Slashdot Mirror
AOL's Upgrade of Death
Kethryvis writes "CNN is reporting about the joyousness that is the new version of AOL. Version 5.0 seizes control of all Internet connections on your machine and handles all Web requests, e-mail, etc. So, if you use your system to connect to other ISPs, your business, your school, etc. and you install AOL 5.0, yer screwed. The CNN article is here. Read deeper into the story to find out how the new version can also cripple machines just by installing. Scary stuff."
Or something like that....
.dll's , and Windows 2000 is notorious for reverting those same system dll's upon attempt to replace them.
What I mean, really, is that AOL 5.0 seems to shamelessly install rogue system
For my own amusement, I tried this experiment on a test machine on my network. Sure enough, AOL misbehaved, and within seconds of completing the install, Windows started telling me it was reverting files. Amusing, actually.
I'm actively working on figuring out exactly how W2K does that - file police. I'll let y'all know if I find some way to defeat it.
"We see this advancement in AOL's networks as a breakthrough..." said Case in a press announcement earlier today. "This is exactly the kind of upgrade our customers expect from AOL, and I won't disappoint them." Later, Case was quoted as saying "With just this modem added to our networks, we're capable of handling approximately 500 more users. They'll get to share this modem, as well as the 4 others we have here at AOL's network center."
When asked what prompted this hardware upgrade, Case stated that the release of AOL 5.0 was "pivotal" in the decision. "People expect us to keep pace with the changes in technology. The new AOL 5.0 software does that, while making our customers' lives easier." We gave the experts in our test labs a copy, and had them run a test of AOL 5.0. When the software was installed, Microsoft Windows took on a different appearence. The Windows logo on the Start Button was replaced with the AOL logo, and only 2 options were available on the menu: 1) Connect to AOL and 2) Crash System. Both menu options had the same effect, and a connection to AOL was never established.
With the recent AOL+Time Warner merger, predictions are abound with AOL's next upgrade, but nothing is cerain. Eyeing the future, Case closed his announcement. "We're looking to the next phase in AOL's development. Our new strategy: "AOL Anytime, Anywhere" is going to be hugely successful. With the addition of our next modem, scheduled for 3rd Quarter 2002, we hope to be the Internet provider for today as well as tomorrow."
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Here's the article at WindowsMagazine that CNN was reporting on:
Fred Langra's column AOL 5.0: The Upgrade of Death?
AOL is not an internet service provider, any more than MSN or Compuserve simply provide. These are really interfaces that allow users to access a number of community-based features, including a sort of debased web and NNTP experience.
I spent Christmas with some AOL users and they were asking me questions like "how do I delete that word I just typed?" These are people who not only lack the expertise but also the volition to turn to any, purer ISP.
Since AOL sells themselves as an intermediary, they reasonably plan their software around the notion that no one will attempt direct transactions with the net. If they tried to produce software that gave full functionality to advanced users *and* coddled beginners, they probably would end up with a confusing and inconsistent UI story. It's the dumb-down equivalent of "make the common case fast".
Moral of the story: if you want to run two or three ISP's on your machine, don't install what is essentially a wrapper to protect you from the complexity of the internet!
And, just to be even-handed: AOL SUX!!!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
That's what AOL'ers get. I'm against AOL, and I believe their users get what they deserve.
/.er would take it at face value. Essentially what it says is that if you check the button that tells your computer to make AOL's software your default browsing software, it (*gasp!*) uses AOL's software, um, as the default when you browse. Also, when you install it...it makes changes to the registry! Unbelievable. Amazingly, this may mean that someone who had a different web browser selected as their default web browser...would no longer have that web browser selected as their default web browser. Certain things that used to work because they depended on that browser being the default may work no longer. The mind boggles.
/. But I'm not one to complain about a bad posting, because usually the /. community is able to sniff out the BS in many mainstream media computer stories, instead of falling for it like the "ignorant masses" we too often feel contempt for. Unfortunately, when the article is about some company which many of us "unbiased /. geeks who are just interested in tech news which is honest and intelligent" happen to have a prejudice against...we tend to buy it hook, line and sinker.
/. for accepting this drivel without the skepticism we rightly pride ourselves on having.
This makes me feel squeamish. No, actually this makes me feel disturbed and yet rather entertained at the same time. You're against...an internet provider? Like, I suppose I can understand this, if they ever did anything to harm you personally, or gave you bad service, or something...although I doubt you'd ever admit to even emailing someone with an AOL address. But wishing harm on their 20 million users?? For their choice of an ISP?? Huh? Did you run that statement by yourself before you wrote it??
I'm not tyring to sound supiror or anything, but why didn't these people do research before they signed up to AOL?
Well you sure as hell don't come off looking too "supiror". Why didn't you do research on the English language before you presumed to write it down?
$21.95? Most of the local ISPs around here are $14.95 or under, and offer everything AOL has.
Erm, no. AOL is still a proprietary network community that allows access to the internet. They have their own dial-up procedure, which is significantly easier to setup than any other ISP's; they have their own integrated interface; they have their own content, searchable by keyword, and their own communities. Now, you and I know that at least 99% of the information available on AOL is available for free on the internet--although much of it can be harder to find reliably, even for someone who knows what he's doing. And we (or, at least I know; you seem mighty ignorant) know that the internet connection AOL provides is technically inferior for some internet activities (read: playing Quake). However, the claim that any other ISP offers "everything AOL has" is patently false.
Now, I'm not afraid to admit that I've been an AOL user. Indeed, my family's used AOL for over 7 years now, and I've been on the whole moderately happy with it. I was definitely happy to have it 7 years ago, on our 486sx with 4 MB RAM and a 2400 baud modem, because that box--and especially that modem; ugh--sure couldn't handle Netscape (1.0 had just come out IIRC), and as a 13 year old I got a lot more use out of AOL's content than I could have with just FTP, telnet, and USENET (which AOL provided me anyways). So I wasn't 133t in my prepubescent days. Sue me.
Of course, now that I'm used to my fat pipe at college, I'll never go back to a narrowband connection, and if for some reason I were to get one for myself, I'd go with another ISP than AOL. Still, I'm still glad my parents have stuck with AOL, because it's frankly the best choice for them. It may be incomprehensible to someone as supiror as you, but for many people who aren't terribly comfortable with computers, it's just easier to find what you're looking for on AOL.
As for AOL's reputation as a god-awful ISP...AOL supported my 56k modem before most all of the local ISPs in my hometown (St. Louis); and over the past 7 years, AOL has provided a much more consistent and reliable connection than my friends' local ISPs as well. (Yes, I just said that. But while I'm sure the whole "busy signal" fiasco may have been truly awful in the rest of the country, in St. Louis it was only a bit annoying for a month or so. Meanwhile, whenever one AOL station is giving me trouble, there's about 50 other local numbers I can dial; when a small-time ISP goes down, it's down.)
As for this ricidulous FUD filled article, I find it outrageous that you or any true
As pointed out by someone else here, this is exactly the same behavior that just about any program these days that handles a standard that other programs may handle--be it a web browser, a media format player, or whathaveyou--does. Wow. Criminal.
And then they trot out the CTO of Prodigy, and some random Win95 user who suffered conflicts and crashes after installing a large piece of software (that's certainly never happened before!) to spread some FUD. Top it off with some third-hand hearsay from Windows Magazine which amounts to, AOL 5.0 installs a bunch of its own software to handle its internet connection; your computer may already have other files which do analogous things (though they are not the ones AOL is designed to work with); therefore this is...bad. And it potentially may not work, even though, uh, it actually does work. (I can confirm this; I keep a copy of AOL on my computer at school just in case the fancy to log on strikes me; I upgraded to 5.0 with absolutely no problems or interference with my university internet connection.) Oh, and several people emailed me to complain about AOL. And some of them are MSCE's!
Conclusion: this isn't the sort of thing that deserves to be posted on
Shame on you for being a techno-elitist (or maybe the correct term is "asshole") who wishes ill on people just because their choice of ISP (I mean, of all things! How ridiculous!!) doesn't square with yours. And shame on most of the rest of
NOTE: For options 1 and 2: Both of these options require a kernel debugger to be hooked up for those options to become useable. If a kernel debugger is not hooked up, Windows File Protection is not disabled.
I presume you know how to hook up a KD?
For the longest time, I've wondered where national news services get there anecdotal reports from. Case in point:
Peg Graham of New York installed AOL's latest software on her laptop weeks after its initial release in October with disastrous results: Her computer crashed. In vain, her laptop manufacturer urged her to reinstall her entire Windows operating system -- she did three times -- before she finally paid a local repair shop $145 to fix it.
Afterward, she returned to an earlier version of AOL's software she considers less risky. She suspects the new program suffered conflicts with the laptop's network hardware she used to connect at her university.
How does the author of this AP news story find out about Peg Graham? Also, her problem is entirely unrelated to the issues of AOL taking over the Internet duties for the entire computer. Most likely this is a separate bug due to an incompatibility in AOL's custom TCP/IP stack, or it could be a problem with Windows. Obviously, if she reinstalled the operating system three times, and was still unable to fix the problem, there was something else going on. The point is, the author of the article does not know what caused her $145 worth of damage nor whether her story is unique case, but still tries to lump it in within an article about AOL taking over the Internet services of the entire computer. The author does this to make the story seem bigger and more urgent.
Sig goes here
"...if they click yes during installation to allow AOL to become their default Internet browser, AOL largely takes over all the online functions on the computer." [emphasis mine]
So who's going to know, reading this, what exactly they mean? If IE or Netscape ask you this, it means simply that - for HTTP requests they will be the default. The mail apps included with them ask, also. The checkbox for that option isn't too hard to find, and it's described in the help file.
That's a pretty far f*cking cry from what AOL 5 is doing, IMHO. If one were to assume that AOL operates the same way IE and Netscape do (reasonable, I think, for most people), then you'd say, "Yeah, I want AOL to be my browser - duh - that's why I'm installing it." If the warning had said "AOL will disable all other Internet apps until you sacrifice a chicken, dancing around while sprinkling the blood in a prescribed pattern on the motherboard, singing a Vanilla Ice song" (which is how most people view the inner working of Windows) I guarantee that many people would have given different answers.
If you lie to your customers and literally damage their computers, and the find out, they get pissed off. If your customers get pissed off but can't leave you for a competitor, you're a monopoly. But what about a monopoly where the only thing keeping your customers with you is their wanton ignorance?
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."