenetrable support if you were not a client.

I have to agree with Phil Christensen's comments above. I too went through 'AOL Hell' a few years ago! Even after I finally got rid of it, it was months and I was still finding AOL 'junk files' on my computer!
I've since purchased a brand new computer, ...'virgin'....and free of any AOL corruption! I just don't trust anything from AOL! I certainly don't want them 'worming' into my computer again!

I bought a new Compaq computer and it is filled with programs that I can't get rid of. Most are under the heading of C:\ProgramFiles\Online Services, etc. When I click on the icon I get the message that it will only delete the icon and not the program and tells me that I must uninstall from the Add/Remove Program; but they are not listed on the Add/Remove Program or my Innova Add/Remove Program. They have hidden these files so that a person who may want to uninstall them can't. This includes MSN, eBay, AOL music, AOL 3 months trial. I think that they are playing dirty. I even installed an uninstall program and they were not on it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: My guess is that they are OPTIONAL installs, and not actually on your system. You can verify by trying to run one of them.

I use the AOL client software because I like the way it handles email better than the web-mail version -- it is faster, it handles attachments and inserts with ease and it automatically stores each email on my computer. I can still get AOL's webmail from any computer when I travel without my laptop. I chose to keep the $9.95 version because,even though I have used AOL for years and know it well, I occasionally have to call AOL for some help and I do not want to lose that service and occasionally have to use dial-up access.

Bob, can you recommend a good AOL reader? I would like to access AOL for free, but I would still like to check my old email.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You mean an email reader? Then I think you'll need the AOL software, or the web interface at http://webmail.aol.com

Every time I try to use the FREE button all I get is "Temporarily unavailable" message.However I was able to change to the free AOL by calling this # 1-888-265-8003. After talking to machines for a minute or two I was connected to a real live person. Without any hassle, she changed my account from pay to FREE. That was followed up by an email which explained what I would get for free and how to connect to free Aol.