? relating to fast browser thread

[edX]

i am just wondering how many people have at one time or another experienced frustration because a friend or family member uses aol and doesn't know how to do anything on the internet if aol doesn't do it for them? this includes being forced to provide aol compatible funtions on websites, having to use aol compatible messengers, trying to use a computer that only has aol connection and no memory left to actually use the internet, etc.

 

[kilowatt]

Ed, I was frustrated with AOL back in the day ;-)

AOL provides "the internet for morons" and thats the way it works. AOL makes AOL for macosx, classic mac os, winbows xpee, and even winblows 3.1.

I agree, AOL sucks, but for the average joe, its good enough.

As for "having to use aol compatible messengers" that does bug me... most of my friends don't bother with irc and stuff because all their friends use aim. Well, their lost, my gain. I use gaim, which lets one use AIM, yahoo, Jabber, IRC, ICQ, and tons of other stuff. This is only possible, of course, because AOL has released their AIM protocol.

So, while I applaud their efforts in supporting mozilla (helping it become more standard) and opening up the IM protocol, I do not like their simplification of the internet, and their utterly stupid commercials where they brain wash people into thinking you have to has AOL to send email and IM's. "I can check my stocks with AOL" Well duh.

And, in response to something you said about how long I've been using mozilla.. heh... I've been using moz for ever. I used to use NCSA's web browser, ok? I've been on the internet since the 80's. My dad, in the 80's had internet access through a modem on a C64 connecting to the GeorgiaTech network. That was before browser wars and java and css ;-)

 

[edX]

kilowatt, i wil do my best to try and never doubt your experince again. you certainly were ahead of me. i was only dialing up to individual bbs's back in the mid eighties. i didn't get on the internet untill the early nineties. (you will remember i added a "maybe not" )
so it practically sounds like you are making my argument for me. you and some of the others are telling me more awful things about aol than i even knew. i have posted a long reply to the question of why i feel the way i do about aol in the main thread.
but to summerise here, why do anything that supports in any way, a company that does business like this? just so m$ wil have competition and standards will be maintained are not a sufficient answers for me because there are other alternatives available that will fill those criteria. i gave up some of my favorite products many years ago to support the economic war on apartheid. people laughed at me and others who did this. but enough of us participated in this that it became a contributing factor in the dissolution of apartheid. when people find alternatives to the things (companies, products, governments, etc) that contol them, then they take the control away. and if you don't think aol would be happy controling every cyberinch of the net that m$ doesn't get a hold of, then i am not sure what else to say. people once said ibm could never be toppled yet they are hardly the giants they once were.