i dont know wether to put this in newbie forum or not, but anyway I always hear people saying they hate aol, now i myself never used aol and im wondering what are some of the reasons that people hate aol?

Hmm... Well, AOL is one of the most expensive Dial-Up ISPs, but yet it's hard as hell to connect during peak usuage times...

AOL via TCP/IP on a broadband conenction is kinda fun, you can harass everyone without the lag time of 56k lol...

heard someone say once that when your on aol your not truly on the internet, i didn't understand, just wondering if there is any truth to that and how so

AOL's built in web browser uses some wierd-0 protocols or some [censored] like that. You can access the web-page, but it's not the same as say, IE (don't know much about it). You can't telnet using AOL, that's enough reason for me not to use it.

AOL buys large bandwidth Service lines called frame relay. On frame relay you can build what is called a PVC. Permanet virtual connection. Now you can build 300% over your bandwidth with using PVC's. The thought behind this is never will all of the connections be used at anyone time.

However AOL build about 800% over thier banwidth and dose not add more physical lines until they recieve X number of complaints. Kinda explains that hard to connect thing out hu? Each PVC can be assigned an I.P. address so if all I.P.'s are used up....

AOL also cares nothing about your security. They approach security the same way. They know of security problems but way till it is

a.) Public
b.) They recieve X number of complaints
c.) Both.

AOL has proven time and again at least to me that the only thing they care about where thier customer is concerned is thier money. It is a ISP/SSP that is purely based on making money. The only inovation you will see will come from a desire to gain more customers. Think of AOL as the Microsoft of the net.

As for plain english reasons

It is quite common to get booted off line for no reason
It is quite common to not be able to connect
It is quite common to have service troubles in general
It is quite common to be on hold 2 hrs trying to terminate your service
It is quite common to get telemarketing calls after you sign up
It is quite common to have a slower connection than you would else where
It is quite common for the net's dumbest people to be on AOL because they can't figure out how else to connect
It is quite common to find many script kiddies on AOL
It is quite common to be surfin a page when AIM pops up form some jerk you never heard of saying Hello!

How is that?

all those damn annoying free CDs...heh

lol, the only reason i use aol is the download avaliable... anyone ever go in the private chat "cerver" rooms, they email u like music and programs... its like.... great.

I used to go into those aol program chat rooms where you would type a certain character or phrase and this bot would put you on a mailing list for a gigantic number of aol programs to be mailed to you. Programs like punters, faders scrollers, etc. It's pretty lame now, but when I had AOL (WAY back when I first started using the internet) I thought it was pretty cool and that's what motivated me to learn programming for myself. Are those the rooms you're talking about Moffesto? I think they were called Warez
But that's not the reason I personally dislike AOL. Everyone knows Cable/DSL++ is the way to go.

sinetific: those AOL cds ruled as undercups! or if you like something to store hot liquids on without damaging your desk :p

also great frisbies when taking a boat over the english channel, with a friend u can really have fun with a 50+ AOL cd collection

i have never had aol and never will do, in fact for the last 4 years ive been hoping from ISDN line right up to 2Mb line