Broadband forum: AOL Vs. Earthlink High speed

I know people that are happy with both. I know people who hated both.

You should know this. AOL and Earthlink are both Nanny ISPs. They spend a lot of time trying to take care of you, that includes filtering some ports to prevent YOU from spamming etc. Also using your own email server.

Note: Earthlink no longer advertises that they provide the WHOLE internet anymore, because they don't.

This means you might have problems using an email server outside of their service. I recomend setting up your own domain and email server. It can be done on thousands of webhosts for as little as $5 a month. But what it means it when you do change ISPs your email address doesn't have to change. You are always name@yourdomain.com. Godaddy.com can get you the domain for $9 a year and the email account / web page for I think as little as $3-$4 a month for personal use.

Look to ISPs that treat you like an adult, something like Easystreet.com (I don't use them or work for them) I buy my DSL line from Qwest and use a smaller local ISP that gives me great service and I am supporting a little guy.

If someone is making a choice between ISPs when all they're aiming for is dial-up service, AOL has to be one of the worst ISPs anyone could possibly chose. My poor unfortunate friend who used to use AOL dial-up a couple years back couldn't even log onto AOL during peak hours because their servers were so jammed during that time. On the other hand, I was using Earthlink dial-up during the same time and never had an problems what-so-ever connecting or anything else for that matter. We have both switched to broadband through a local provider since then, but between the both of us, AOL dial-up is horrible. I will say this though, I don't have any experience with AOL broadband services so I'm not going to comment either way about that.

I have used AOL for 6 years now.. I tried a trial service of Earthlink, But did not like it myself.. So I think it is up to the individual person to decide..
Good Luck
ADa

As was mentioned before, AOL is quite easy to use.

It does everything for you.

But if you try to do someting else, it will never work.

Let me explain:

1)No games could access the internet through AOL.

2)No other browsers could access the internet through AOL

3)Norton Anti-virus Live Update could not get online.

4)Neither could Windows Update after awhile.

5)AOL costs twice as much as the broadband we have now.

6)AOL's security features did not help us at all.

7)AOL's e-mail only gives you 100 MB of online storage,
while Hotmail give you 250 MB and Gmail will give you 2 gigabytes!

The only good thing about AOL is its filtering. No objectijonable content was on our computer.

Still, now we have Verizon DSL direct from Verizon, not through AOL, and it costs half as much while it is 20% faster.

I have never used Earthlink, though.

"Five years ago AOL BYOA was only $9.95 (it's $14.95 now)."



I have cable and AOL BYOA and I pay $9.95 and recently a lot of people got it for $4.95 but you have to get the right tech that knows about this $4.95 special I was told. I tried to get it but the tech's didn't know what I was talking about and I know it's out there because my friend got it and his new credit card bill had the $4.95 price on it and it's the exact same BYOA I have. I was told not all the tech's know about this or somethihg but why it's a secret is beyond me. You should call and see if you can get the $9.95 price in your area. Also I go to keyword opinion and take the surveys and they take a few bucks off my bill.

I have had both AOL and Earthlink. Currently I have AOL, and I am quite satisfied with it. I can access anything I want, and I also am enjoying their new AOL Explorer browser.
Also, bottom line, AOL is $25.00 cheaper!