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AOL 6.0 Client: We'll Be Your Home Page, Thanks
Masem writes: "According to this story at CNet, the latest version of AOL 6.0's Web browser does not allow the user to set a home page, nor click on a button to go to the home page. Instead, the user is forced to start up through AOL's start page. AOL claims this was an aesthetic move prompted by user input, but many are crying foul in light of the proposed TW/AOL merger; such a move gives AOL too much of an edge on content control. At least they could have left such a change in an advanced dialog box for experienced users ..."
A karma-whore is a troll.
Latin name: trollus hordii
Well, there are three (or maybe four) reason why folks use AOL.
1) AOL is just about the only ISP they can get without incurring a hideous long-distance charge. Remember, it's not only city-dwellers who want to get connected.
2) AOL is most likely the very first ISP to which they're introduced, via the ubiquitous diskettes and CDs they've been mailed for a decade now (I've quite a nice collection of AOL CDs, going ack to version 4.0. I use them as coasters!).
3) AOL is easy to use. The set up is fairly painless and once the user is in, he or she is in an easy to navigate self-contained community which gives them the kind of content they want (shopping, stocks, chat, some research tools, etc)with litte to no hassles (though the disconect problems were a real pain, but they seem to have straightened it out mostly). It appeals greatly to the adult computer novice who is willing to spend more money on an easy, safe community like AOL is.
Now, I'm not saying that it's a perfect place. But my parents, who were as computer illiterate as anyone you've ever met, have been using AOL for almost two years now and their computer knowledge and excitement about new technologies has gone up along with it. That has to count in AOL's favor.
-Jimmie
I remember dumping my timeshare account and getting my first ISP service, soon after Al Gore created the (commercially accessible) Internet.
First I had to make a direct modem connection using ZTerm (a Mac Comm program). How did I get ZTerm? A year before I had to check a really bad comm program out from the library and use it to download ZTerm from a local BBS.
Then I was able to download (using ZModem) some unoffical PPP driver developed by some university, a illegal copy of MacTCP, NCSATermnial, and some instructions.
After I got everything installed and configured, I was able to dial-up the PPP number, and telnet into a shell. From there I could FTP a Mac FTP program to my shell space and then disconnect, directly dial to the shell machine, and ZModem it down to my Mac.
Fortunately I already had DeBinHex and MacBinaryII and CompactPro and StuffitExpander from the BBS days.
Once I had the FTP program up and running, I was finally able to get to ftp.netscape.com and download their crappy Mac beta version.
In retrospect, I can understand how AOL got such a huge foothold back in the old days.
If AOL was a small company, I'd look at this and laugh. But with the Time/Warner deal heading up soon, it is very possible that all of Time/Warner's present and future subscribers will be AOL users.
They are forcing content on a lot of users, who will soon probably not have a real alternative to opt-out.
Well, of course, most /.-ers aren't using AOL (I know I'm not), so it doesn't really affect most of us. Microsoft products, however, do affect some of us more directly, as some of us do have to deal with/support/etc. assorted Microsoft stuff. That's why most of us don't care. I know that I for one don't care that much - why should I? I don't have to deal with AOL. (Thank goodness...)
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I feel that these companies setting a default home page to their company is wrong all together. This in particular is REALLY wrong because you can't change it. The majority of people at the places I go to support computers use the default page of whatever they have without even thinking about it. People who use Netscape use Netcenter. People who use IE go to MSN.com by default. And people that use AOL go to aol by default. a great majority of them will never change that. I feel the webpage should be blank by default and then be very easy to set any page you are on as your home page. It is unfair to be any other way. Just my opinion.
In Netscape you can actually set the browser to start with a blank page, yet have the "Home" button go to a URL. That way you don't need to see that page render every single time you open the browser, but you can get to it quick if you want to. I've actually got my home page set to a local HTML file with mini-forms for things like Google, dictionary.com, IMDB's search, etc...
Huh? What's your point? I know about "about:blank". I was just saying that with Netscape you don't have to set your home page to about:blank, you can actually select "Browser starts with: Blank page", and then the "Home" button can still take you somewhere useful and non-blank.
And so does alot of people. Personally I set to a blank page then I decide to go where I want to go from there. But is just me.
I tried MSN Explorer and as far as I can tell their is no way to set your home page in it either. Granted I can always just use regular explorer as MSN Explorer is just a different interface for the web with MSN Messenger and media player integrated into it. I just wanted to try it out. I think it's good for inexperienced web users. It makes it pretty without them having to use AOL. But then of course they are exposed mostly to Microsoft content which is considered the bane of evil around these parts of the web. *shrug*
I lose count of the number of times I have to go and reset user preferences on the internal web at work when an installation of MS Internet Exploder that the user has somehow acquired and installed resets options like 'Always check for Internet explorer updates', and stops the user seeing our internal home page when they start up.
Yes, on our internal net, do not adjust your computer, we are in control of what you see and do during the next half hour!
Presumably, this is hard coded into the software or a registry setting somewhere then? Perhaps it can be overwritten? Word Macro anyone?
It's been awhile since I was in Reston/Herdon at that time of night, but the last few times I was there, the traffic was fairly heavy late at night. Not rush hour levels, but heavier than you'd expect at 11PM.
What complexes and where are they located? There doesn't seem to be much of an apt crunch in Loudoun...yet. The only problem is price. It won't be long before you can buy a townhome for the monthly price of a one or two bedroom apt lease (the two bedroom lease is already there).
Chris
Not to nitpick, but Nowheresville, Va? Last I heard, AOL was headquartered in Northern Virginia, while not Silicon Valley, doesn't exactly qualify as Nowheresville. Even in 1998 whent he book was written, the area was growing like crazy. For those of you not familiar with NoVa, it's the area in Virginia up around Washington DC. IIRC, AOL was/is in Herndon, only about 1/2 hour from DC. It's so crowded in NoVa, towns like Herdon and Reston have heavy traffic at 11PM (there's no real nightlife in those towns at that time so why the traffic?). Chris
How is an option in preferences to choose a different home page an aesthetic issue? If you were to remove the button that says "HOME", that's aesthetic. Preferences aren't made to be pretty, they're made to change a program. If AOL wants to make an aesthetic change, take off the HOME button. If they want to make blatant attempts to control the media, they could do what they're doing right now.
I think that people are missing the point here. True, users can choose another ISP if they so desire. The point here is that if a typical user likes AOL, they will stick with it. Even if AOL has the minor annoyance of only letting you use their home page, they'll keep using it. Since these users will keep using AOL, and they keep visiting AOL's home page, AOL will have a monopoly over the media. This isn't AOL service bashing. This is a legitimate concern that AOL is trying to get too much power, and they're not even being honest about it.
I agree. Part of the problem is that AOL "removed" this feature. If locking homepages was there all along, no one would complain. Actually, I'm rather surprised that AOL ever let people *change* their homepage. That's a very valuable piece of commodity - 25 million users logging on once a day, think of the ad revenue.
I'm not sure why the moderators scored you redundant, but I thought your comment was nice.
Not that my opinion means much. :)
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
As user choice in controlling screen real-estate diminishes, the difference between ISPs that cost (in $) and free ones (no $) continues to blur. I wonder how different AOL/MSN will be from NetZero/Bluelight (wrt their control of user screens) in 2 years time. How will this market shakeup...?
Anyway, AOLusers can always Upgrade(Tm) to getting their internet curtesy of KMart for free!
:^>
How is the above post a troll? It's totally accurate and concise. Me thinks we have a loopy moderator on the loose.
That's something that's always bothered me. We all know that the Borg's could board a ship with shields up (happened a lot in ST:First encounter). Why the hell are they even bothering to ask over commlink ??
Ok. I know this is O/T. Let me fix this
We all know that AOL could restrict content in there own proprietary client. So why the hell are they even bothering to tell people lies like "It's aesthetic" ??
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
It's better to always practice "safe hex!" Heh.
-zack
He added that members also wanted one-click access...
;)
Does this mean we will see an AOL vrs. Amazon.com fight comming soon?
Geez.. you spent a little longer than most trolls w/that respnose.
Almost clever.
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Mrs. Clear Plastic meet Deda
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+&x
At least AOL has the good graces not to display additional ads while you're surfing the web, on top of the banner ads already in web pages. Bluelight and Netzero, the only two of the four you mentioned that will be around in three months (seriously, click on your own Freewwweb link) serve up ads like crazy. Netzero's ad bar even blinks if you don't click on ads, and eventually terminates your connection.
:)
Good ol' AOL. At least they don't put banners on their web browser. As for their e-mail client, chat rooms, instant messenger, welcome screen, log-off screen, and "channels," that's another story.
For more information, click here.
Besides, do these "free" ISPs you listed even work with OS's besides Windows?
Actually, one of the reasons why FreeInet and FreeWWWeb went bankrupt was because they did work with OS's other than Windows. Just put your login information into any PPP dialer, and you're on-line ad-free. You could even bypass the ads by using regular old Windows Dial-Up Networking. How about that?
For more information, click here.
Napster doesn't allow me to change the page that is loaded either. That truly sucks. I feel so violated. *yawn*
Come on people!! It's a service.. You buy a package: news, chat, email, web, the AOL community. When you start up the client for the package (which is technically a web browser), it will show you what is currently going on.. the news, your friends who are logged on, your new email etc. It's a service! Most AOL users will see it as a positive thing. Hell, they probably don't even realize it's a "homepage" - they just see it as a screen that is shown after the AOL client starts up.
If you don't want these services shoved down your throat, use another "ISP" (I don't personally think AOL *IS* an ISP but rather some kind of new type of digital services company). I have "about:blank" as my homepage and I prefer not to have to use any one particular web browser. People are different - that's why there are more than just one ISP and they all have clients.
perl -pi -e 's/www.aol.com/www.slashdot.org/' AOL.exe
You may have to run it on other files too. who knows...
Earthlink's been doing this to me sinceI've had their service. When a tech came out to change my cable modem, he even went into my internet prefs to make my homepage www.earthlink.net or home.earthlink.net or something. (He then checked that step off on his checklist; I promptly changed it back to about:blank, but hey if it makes them happy...) "AOL's web browser" sucks. No one who knows how to use Netscape or IE uses it. It doesn't play nicely with firewalls all the time, it doesn't render as well or as fast as IE, it's basically IE's html view control emebedded in an AOL MDI client. This really isn't that big a deal people...
-- Ace
Ministry of Software -> Minisoft -> Microsoft?
... and regedit is your friend.
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1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
If you want a home page, just add it to your favorite places. It takes the same ammount of clicks to open the favorite places menu as it does to "go to the web".
What the hell is the big deal here? CNET is well known in my book for poor and misleading articles. Especially when it comes to AOL.
The "homepage" in my browser is blank.
It depends; if it changed IE so that you can't set a new start page, then no that isn't fair. If its only in the aol software, then ya, there's no reason to care. Anyone know if it fucks up IE, or just its software?
I like to set mine to blank. Its much faster then loading a page, esp. if i'm on a modem. And usually i don't have the same task when i start browsing. I think this move by aol sucks, it just makes things slower. Browswers don't seem to want to stop loading page sometimes..
That's what you get when you use propietary software and services like that, you become limited in what you can do.
-motardo
It seems to me that company's are tightening their grip on the advertising income. More and more I'm being forced to go through some advertising to reach the information I want because of the demise of really free information on the internet. AOL seems to be making it extremely hard for their customers to reach the information they want without add's (a portal usually is a big ad page).
When you do a web page search your results are served by google.yahoo.com... and the page says "Yahoo!(R) powered by Google" or something like that...
example search on yahoo
But yes... pure Google (.com) is still preferrable imho...
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Ner lbh sebz gur HFN? Gura lbh'ir whfg ivbyngrq gur QZPN!
Hmm... Yahoo uses the Google search engine if you do a "web pages"-search... So I think the difference is actually not that huge.. (but yes, I do prefer google.com myself)
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Ner lbh sebz gur HFN? Gura lbh'ir whfg ivbyngrq gur QZPN!
My neighbor loves it too, but is getting ready to dump it in favor of Road Runner. When he saw how fast my Cable Modem was he said I want it! :)
Joel
Gorkman
AH ha ha ha ha!!! You have got to be kidding me if you think that ANY combination of laws and technology can ever prevent me from pirating copyrighted materials. I am sorry, but the nerd proliteriat will never allow it.
At least they could have left such a change in an advanced dialog box for experienced users ..."
;-)
No, then the complaint would have been, "It is too hard for the average user to change their homepage! Oppression! Oppresion! Aiee!"
Cynical? Perhaps. Realistic? Likely (though not necessarily with the last bit
I don't intend this as a criticism, just an observation...
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Anout half-way through the article it states that when you visit a webpage a small hear icon appiers, if you drag this icon to anyplace ont eh tool bar it creates a button that goes directly to that page. This sounds like they give you the option of creating as many 'homepage buttons' as you want. I hate AOL as much as anyone here, but I like things to be fair... aol hasn't taken away anything, although they ares till evil.
Everybody cares about what their homepage is; it's just that some don't know that it can be changed to a much speedier and useful site or hard disk file than the default. My opinion? AOL has really become a bunch of turds. You used to be able to count on them for support on important web issues -- spam, open broadband lines, etc. But now they've become just a bunch of corporate lackeys...
Vacation at Shell Extension City
DAILY ROTATION
Illegal in what way? It's their company and their software. They can make their home page the only page you can see with their browser if they want to. There's nothing illegal about it. And how would it end in a Microsoftish way? They aren't a monopoly, and they aren't stifling any sort of competition.
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
I'm a beta tester for AOL and it's not all that bad. I don't mind it, but there really isn't a homepage at all persay. If you want to go to a URL you type it in the URL/Keyword Space provided.
I figured I would post a screen shot of what it is like... it can be found here.
I'm sorry guys but my resolution is 1280x1024 so the size is about 500k.
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58.0% slashdot corrupt
with all these big companies fighting against the people and one another is it possible this will eventually cause them to rip apart? hopefully they will be so busy fighting themselves they will leave us alone
Most the Poeple on AOL dont even know what an ISP is. They like to get their email, and talk to their friends and family. If told to go to another ISP theyed just look at you blankly. Also they might not know what to do. For us things like that are simple "This ISP sucks. Lets signup with another". But to a mojority of the members of AOL, it is the internet, and there is nothing else. Even if they knew there was, why change? Its easy, ill sacrifice my choices just to have the ease.
May the source be with you \0perator
Why not just learn XML? Then you can implement your own markup language (/.ML, perhaps -- Slashdot Markup Language!), complete with <sarcasm>, <flamebait>, and <IANAL> tags. LOL.
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
i got a kick out that. it should be moderated up to about 3, funny.
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." ~Confucius~
If people want to buy systems that were overclocked even though nobody told them, let them be.
.sig
If people use the high tech product X without knowing problem Y because they are interested in Z instead of being interested in high tech products, let them do it.
It's not as if people who know more about X can help/protect people who don't know X well.
How was that comment 4, Insightful? What insight?
We're talking about contents control here.
phobos% cat
phobos% cat
cat:
Man, you really are the most fascist asshole I've ever seen. Period. You're just begging to become a mindless slave, aren't you? One of those people who thinks the Bill of Rights was the biggest mistake in the history of the US, eh?
If you're willing to sacrifice freedom to stop piracy, understand that there are some of us out here who are more than willing to protect freedom by sacrificing you.
I'm a Rogers@home customer, and to be honest, I am not satisfied with their service. I haven't been since the moment I had it installed, over two years ago. Why am I still using it? Well, the answer is very simple: this was the only choice I had for a cheap broadband connection to the Internet. I couldn't afford ISDN or the faster connections (t1, t3... ok, ok, I know I'm dreaming). Not to mention that except for ISDN nobody would even install it for me, because I live in a residential area. And at the time, ADSL was not available either.
/.ers... And the fact that you can connect to it from anywhere in North America (AFAIK). This also isn't much of a selling point, because not a lot of people travel that much. And there are always options, such as Internet Cafe's, or for the corporate world, most companies have 1-800- or even local dial-in accounts for employees.
Since then, ADSL is being offered in my area by Sympatico.ca (part of Bell Canada). However, all my friends who have this service, are telling me that while they don't have as much down time as I do, their upload speed is simply too slow.
Those are the reasons why I still am a customer for a service I am not completely satisfied with. It's fast enough for my needs, it cheap, and it works enough times so that it isn't frustrating.
Now to get to the point of my post.
I can't understand why anybody would want to use AOL. It's very expensive when compared to some of the local ISPs in the Toronto area. This should be the case for all of the big cities in Canada and the US. It also uses that annoying proprietary client, which since v.4 I've heard nothing but bad things about it. It is only a dial-up, so it's also very slow.
The only advantages I can see are it's "ease of use" (ugh!). But then, this should not even be a selling point for the
To sum this up, AOL sucks! The only advantages are not worth the trouble due to the disadvantages. So could anyone tell me why use it in the first place?
AOL bypasses the hosts file. It seems to connect to a proxy first that does all the DNS. I've been trying to figure out how to block this in a simple (read an AOLer can understand way). Any one else have a way to block something within AOL's ( Internet Explorer that's been registry mangled) browser. Specifically I want to block the incedibly offensive ads.web.aol.com URL.
Since small towns discovered the outside world. Since AOL became the only ISP with a local number.
Will I retire or break 10K?
besides why are you paying for dial-up access anyways?
This is off-topic, but paying for dial-up access is the only way I can even get dial-up access. All the services you mentioned use proprietary dialers that are only available for Microsoft(R) brand Windows(R) brand operating systems and do not work on Wine.
Will I retire or break 10K?
preceding comment double-plus ungood refs master plan MiniAOL rewrite posthaste
Woot w00t w007.
Google is better than yahoo...i'm not sure if yahoo is using the google engine now, but the google engine is superb...also, no pesky ads on google.
there is not need to be offensive, it betrays a lack of intellect
Make a links page. Put all your bookmarks that stay bookmarks for a long time in a table with netscape composer or something similarly simple. It takes 10 minutes, tops. You can even put in google search boxes, etc. It's amazing how much it simplifies you life online. (and I spend way too much of my life online)
Just a little tidbit to brighten up your day.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
________
Strange, judging by the comments, this seems like a non-issue. However, if microsoft had to do the same with IE I am sure every slashdotter would be screaming with anger.
Thank goodness big companies NEVER, EVER lie!
:)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Some people, like myself, have little surfing routines that we like to maintain. We get online, and immediately we set off on several sites that we visit as a matter of course. For some of us the Home Page button is invaluble. Mine is set for slashdot, but I also use that little links bar in IE 5.0 for all my big sites (in order, left to right: TomsHardware, Yahoo! [i know, but are there any other better engines out there?] FilePlanet, PlanetUnreal).
Just a thought.
Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
AOL 6.0 Installs IE 5.5 [at least in the betas I've gotten.] Although when you type 'www' into the keyword panel it opens up 'http://www.aol.com', you do *HAVE* IE 5.5 installed on your computer. It's just a matter of running IEXPLORE and doing what you want from there. My home page in AOL *was* set to www.aol.com but it did *not* change my home page in IE. Anyways, who would want to use a window within the AOL MDI? We've gotten away from that for a long time.
DISCLAIMER: I know M$ is the devil. I'm working on purifying my system as we speak.
Verence
~Verence
... that's all i wrote...
Because those services are fairly crummy and I would only use them in the most dire of circumstances. I've tried many of the free services and let me tell you something, you get what you pay for.....
--And sektor spoke and said unto the people. Hey, buttwipe hand me the cheezeos.
Like they said in User Friendly:
... Oops, wait, that was M$, not AOL.
"People are stupid."
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
*ring ring
"mike it's not working!"
*sighs....
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
The point is that an AOL luser isn't capable of even realizing that that's an option.
One word: Usenet Their access to Usenet sucks if it even really exists. My former ISP had FULL access to Usenet including all the controversial groups. Try to find those on AOHell. And just to let you know I do have AOL and use it for some of the gaming forums. But I use the bring your own access plan and connect via TCP/IP. I'll always use a REAL ISP of some type or another over AOL.
AOL has finally made a good business case for frequently disconnecting users - the more they re-connect, the more home page ad impressions they sell!
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
I mean, we're talking about a company who has forced crap down the collectiv3e throats of it's lemmings^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H since day 1. This is no more remarkable than forced pop-up ads, proprietary protocols, transparent browsing proxies, ar any of the other 'evils' foisted on the unwashed masses...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
My conspiracy theory: Bill wants to put the final nail in Netscape/Mozilla coffin, and associating Netscape with AOL 6.0's b0rken browser is that nail.
Hmmm... Not to rain on your parade, but, I think AOL is still using that poor excuse of a browser known as IE... I'm also, unfortunately, stuck with AOL: I've had my same (AOL) email addr for about 5 years (before I knew better), and can't imagine informing all my aquaintences of a new address.
when im on the folk's pc, im all about the advanced user dialog boxen, i love the fact that im advanced.
"Sorry, but I don't there's anything charming about ignorance and carelessness." -LordNimon
How long will it take 'till Nullsoft does some funny winamp plugin that changes the homepage? ;)
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
What a wonderful piece of irony. Too bad it seems your joke is over the head of the average slashdotter.
Se la vie
yuo = fag0t
go eat a bag of hell
If you use AOL, and this upsets you, then you have two choices: a) get a different service provider. b)stick with the older version. This isn't so scary because it is limiting the AOLer's ability to set a homepage, but because it could spread to other major browsers. I mean, IE is already *this* close to doing it, and netscape isn't far behind. I geuss that leaves mozilla. The moz project could be our last, best hope in browsers.
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Crudely Drawn Games
don't worry about it simple one, yours aren't even worth enough to sign up for an account, evidently.
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Crudely Drawn Games
I fully agree with you. I would also like to add that one really can go somewhere else after their browser loads. I personally couldn't care less about what's on HotBot when it comes up as the homepage on the computers at my high school. People like the alarmist editors of Slashdot ought to realize that the real problem lies in preventing people from viewing web pages, not forcing them to view one everytime that they open their browser.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Well, first of all there's no "home" button within the client software. So... there is no "home page" other than the Welcome screen in AOL, if that's what CNet meant. Secondly, AOL 6.0 does NOT prohibit the user from changing their Internet Explorer or Netscape homepage. So, CNet missed the boat on this story. Maybe they were looking at a pre-release version which didn't have the normal functionality built in yet. Or maybe they were just being journalists.
There are other OSes apart of UNIX. An no UNIX user has an AOL account... An the AOL browser is not exactly Netscape or Mozilla.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
So I'm a little confused about the problem here. AOL doesn't start up to a "HOME PAGE", it starts up to a welcome screen which has always been controlled by AOL. To get to your "HOME PAGE", you had to press the "HOME PAGE" button. But if there isn't a "HOME PAGE" button ... well you see my question. And if you can create your own buttons, well that is even better. Now Mom can have a "my.yahoo" button and a "google web search" button and so on. Which reminds me, if my Mom can quickly figure out that AOL content sucks and that google.com is the only way to search the web (and she figured this out all by herself ;) then maybe we are underestimating all of the other "parents" out there.
Second point: I am reminded of an event last Christmas that I never had a chance to "rant" about. A similar problem to AOL "directing" traffic, are companies with AOL specific web sites. Let me explain. During the winter holiday last year, I helped my brother set up on online brokerage account. I knew that this company was offering $75 dollars if you started a new account. But when we used are parents AOL service to setup the account, we were taken to a page where instead of the $75 dollars, the promotion was 50 "AOL dollars". Suffice it to say, I was really upset at this. hmmm, remember that Amazon pricing strategy fiasco, I wonder if it was a function of whether you where using an AOL browser or not?
It's not an issue of how good AOL's portal is, the complaint is about AOL having too much control over it's users. It's about letting the user change it if they want to. I figure users should either deal with it or change ISPs, but the complaint does seem valid.
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I use the 'about:mozilla' page source, stored as a local file, as my startup page in IE. It still makes me chuckle sometimes.
And for all of us that choose not to benefit from the wonders of AOL..We could really care less...I don't think your average AOL junkie is the type to march and protest....(plus -- anyone who burned their Window$ disc on the infamous "March Against Redmond can't use AOL anyway right?)
sog
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
--kwerkey
Hey, if you still use aol, you're getting what you deserve. If you don't like it, don't use AOL. I don't know why anyone would want to anymore anyway. It's a scary thing how much of the web AOL controlls, they should probably change their name to WOL (World On Line).
Just a question, if AOL and Netscape are in the sack together, why does AOL use IE? Hmm... there might be something there.
I just wanted to clarify that AOL simply uses the IE4/5 ActiveX Control, so in essence, it is -not- their browser. I just wanted to note that you are using IE when you are in AOL, and you lose nothing by opening the -real- IE. My girlfriend uses AOL, and it just gets minimized right after email.
DrPascal: Not the language, the mathematician.
TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN
I have no experience with the AOL browser, but if it allows, like Netscape does, to set a local proxy up, you could get Junkbuster and get on with your life.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Is this an illegal way of pushing their own company, or is this just an inconvenience that 6.0 users will have to put up with? This could very well end in a Microsoftish manner.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
"IE is installed on a computer by default, your average user won't bother getting anything else, they'll just suffer.."
"AOL lets you run other browsers, if you don't want to use theirs, go download another one."
Umm.. yah. Shure, folks. Its the new math, right?
Also cause of the un-movable AOL menu bars it blocks a good bit of the screen making browsing pages a bitch.
So at the end of the day you have a shitty looking small screen. Best to use netscape @ least your keeping it in the family :) WOW! AOL only crashed once while typing up this message, things are on the up....
Da Cr33p
" Stumbling from the ice age
They were last in flight
They would write a new page
If they could only write "
- Penguin attack, Gwar
It allows you to put the right angle on the quotes, and it's the preferred way of using quotes in high-quality typesetting environments (TeX, for instance).
-John
Compuserve, owned by AOL, has been doing this for over a year. The situation with Compuserve is a bit different, since the initial dial-up connection is done via a proprietary protocol. Only after connection is established, can you minimize the Compuserve shell that's laid over Explorer and get on with your web surfing, whether with Netscape, or a Windows version of Lynx, or another version of Explorer.
In the 15 months I've been using Compuserve, I've noticed "portal creep," as CS takes advantage of the fact that they have a captive audience immediately after dialup. Now there are typically four layers of ads and assorted crap that you have to a)wait until they download (you don't dare abort too early, or the connection won't persist), and b) get mouse-finger RSI after they all download, just from hitting the X boxes in the upper right corner.
Meanwhile, you stay very well-informed about Britney Spears' latest hairdo!
AOL apparently looked enviously at the Compuserve situation after they acquired it, and said to themselves, "Hey, we can do the same thing by redesigning the browser!"
Don't use AOL. It sounds rather simple. I will admit several years ago when I started out, I had AOL, then I realized that it was better to have choices and real connectivity.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Well, I don't really care at which page my browser starts. As default I have it on my ISP's (which is not AOL, I don't think we have AOL here anyway), not because it is really pretty or usefull, but I normally start on very different sites according to the tasks/searches I want to do. All I need it my bookmarks and be able to see that my connection is up and running (hence that it is not a blank page). :-)
I think the "home" button in browsers is largely overrated
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Sooooo everyone gets the same page because (1) most aolers are too bleak to specify their own home URL and/or (2) AOL is still crate full of massive control freaks we've come to know and loathe. True story: I was a charter AppleLink Personal Edition subscriber. Apple in it's inimitable wisdom decided no one would ever make money with online services, and sold it to a little outfit in Vienna VA. We all got beta tester status (and half price time - at that time full price was $9 to 11 per hour) for 6 months. Then we all got regular user disks of the newly-re-branded America Online. Six months later I get a call from Steve Case himself. "We screwed up on the disks and we've been charging you beta rates for too long, and basically you need to send us whatever you've spent in the last half year AGAIN." I don't think so. How many of us does this affect? Dozens? "Yes." Hundreds? "Yes." Thousands? "Look, that's really not the point. You have to send us the money." Feh. Offered them a installment plan and they never called again. How does a company this clueless make so much scratch?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
me too
internet mail:anita548:aol.com ICQ#:74734566
www.b0rk.co.uk
internet mail:anita548:aol.com ICQ#:74734566
you idiot. Slashdot references the stories, you should be banned
God that is funny.
How many /.'ers use AOL? Hmm, about eight, and that is an overstatement.
FreeWWWeb has been dead for months (bought by juno) and FreeInet will be dead very soon (they ran out of money)
Aethetic is an arty thing - it's a matter of opinion what one finds aesthetic - so they can do anything in the name of aesthetics.
There are some black and yellow people that kinda crud up my neighbourhood - aesthetics, here I come.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
about:blank
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
The truth shall set you free!
OK! Quick show of hands.. Who is not using the default web page that came with your browser? Ok Now how many have not changed the home page? Hmm Just as I thought. I know this was not a great poll as only people who can read and program VCR's have made it here. This site doesn't have many pictures.
The truth shall set you free!
That's what you want. Make as many people as possible to make your site, their default page in their browser.
It's really good for those ratings.. See how popular our site are
--------
In 1992 when I got my first computer, a 486 DX/66 with 8 MB RAM, I subscribed to America Online. At the time it seemed pretty nice, though there were no buddylists and instant messages were text only, as were emails. It didn't try to control everything as it does now; there were no parental settings. In fact, it was only a month later that they advertised that AOL's next version would have a "World Wide Web browser" incorporated. Of course, it also cost 2.95 an hour. I remember, though, that the tech support sucked--it was only available for a few hours a day, and if you called they'd put you on hold forever (which they still do). They never liked to give out information about their systems either. Then they went flat rate at 20 bucks a month. They dumped all of their old games and signed up with some new game programmers. This really pissed me off, as I was a big fan of Federation (now at ibgames.net) and Gemstone III (www.gemstoneiii.net). The rates went up. 21 bucks, 22 bucks. I got a cable modem from my cable company, and there I hit on AOL's one advantage. It was very, very reliable, at that point. Of course, that was as recently as a year ago. I wanted to get rid of America Online, except my sister had recently discovered Instant Messages, and being picky as she is, hated to use something that wasn't incredibly stupidly user-friendly. Unfortunately, this continues to the day. I've dumped my cable modem service, and I'm still paying 23 bucks a month for AOL plus 90 a month for a rather excellent and just-as-reliable DSL service. AOL exists only on my sister's computer now, event though she's connected over the home LAN. She complains that the email program she's using doesn't receive forwards from AOL correctly. How odd, wouldn't you say, that AOL doesn't forward the message in a format that other internet users can view? Hmm. Luckily she's using our ISP's email more now, and AIM instead of AOL. So hopefully we'll be able to get rid of that piece of shit. On the other hand, I've had GREAT experience with my DSL provider, speakeasy.net. They're unbelievable--the tech support, the service plan, everything. I get unlimited bandwidth, provided I don't use it 24/7. I get two free static IPs and I can order more. They even have installation directions for Linux! And it's never been done when I've wanted to use it (all the time mostly). Down with AOL! Aciel aciel@speakeasy.net
i'm sitting here reading this story and wondering how many people who read slashdot actually use and aol account. please reply and let me know if you do.
---
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Never send a man where you can send a bullet.
I have not met anyone who 'liked' AOL!
Really; who 'likes' AOL???
Let alone 'loves" AOL???
Cleara
Before, AOL could claim that members and others viewed www.aol.com willingly. Now, AOL may not get the best advertising rates for their home page, now that potential advertisers know the hit counts are inflated by people who never intended to view the page, and who will go somewhere else pronto, not noticing those beautiful ads. Thus, each impression is worth less money to a potential advertiser.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Lie like hell on the free ISP signup (don't forget to turn off caller ID before you dial, too), run the client in Windows 98 under VMware, turn on internet connection sharing in your Windows 98 VM, minimize the Windows 98 window, and access the net from Linux, ad free.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
what do you say? :)
heheh, go back to ROSWELL!
There is no spork.
Does anyone else find it mildly humorous that _America_ Online is evidently one of the best options for dialup users in _France_
System possessed? # grep deamon
Borken's been in the jargon file for a while, and "b0rken" is a common variant. What made you think it was yours?
-- Anne Marie
--
It is one thing to try and change your homepage for some free client you download (i.e ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger... etc.) Hey, you downloaded their software... for free... and they are trying to get something out of it. But these people are PAYING money every month for the crappy service and then AOL is shoving this content down their throat?... UNFAIR, but hey, its a business... I guess if you don't like it, get off!
We are the Borg. Resistence is futile. Lower your shields and prepare to be assimilated....
Damn sheep....
I certainly do use the home feature! It's set to slashdot. ;)
Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Why is it that all the individual contibutions that lead to the beggining of the internet and the computer industry as we know it today have been erased and now big monopoly like corporations control everything?
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Really, we can connect directly to Internet sites? Whoa! And different ones, too. Whooa squared. Thanks AOL, that's something. I knew it, if anyone could pull it off, it would be the genius of AOL.
I guess that must be the bad news part. Oh, well, nothing is perfect. "Cumbersome" is relative, anyway.
I would let them merge with TW-CNN, all the sooner they will both self-destruct. After all, looking at the Bell curve, there are only so many higher primates to the left of the moron line. (I guess CNET somehow managed to find one to write that story.)
Maybe because targeted advertising sucks? Like I really want to disclose personal information and be attacked by targeted advertising when I'm on dialup... Even though I really don't like paying for anything, the $20 / month is worth not putting up with "free" ISPs. My current ISP is very flexible in that I don't have to install lame proprietary software to connect to their service. The only thing I want out of a dialup ISP is a phone number, and a username / password to connect to the service.
Besides, do these "free" ISPs you listed even work with OS's besides Windows?
I am a beta tester of AOL , and I must say that each "innovation" released by AOL is less beneficial and more controling. Take AOL Plus: For broadband connections like mine, it is a FORCED download that gives you another window you can't get rid of in the corner of your screen. AOL6's lack of allowing users to choose their start page is just another desperate attempt to keep the users they have where they want them. Most of the 16+ million users they have are newbies (God willing they won't remain so forever), the others people who don't care enough. AOL realizes that the "experienced" clients are moving elsewhere - and they aren't happy. AOL/TW merging will create a company even worse then Microsoft. To quote Steve Case: "We look out on the Internet and say, 'What a great opportunity.'" (quote as good as my memory serves, but its that general idea.) Microsoft is bad, but AOL is evil. Let us all pray to our various distributions of Linux to have AOL destroyed. root@localhost #: man ls
You're kidding, right? I would guess by your sig that you're trying to be some sort of witty devils advocate.
Guess what Keanu, it didn't work.
-Bill
does it matter? who am i replying to now? who am i? who are you? I dont know jack
What are you thinking Jack?>? Please won't you explain your point a little to all of us. WHY WHY is IP so important that we should sacrafice freedom? IP, and copyright in general, is far too vague to take such a radical position on. You seem to be ignoring the whole inherent problem with monopolies and corporate kingdoms. Wake up there is real oppression going on!! There always has been and there always will be. Laws, like your little copyright laws, will always be made by some kind of tyranny, even if it's the tyranny of the majority. No one should expect the minority, or those out of power, to obey without dissent. Thats totally unnatural. Judges know that, courts know that. It's high time someone stood up against the sh*t going on the IT industry. These retarded laws you are so proud of have helped to create the present ultra-low level of software quality and consumer watchdogging. EULA's are ridiculous, benchmarks are manipulated, there is NO accountability, and the little consumer/user has absolutely nowhere to turn. So of course the few lucky power users out there will want to reverse-engineer/hack/etc. You think jesus would shed a tear if hackers managed to really hurt microsoft/AOL? what could be better for the world!? Look at the big picture.
Although I have never used a service like aol, a friend of mine was having problems with the browser of a similar service. He solved the problem by opening up another browser after logging. In his case it was two different versions of Netscape. It would be almost worth it to sign up for a free trail period with aol just to try it.
I think that it would be nice to, but it would be far more much trouble than it's really worth. AOL source code is probably crap, it's probably got some sort of security in it at the least, and if AOL finds out, you get sued. Even if you win, you lose money from those lawyers. -Reg
10. You've named your three kids A, O and L.
9. Your buddy list is up to 350,000.
8. You've developed an enormous crush on that "You've Got Mail" guy.
7. You've wasted two-and-a-half years of your life just waiting for new art to be installed.
6. Let's just say you've gotten incredibly good at typing with one hand.
5. You met, married and divorced your wife without ever having laid eyes on her.
4. Teri Hatcher comes to your house and tells you to stop downloading her damn photo.
3. You missed your son's graduation because bowling legend Earl Anthony was hosting a live chat.
2. You actually read those "Community Updates" from Steve Case.
And the No. 1 reason you know you've been spending too much time on AOL: You had your name legally changed from Bob to Bob12756.
Yeah, experienced users. I hadn't used AOL in a decade until I moved to France. AOL is currently the only dial-up ISP in France that provides unlimited usage at a flat rate and pays the per-minute local telco fees, fees that do not exist in the US. There are numerous ISP's that claim to be "free" but they're free as in "not free" because what they give you is a small number of hours connect time per month, then gouge you for connect time after that, and force you to pay local telco per-minute fees at across the board. My usage, roughly 60 hours a month, is too great to bear that financial burden. So AOL it is: 199F (about US$25) a month all you can eat.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Most AOL users figure out that there is more outside that window.
--
> It allows you to put the right angle on the quotes, and it's the preferred way of using quotes in high-quality typesetting
> environments (TeX, for instance).
Hmm. I picked it up as a minor idiosyncracy when I first started reading Usenet back in 1992. (``Everybody else was doing it -- & it looks cool.") Didn't know about the other part, though.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
> AOL may not be the choice for power users, but they are most certainly not going downhill. They are, by a huge margin, the #1
> consumer ISP.
I was referring to the experience an end-user has. AOL tries to represent itself as a friendly, small-town sort of place, but is more & more an empty suburban sprawl around a strip mall whose principal tenants are strip clubs, porno shops, & telemarketer call centers.
Steve Case once promised that an AOL customer would never see an ad on AOL -- & that the most important thing about AOL was the community. But without warning or even a preliminary survery, AOL changed all of that. (Case has this habit of making his decisions without warning.) Now AOL customers get bombarded with all sorts of ads, & their emphasis (thanks to Bob Pittman the ex-MTV guy) is now on a watered-down version of television. (That is, ``shut up & watch.")
As for users attitudes, from what I've seen it tends to be one of these four types:
1) doesn't care
2) doesn't know any better
3) doesn't like it, thinks it's k-rad kewl to complain about AOL
4) doesn't like it, is leaving/has left
If this is the ``consumer Internet experience," I'm glad I'm not part of it.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
It's not the users that should complain, but all the web sites with the "click here to make this your homepage" button -- AOL is effectively using monopoly-like powers to push out other services that would like to provide starting point services. As you say, the users can just use a different browser (but probably won't).
There's an easy fix for this, just add www.aol.com to your /etc/hosts file as 127.0.0.1. then you'll get your own local home page instead of their crap...
Nyuk Nyuk.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
seems to me users that care about such things probably don't subscribe to aol
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
AOL's main campus is located in Dulles. (Look for Aol Way on your favorite map site) That's far from Nowheresville. AOL, UUNet, and PSINet are all headquartered there. According to Wired, more than 50% of all Internet traffic flows through at least one of their systems. Network Solutions is headquarted there. So is MCI Worldcom. There's certainly a housing crunch - i looked at about 40 different apartment complexes, and only about six or seven had a known vacancy coming up, and the earliest was more than a month away - in an apartment that had yet to be built. But i don't know what you're talking about with traffic at 11 PM. That's ridiculous. The only time i see traffic is at lunch.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
This is like complaining that Greyhound buses don't have door to door, personal service. Do you really sign up with AOL hoping to tightly control your content? As I see it, it's one of the ISP's with a goal of "push" and content control.
It seems like people who sign up with AOL either don't know better (and maybe they like the content control) or know that AOL likes to take over your computer. If you want control over your interface, other ISP's offer much better packages.
As for me, I delete the AOL icons as fast as I can after a Windoze reinstall. Cable all the way, baby.
__ No registration required to read this message. They did it in the Matrix.
Not that it is that hard to make one myself, but I am curious on what you guys have come up with as a useful homepage. Some have talked of forms for search engines and perhaps frames to commonly used sites...
:-) ? After we insert our own links of course :-)
So would you guys mind throwing your home pages up onto a website somewhere for us to 'borrow'
I hope someday we have ActiveDesktop-like deal for GNU/Linux. That would be fun to play with...
You buy the advertised products, and the price is marked up so that part of what you pay goes to the marketing divisions of various companies, who pay NetZero et. al. to infect your mind with the "buy our stuff" meme.
In addition to the price markups you pay, there's also the bandwidth and mindspace pollution caused by ads. TANSTAAFL.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
> How in the heck is this an aesthetic move for AOL?
Broader question: Given that definition, how in the heck is the word "aesthetic" in any way, shape, or form related to anything AOL throws at its users?
My conspiracy theory: Bill wants to put the final nail in Netscape/Mozilla coffin, and associating Netscape with AOL 6.0's b0rken browser is that nail. His mole at AOL must be highly-paid.
Yes, of course. I made a bookmark page on my site that I set as the home page on any browser I'm going to be using regularly (school, work, home, etc). It's very useful to not have to import that stuff over & over again (Google, Slashdot, Reuters, etc). The home page isn't just where you start (that's not even particularly useful on IE, it bugs me that the address bar isn't cleared), it's a central point you can keep coming back to. I'd hate to have some ISP override that on me.
I've spent years trying to get my family to stop using AOL, to no avail -- they're hooked. They even signed up for a Mediaone cable modem, & still they won't stop using the AOL accounts. It's not even that they're all that naive at this point -- it's that AOL works for them, they can do what they want to do, and they aren't impressed by the alternatives. The fact that I disagree doesn't change the fact that they (& millions of others) have a point & know what they're doing. They aren't necessarily naive AOLamers, and this move isn't fair to them...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
for only $99 bucks
treke
Holy cow. Did I manage to introduce the word "borken" into the geek vernacular, or did that come from somewhere else?
--
Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
This is what my homepage is.. It comes in VERY handy.. I'm actually trying to decide between this or google as my homepage.
With respect to the active desktop, KDE has that.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Don't remove the "Home" button ... to have quick access to a white blank page could be very handy in certain situations ... ;)
Samba Information HQ
Come on folks, there are literally hundreds of ISPs to choose from. AOL, of which I am not a member, has always attempted to control the front end. In doing so, the do control content, however it also makes it easier for them to provide customer service.
Could they do it like most others? Certainly, however they are a brand, and like most brands they want to differentiate themselves. AOL's business model is such that they want people to shop/read/sleep/etc. within the confines of their environment.
I liken this to a hotel. If I do not like the way the beds are or the choice of activities, I do not stay their. If enough people stop staying, the hotel changes or dies. Such is life in business.
Just be thankful they broke up Microsoft. *snicker*
Seastead this.
I also have to worry about them changing the compatibility of their service with other browsers. Older software used to open up a socket that any browser would use, and I used Netscape and never theirs.
It's been about a year since I used AOL, and this gives me pause to think about it. I got cable modem, but still pay AOL $10 a month just in case the cable fails and also because it has been such a stable address. Yep, in the time I'd had AOL, I'd had six physical addresses. I phased out that email address in favor of a pop account on campus over about a year before cable, so mail checks have gotten less and less frequent (too much spam too little mail). The last time I tried to use AOL's service it hung up. I was thinking of putting a newer client on that awful windoze box, but this has me reconsidering. It may be time to shoot that $10/month insurance policy in the head.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
By the way, I'd never use this for a family account. AOL mailboxes fill up with the most disgusting porn spam! I don't care what kind of "filter" they would use to not sell my address to porn merchants, when I have kids old enough to use a computer, AOL is history.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There're also lots of teenagers whose parents won't let me get a real ISP, but really, really want one. Badly. Gee, I'd hate to be them.
Ha-ha-ha. This is called a Freudian slip. (My bold).
In some small towns, America Online is the only ISP with a local modem.
You wrote:And they would have to make a long-distance call at 10 cents per minute just to get Internet access.
Will I retire or break 10K?
besides why are you paying for dial-up access anyways?
Bluelight
NetZero
FreeInet
FreeWWWeb
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The major television networks, in light of the latest bad news regarding declining viewership, have announced that beginning in the Second Quarter of 2001 they will be offering FREE 51-inch HDTV sets to their loyal viewers.
Jack Mehoff, president of the Broadcast Television Association, says "The just-completed World Series had the worst ratings ever. Since FOX has the rights to the World Series for the next umpteen years, they have naturally signed on for this promotion."
(Ratings for last Spring's NCAA Basketball Tournament, the NBA Finals, the Sydney Olympics and even the NFL have been dropping as well for several years now. -- ed.)
Mehoff explained further that "NBC needs to ensure the audience base for ER does not erode any further. ABC will offer a customized unit that features the synthesized voice of Regis Philbin and CBS knows its core demographic is too old to notice any change." He continues, "We feel the average American television viewer will gladly trade their choice of channels for the aesthetic HDTV experience. And there won't be any complicated 'clicker' to futz around with. We feel this is adding real value to our product. By giving consumers fewer things to worry about, such as that pesky channel-surfing thing, we hope to increase brand loyalty."
A spokesperson for the FCC indicated that the plan would probably not be in violation of the "No Channel Surfing" legislation now pending before Congress. The bill would make changing the channel on your television set more than twice every 5 minutes illegal. The spokesman added that "we feel the free HDTV initiative will help educate consumers as to what the new law says regarding this problem."
AOL has done a great job of sabotaging the AOL/Time-Warner merger. Do you think you could do better?
They shot themself in the foot when they offered ISPs cable access at 75% of fee charged and 25% of advertising revenue generated. Now it appears they are shooting themself in the other foot by requiring AOL to be the only HomePage. Plus they are taking aim at their kneecaps by pissing-off(and pissing-on) their partners.
I don't think the SEC, FTC, and FCC will have any trouble in trashing the merger. If it does get approved there will most likely be major changes in disvestment, and provisions for regulating how it conducts its business.
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
Lame is thinking that everyone has to be open and completely fair. Last time I saw, no one has been forced to put an AOL CD into their PC or Mac and load up the software to use the internet. There are far many more ISPs out there. MSN, as much as people hate MS anymore, is still competition. Juno, Mindspring, many many many more.
So what that AOL wants to make itself its own homepage and not let you change it? You can always change your ISP.
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Content companies DO NOT and NEVER WILL want you to access other content pages. Internet is basically free and wide access to content. An ISP has to enable users to access that content. If your ISP provides content too, you will be fooled, sooner or later.
The problem with AOL users is that they think that this the only way to obtain valuable content.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
Right now I have a [wonderful machine besides but] Dell laptop I bought that defaults to Dell's website in IE. It can be changed, which I have already done to Yahoo, but if I click "Use Default" it zooms over to www.dell.com. Must be some kind of registry key.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
You can't just tell expect AOL users to recognize that AOL is controlling where they are visiting.
Of course we (savvy computer users) will recognize that AOL blows, and ditch the service. But I'm sure the vast majority of AOL users don't even realize that there is an internet behind what they see on AOL, so of course they're not going to ditch the service for a 'real' Internet provider.
Telling AOL users "if you don't like it, quit the service" is like some advanced utopian alien civilization saying, "if you don't like that hell-hole of a planet [earth], come to our planet 100 light years away." a) we dont' know how the hell we can do that and more importantly b) We dont' know we live in a hell-hole, because earth is the only planet we have experience with.
If you choose to use AOL's (lacking) service, you choose to deal with AOL's annoyances. Of course they're not going to admit "Hey, yeah, we're taking away your choice", and of course we know it's not intended as an aesthetic move. But does this really surprise anyone? It sucks, but it's not really immoral or unethical. If you don't like it, get another ISP.
Besides, you can use normal socket apps with AOL. Just fire up your own copy of Netscape.
All the more reason to avoid AOL, I guess.
-John
1: of, relating to, or dealing with aesthetics or the beautiful
2 : appreciative of, responsive to, or zealous about the beautiful; also : responsive to or appreciative of what is pleasurable to the senses
How in the heck is this an aesthetic move for AOL?
Keeping
Open it up in ahex editor; I bet they didn't even encrypt it. change www.aol.com to www.slashdot.com or equiv. Keep trying each instance till it works. My experience with hex editing / dissasembling is limited, but I'll bet you need to keep the number of characters the same. Anyway, worht a try for those "advanced" users.
Gotta admit that when you're done putting all those AOL cds through the microwave, *those* are pretty aesthetic to the eyes.
In other news, AOL 6.0's web browser will be disabling the back button, the address bar, and all navigational capibilities that would allow users to access information from outside the AOL kingdom^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdomain. According to Phil Smith, PR contact for AOL, these changes are made in response to client's inability to comprehend such a broad spectra of data.
In response to the changes made in the new version, Dave Winkleman, AOL customer, commented of the new improved AOL, "My God! It's full of stars!"
-- ~Can money pay for all the days I've lived awake, but half asleep?~
Long ago I just made this local 'home.html' page with all the sites I'm interested in all organized and neat, along with some forms to various search engines and other tools. All in a nice compact space that loads up automatically. Zips me along to all the stuff I care about. :)
:D
It's useful, and hell, it even looks good in Lynx.
BytesTemplar.com
I'm sure you've violated a copyright at some point in your pathetic life. Time to do the time for your crime.
We must stop piracy at all costs... including freedom.
AOL may not be the choice for power users, but they are most certainly not going downhill. They are, by a huge margin, the #1 consumer ISP. Even the Devil of Redmond, with its monopo-bundling power, and loss leading (read: $400 bribe to subscribe) has not been able to crack this nut.
I wouldn't be caught dead on AOL, but what they say is true: it is easy to use. AOL has totally nailed the consumer Internet experience, and most of its users are very happy with the service. If you have never met an AOL customer who didn't feel "seriously abused" then I have to question the identity of the group you sampled.
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Well people, you may be right that AOL has the right to do its browsers with its content. Quite correct it's THEIR browser and they have the right to present the product to you the way they think you like it.
:)
However could you tell me one little thing? Do they separate this product from their other services? Do they specifically tell you that you may use it or IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera or even lynx? If they don't do this then they are subverting you. They are bounding you into the use of AOL only products. Worse, if they force the installation of their browser embedded into other services then they are clearly subverting your right for choice. Specially if you don't know too much about the market. It would be the same as if Ford possessed a oil company and made its cars sch a way that you could only fill in their gas stations ("Oh you can't use other gas station? Unfortunately we couldn't agree the common standards. And why to worry? We are everywhere").
If this happens, it's a problem. Because you're facing a monopoly. However, if AOL informs that its products & services are separate entities. If it informs you about the existence of a market (no matter that it will surely say that its browser is better). IF it does not impose any critical restrictions or incompatibilities with other products. If you can get rid of AOL products without hampering other services the company gives. Well, if these IFs are observed then it's their right to do the browser the way they want. You have a right to choose. And, in this case, it's no matter to anyone if this company is fatter then King Kong. Otherwise, wait for DJ knocking their doors in a near future. When AOL will try to subvert the biggest US corporation...
You just haven't looked hard enough. I bet you could fix the problem by using the following steps (and I'm not quite sure about what everything is called, as I don't really have a Windows box with AOL on it nearby, or hell, even a windows box nearby):
- Open the "Start Menu"
- Choose "Settings"
- Choose "Control Panel"
- Choose "Add/Remove Software"
- Find AOL in the list of software
- Click the "Uninstall" button
I think that will do it.Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People still actually use the 'Home page' feature? I've had my 'home page' set to a blank page for about 3 years, and ever since IE allowed customization of the toolbar, I haven't had a little 'Home' button.
It's AOL's browser, they can do whatever they want with it. If you don't like AOL's browser, then don't use it. I can't imagine why anyone would in the first place; the thing is a piece of crap.
Is this an illegal way of pushing their own company, or is this just an inconvenience that 6.0 users will have to put up with?
AOL users who are not 18 or older may not make TCP/IP connections from other browsers; they must use the AOL browser and look at AOL.com's banner ads.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"According to AOL, removing the home page icon was a way to make the service simpler for subscribers without limiting their preferences."
Got it? Removing a preference does not limit their preferences. And black = white and we have always been at war with Oceania.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
Top news -- We should be encouraging AOLers to be informed about what's going on in the world. Maybe then the s/n on Usenet would improve.
Shopping links --. Besides getting their porn fix, shopping is what most AOLers use AOL for.
Stock quotes -- ditto for shopping.
AOLEmail -- ditto for stock quotes and shopping.
Web Channels -- discussion boards for all sorts of useful topics. Here, AOLers get to practice their online communication skills and learn the principles of netiquette before moving on out into the rest of the net. This is a good thing.
All in all, it's a decent portal for newbies and hardly worthy of our derision: it doesn't even have too many ads, unlike certain other portals. Most newbies never change their homepages from netscape or microsoft anyway, and AOL is taking the prudent step of giving them one fewer thing to worry about.
-- Anne Marie
My initial reaction was the same as yours... "Experienced Users... AOL?"
But there are alot of people who do use AOL for one reason or another. Perhaps their family uses it, so they are stuck. This was a terrible move on AOLs part. Especially given that their latest browser actually recieved favorable press over at wired, as a feature-full browser.
Its easy to raise our noses and say, "It serves them right for being stupid enough to use AOL." But hey, AOL users have feelings too. Instead of this, we should all let AOL know how we feel. They claim that feedback is important to them, so let them know.
Too many things in this world are a good idea from a commercial persective (now AOL gets advertesing revenue every time someone fires up that browser). However, when we do things to make money, we should always think about what it does to the consumer. What AOL has done here hurts the consumer, and I seriously hope that it bites them in the ass. Captain_Frisk
Nobody forces you to use AOL. There are tons of ISP's out there. You can download IE for free. In fact, it comes default on almost every computer shipped. Netscape/Mozilla are also easily downloadable. I've never used AOL as my ISP and I don't feel limited in any way because I don't have access to their proprietary services. I just don't see them as a "gatekeeper".
As for the cable networks, DSL is a competitor. Fixed wireless is a competitor. Heck, someday freespace lasers might be a competitor. I'm not horribly concerned about open access, particularly where a cable company is facing a multi-billion dollar price tag for upgrades that they are 100% taking the risk on. If cable modems don't take off or are obsoleted, the cable company could be left with billions in stranded capital. I'm sure that TW would be happy to give access to any ISP that is willing to share the cost and risk of building out the network. And AOL has said that they will follow an open access policy.
For example, I subscribe to Newsweek. If I don't like the content they are packing in their magazine, I will cancel my subscription. Now, I know you will all say, "What about the dummy users who don't have the tech skills to get online with an ISP?" Well, ISPs will have to make their services easier to use, or, if AOL becomes to annyoing for the average users, other AOL-like services will arise that will offer similar service but without the cramming content down your throat.
The beautiful thing about capitalism is that companies can try different things. If those things are not successful (i.e. the customers don't like them), the customers can stop spending their money with the company, and said company will either change their methods or loose money. Anyway, I wonder what percentage of /. users are AOL subscribers... anyone care to admit to it? :-) Assuming there are so few AOL subscribers here, what's the big fuss!?
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
The problem is if you want a blank page to come up instead of a start page you no longer have that option. Be this because you don't want to wait for AOL's news page or because you don't want to read AOL's news or because you want to open ./ as your home page instead dosen't matter. You can't change you home page at all.
While this is their choice to remove this option it is one that I can easily see upsetting many people just for the reasons listed above.
However even worse is the possibilities hinted at that Time Warner/AOL could use this to help sway public opinion in their favor. Image all of the people who use AOL having no choice but to at least be exposed to the news that TW/AOL chooses to show them. This could be highly biased "reporting" about why AOL is the only "real choice" for internet acces, or it could be a presidential endoresement. Heck it could be an ad for dog food. It dosen't matter these people are being help as a captive audience.
One of the great things about the web is that you are never forced to view anything you don't want to. Well, that just ended for AOL users.
Even worse this now gives the 'net a major down side against all other media. With your TV you can choose what channel appears when you turn it just by leaving it tuned to the channel you want. With your Cable box, VCR, or Stereo same thing. You can choose what you want. If you don't want to hear KGOD - all catholic metal all day then you don't have to. But with this new change for AOL if you use AOL as your ISP you no longer have a choice what you are subjected to when you log on.
This is indeed a very scary thing. Image it spreading to your TV and stereo and then ask yourself why this is important.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
I've seen this story elsewhere, and while I haven't seen the AOL 6 software in use yet, at least one article contradicts the assumption that underlist most of the comments here.
:-) ) but now it is changed by going in to some preferences menu or such. In other words, it's not fixed, just not saying "change me" so loud.
It appears that AOL changed the <i>manner</i> in which one's home page is set. It used to be very easy (so easy, even an AOLer could do it!
What's scary is the way some people use this minor change to call for governmental intervention. Do slashdotters really want the government to be regulating the design of software? (The MS antitrust case is utterly different, starting with its monopoly status, but it also wasn't about regulating the code per se.) Do slashdotters really want to government to be regulating Internet content providers?
AOL doesn't own wires. They are basically a time-sharing house with a clever display technology. All of the non-web content is hosted in a big data center in Virginia. That's not even a classical ISP model. It's content. They lease their modems from UUNET, Genuity and Sprint. Like them or hate them, asking to regulate them is asking for trouble.
When I read the story, I saw that they removed the 'Home' Button, but allowed for full customization of the toolbar with any icon you want pointing to any URL you want. Instead of having 'Home' point to a blank page, I could have an icon of a blank page to click on, right?
How this is sabotaging AOL/TW, proving AOL users are inferior, showing that our online rights are being taken away, etc. is lost on me.
You can probably search the registry for aol.com and change it that way. I'd verify it, but in order to do that, I'd actually have to install AOL.
Hmmm... if that turns out to be the case, then maybe I can do a little business selling AOL homepage unlockers.
There is nothing that says a user can't edit the registry. OTOH, if they embedded it in the EXE, then you'd have to hexedit the program. It would be a real pain if they embedded it *and* obfuscated it.
What happens if you set AOL as the default browser, and create an Internet shortcut on the desktop? That might be a real easy fix.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Reverse engineering is prohibited under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which you must obey at all times. Even if you are in another country without the wonderful DMCA you should still heed it as it would be the right thing to do. The AOL software is not your property to fiddle with. You must use it according to the license agreement which is completely valid and legal. It's for your own good.
Also the new hacking treaty would apply anyways as soon as it's rammed through Congress which will prohibit you from posessing any reverse engineering tools, compilers, assemblers, etc unless you are licensed by the Software Publisher's Agency, Motion Picture Agency, or the Recording Industry Agency. Of course your license would only be for approved uses. Hacking someone else's intellectual property without permission would still be unlawful... and intellectual property is property... PERIOD.
We must stop piracy at all costs... including freedom.
Once upon a time, I used to be an AOL customer. Then their service got worse (this was after the 5er's hacker attack), & after a few years I moved on.
With that in mind, I have to share probably the most perceptive words on AOL ever written. From Michael Wolff's book, _Burn_Rate_:
``I never wanted to do a deal with AOL. At best, AOL just watered down the experience of the Internet and network technology; at worst, it was in some other business -- it was a direct marketing organization, infomercial shit.
``I never knew anybody who took AOL seriously as an Internet company.
``I never knew an AOL customer who didn't feel seriously abused by AOL.
``I never knew an AOL information provider who didn't feel that AOL was about to start turning the screws.
``I never knew an AOL executive who didn't think he or she was playing a part in a very serious shell game that, ideally, would end in an acquisition of AOL by a reputable company.
``I never knew anybody who really wanted to work for AOL, located in true Nowheresville, Virginia."
Wolff wrote this in 1998, long after I left AOL. from what I've heard & read, AOL has gone even further downhill.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Experienced Users use AOL ???
-Snoot
I don't like AOL. Never have. However, if they want to take away the user settable home page button on their own browser, then why should we (non-AOL users) complain?
Of course, if you are an AOL user, then complain (if it bothers you), or use a different browser to surf the web. If you think that AOL will now have too much control over where you visit, then stop paying for their service, get a different ISP.
--Xandu
--Xandu