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there's always penggy

it works pretty well, but i felt pretty ridiculous using this + a winmodem

This feat was already accomplshed by Penggy, however, i wasn't able to get it to work a long time ago.

I'm not sure what's so revolutionary with this program (the two links in the press release end up in a 404, so I can't check if it has something new), but an AOL dialer for Linux already exists. In fact, they've even been threatened by (and lost their old domain name to) AOL. As far as I know, their software still works today. Wouldn't this be another publicity stunt by Mr. Robertson and Lin(dows|d-ws|spire) ?

The same thing that was debated years ago when penggy was announced on /. will most likely be argued here: Why would linux users want to connect to AOL?

Although, marketing this software through linspire makes a lot more sense considering their more simplistic market.

Well look at that. Here is a link to save others a stop at google. Also found a tutorial. Whats the chances this microtel thing comes with a non-winmodem though if any at all?

Use up the 1000 free hours first. You don't really need to use their service, just their access point. Next time I recieve an AOL disk, I'm giving Peng a whirl. Its a free Linux dialer using the AOL service. Not sure how good it is, I don't have an AOL disk handy.

but really AOL is always going to try to fight reverse-engineering attempts of their proprietary protocols. face it, they suck.

With all the alternative ISPs out there, why would anyone subject themselves to AOL for connectivity? My guess is many families have had their AOL accounts for a while now, and more educated children of those households attempt to cope with the lameness by using this cool dialer.

I'd say there will come a time when people will have to bite the bullet and give up those AOL screennames. They suck at broadband, they're heavily tied into dial-up, they spam the crap out of you, and shove content down your throat all the while confining you to their obnoxious sandbox and screwing-up your network settings. They do everything in their power to abstract the Internet back into AOL. I find that eeevuuuhl.

I for one have been using EarthLink for years on a slew of operating systems, starting from dial-up up to DSL (over 2 1/2 years now), and it's always been a breeze. They'll send you a CD that'll handle the whole sign-up and installation process, or you can just get an account on-line within minutes, and at the end of the web-based process they'll show you a secure page with your username, password, dial-up number, mail and dns settings with which you can manually configure your OS. And BAM you're done. That's $22/month vs $25/month. And if you are craving spoon-fed content, you can always access your account's "start page". Note that each earthlink account actually comes with uhh i think 7 additional accounts or was it 8 additional? forgot. Each account has its own e-mail box, home page address (10MB quota, not bad) (http://home.earthlink.net/~youraccount), and start page. Oh, also the EarthLink DSL account also gives you .. uh .. i think 20 hours of free modem dial-up access, so you can get on-line while travelling through hotels and what-not. They *will* bill your ass if you go over 20 hours though. careful.

Anyway this was just an example of what i find to be a really good nationwide alternative to AOL, but there are other local ISPs all over the place. I'd stay away from local phone companies for DSL service, and go thru a re-seller of their service instead. Phone companies might give you connectivity but they won't give you nearly as many "on-line" perks as other true ISPs will, make sure you comparison-shop. For example verizon assigns you some obnoxious cryptic email address when you get their DSL package. *lame*.

Also keep in mind that any time a local phone company advertises their DSL service to you, i'm pretty sure there has to be at least one other company that offers you similar service, typically with more features for about the same price albeit potentially slightly different service terms. I know EarthLink is pretty-much everywhere, but you have other companies such as speakeasy dsl or something that offer cool plans for gamers.

DSLReports.com is always a good place to look for competitive offerings from various providers in your area.

Almost certainly not.

(Note: IANYAL. This is not legal advice.)

In the letter, they refer to AOL as their "client" and say that they "represent AOL" in these matters. They can't do that if AOL isn't really their client. If it turns out that AOL is in fact not their client, Peng will have a cause of action against Arent Fox. But Arent Fox aren't that stupid; I'm pretty sure they're actually retained by AOL.

Here's my guess: AOL has retained Arent Fox to defend their trademarks, etc., and to send out nastygrams demanding compliance. "We will advise AOL of its available remedies" (which is what the letter says, very different from "they will inform AOL of their action") doesn't mean "We'll go tell on you," but rather, "we will give legal advice to our client about what actions our client should take."

So it's probably not AOL directly initiating this, but it's not some fee-finding trademark-chaser who's going to show up at AOL's door with a possible suit. AOL has almost certainly asked them to find people to sue (or, at least, to find people to send nastygrams to); they're not doing it on their own.

Did you guys read there About page ?

they have a line that says,
"This program includes a reverse ingeenering of the Aol's protocol. "

Arent Fox guys must be drooling over that statement licking their DMCA plate.

Quite some time ago, there were many reports of an AOL client for Linux being leaked to the net, even on /.. I have tried and used this AOL client, it was an internal build that only worked on their networks, so it was really pointless, but yes it did run, and just sat there. So, it's probably not running on Wine at all, though there was one comment from a guy that WINE CVS does run AOL7. We'll have to wait and see. There's also this application for Linux users Logik