Hello To You All,, Ive Been Lurking Around This Forum For A Little While Now And You All Seem Pretty Tolerent People So Please Forgive Me For What May Seem A Pretty Dumb Question From Someone Who Knows Very Little, So What Is Everyone's Beef With Aol Anyway????(appologies If This Is In The Wrong Place).

I haven't personally experienced any AOL biases here at Daniweb, but I probably would not in the forums I spend time in. I think a lot of professional geeks "hate" AOL because in the early days and continueing for many years, AOL did not support a lot of Internet standards. So if you were a web developer or an email service provider, the AOL users presented problems to you because of the types of traffic AOL allowed and their proprietary browser and email client software. I don't have any recent experience, but those AOL issues are probably not much of an issue these days. But you know how people hang on to bitterness!

Also, it was generally considered by the true geeks that only internet morons would sign up for the clunky, slow, restricted AOL service. So us "pros" did not have a lot of respect for the AOL community. Again, a lot of that probably does not hold as much water now.

thanks for the responce Troy, when you say restricted service what exactley do you mean? and is this still relevant now? im new to p.c's all round so please excuse any ignorance,ive read in various places about security issues with I.E so at the moment im mostly using aol's built in browser are these worries unfounded and am i missing out by not using I.E 6 or am i right in thinking your gonna tell me to try opera or something!! anyway thanks for responding and sorry for going onto browsers so if this is now in the wrong place once again i appologise. sorry one more thing who closes the threads the original author or moderators, if it should be me can you please tell me how?

I'm not an expert on the current AOL service by any means, so I really can't reply with any authority, but as I said in my first reply, I think most of the old reasons not to use AOL have been rectified. If you are a computer novice, AOL probably makes a lot of sense. They have lots of tools in place to protect you from viruses and other Internet attacks.

I can remember (8+ years ago) that AOL's dialup connection used a proprietary protocol rather than standard TCP/IP. This was fine as long as all you wanted to use was AOL's service. If you wanted to, for example, fire up an Internet phone program or play an online game, you were out of luck. You could browse the web and check your email as long as you used the AOL tools to do it. You could not use any email or any browser program you wanted.

Now days, I believe, you can connect to your AOL account, then minimize the AOL software and use the connection like any standard Internet service...I think. If that's the case, as long as you are happy with the service and the price, use AOL.

And yes, you are correct, this thread should probably be in the Networking forum rather than here. I don't have privs to move it, though.

>So What Is Everyone's Beef With Aol Anyway????
There has to be a reason? Now, capitalizing every word in a sentence, there's definitely a reason why that is annoying.

Not done intentionally, in fact i only just noticed now you point it out but i don't sit here flicking the capslock button if thats what your thinking! any idea's why it's come up like that?

>i don't sit here flicking the capslock button
Shift happens.

And of course them sending veritable floods of CDs all over the world, including to countries where they don't even operate (don't ask me why).
That too may have declined, at least I've not seen them here (or maybe they've become smart and realised they don't operate in this country).

But Troy has it right. Their non-standard service causing immense trouble for communication, the general morosity of their members (to the point where "aol!" became equivalent with "watch out, idiot in the room"), that's the reasons right there.
It'll probably take a generation or more for it to wear off.

Oh man! Thanks, jwenting! How could I forget to mention the affect of their advertising?! I believe AOL has produced enough cdroms to cover the entire surface of planet earth to a depth of 3.5 feet. Maybe that's an exaggeration.

One particularly extravagant mailing they did involved a cdrom contained in a nicely decorated and heavy tin container. Each year my cousin and I wrap it up and mail it back to each other as either a birthday or Christmas gift. For some reason, we never get tired of the joke. Wow! 100 FREE HOURS! You must really love me!

Any idea of the plan to collect a million AOL CDs and dump them on the doorstep of their corporate headquarters succeeded?