*ahem* AOL. HAHAHAHA!!!

[Whale Biologist]

But seriously, folks... Buy our new software! It's only sort of malicious! (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,126928-c,aol/article.html)

Why is AOL even still around? They're hemorrhaging people faster than a certain unnameable political party, and AOL still tries to get new customers... by any means necessary, it seems.

Discuss? Is AOL just polishing it's knobs on the sinking Titanic?

[Buddha Fett]

I'm actually suprised that AOL is still around. I don't get out much, and I could've sworn that they went bankrupt by now.

I remember as a little kid, taking whole bins full of those "FREE! Take One!" AOL discs and using them as clay pigeons for our airsoft guns.

[Mirai Gen]

What's amazing about AOL is how they keep on throwing free CDs out, and more and more people with multiple brain cells toss them out, meanwhile those without brain stems think, "Wow, that's alot of free time!"

[Fifthfiend]

Gonna move this over to General, unless anyone was real hot to discuss the deeper social context of AOL as a disestablishmentarian antithesis vis a vis exurban heuristic learning, or whatevahs.

[Althane]

I am interested in what the bloody hell FF meant by his post.

Besides the "Moving to General".

So, anyways, my Grandma used AOL. In her defense, her computer was a piece of shiat, and the AOL came free, and she had little idea how to use teh intarwebs.

I used AOL when I was, like, 8-10, then got in the real intarwebs.

Sorry, been reading Fark.

[Fifthfiend]

I am interested in what the bloody hell FF meant by his post.


'Twas a horrible mish-mash of bullshit and jargon, slapped together on the spot



THE MORE YOU KNOW

[Lady Cygnet]

I remember as a little kid, taking whole bins full of those "FREE! Take One!" AOL discs and using them as clay pigeons for our airsoft guns.

They're also fun to paint and use as coasters. :p

AOL is just...horrid. It reminds me of an annoying college roommate who manages to sucker you into letting her stay at your place. While she's in your place, she takes over a good three-quarters of it, redecorates in puce and neon orange, fills it ankle-deep with tapioca pudding, and then wonders why you have such a hard time moving around the apartment. After all, her changes made it better! "Aren't you happy?" she asks. When you say no, she then bribes you with shiny objects until you forget that the pudding ruined your favorite pair of shoes. Once you decide to get rid of her, though, it takes forever to get her stuff out, and then you have to do a thorough clean just to make sure you don't spend the rest of your natural life tripping over ridges of dried tapioca.

The report blasts the free version of AOL 9.0 because it "interferes with computer use," and because of the way it meddles with components such as the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows taskbar. The suite is also criticized for engaging in "deceptive installation" and faulted because some components fail to uninstall.


How is this different from previous incarnations of AO-helL?

Anyway, I steadfastly believe that AOL is just spyware masquerading as an ISP...and it's refreshing to have other people agree with me. Even if their prices were competitive and their software was worth having, I never liked how it clogged up my processor when I used it in college. I couldn't even play a round of free cell while the thing was loading a single page!

Then again, all I ever wanted was a good, steady internet connection. It's not as if I can't track down my own firewalls, spyware destroyers, and antivirus software. Aside from AIM, I neither want nor need any of AOL's buggy "extras."

[Nique]

You can't break an AOL user of AOL... Not easily. They just dont know/care enough about their computers to realize that it sucks and that there are things millions of times better.

[Osterbaum]

Or it could also be that all the other retards (I'm pointing at every single one of you) use AOL which means that if I would like to chat with said retards I would have to go and get an AOL account.

Oh the times before AOL, when I had never even heard of it.

[CrazyBen]

Crud, sucks to be me. We can't afford to upgrade to good internet, so we're still using AOL. I can get wireless on my laptop from the guy two doors down, but I have to use AOL for updating games, or playing them online. By which I mean, I can't play games online. One of the reasons I REALLY need to get a job is so I can help pay to get High-Speed.

[Silly Kitty]

Or it could also be that all the other retards (I'm pointing at every single one of you) use AOL which means that if I would like to chat with said retards I would have to go and get an AOL account.

Oh the times before AOL, when I had never even heard of it.


Actually, most people just use AIM. You don't have to have an AOL account for AIM. I was really against getting AIM but everyone uses it.

[steve11]

AOL still exists because as a brand name for a webportal/messenger it's not that bad and is very popular because their product isn't utter junk compared to others (though it's not very good either).

As an ISP pretty much everybody knows they blow goat chunks by now.

They are in the process of changing their brand.

[Buddha Fett]

I really don't understand why people still use AOL. I mean, we have Firefox now.