07/06/00

Wordspy is no more!

05/25/00

**Update : Worldspy review added.

  If you haven'te noticed by now, every computer ad has some sort of "deal" of several hundred dollars off a new computer if you sign up for an internet service. Many think, "I'm going to get an Internet Service Provider anyway, so this is a good deal".  Is it really? Well, for many of us the answer is a definite "NO".
  One of the reasons these ISPs are doing this (MSN and CompuServe and Prodigy) is because free ISPs are coming.  Wait! They're already here!

The Catch!

  What's the catch?  All of these are advertiser supported so you'll have an unmoveable bar with ads displayed at all times. Depending on the software, this can be no big deal or a nuisance! Those of us who have AOL are already used to tons of ads, at least with the free ISPs, we won't be paying for it.
  Every ISP reviewed here has been tried by me and several of my computer friends. We all have various computer systems from a lowly Pentium 133 to the fastest PIII and Athalons.  We all live in different areas and not all ISPs have local dialups.

  NetZero was the first one I tried. It required the largest download of any of the four.  The setup was longer than any of the four requiring the most consumer data. You'll be tired by the end of the long survey but you're rewarded with good connection speeds.  NetZero's ad bar is movable but you'll have trouble moving it out of the way all the time.  Any efforts to move it off screen will be thwarted as it re-adjusts itself back on your screen.
  Alta Vista had the smallest download time and fastest install. It also has an ad banner similar to NetZero.  So where do they go wrong? Well, the connection speeds were terrible!  That's when any of us could even connect. In a last ditch effort to make it work before I wrote this article, I changed the access number to all available local numbers but I couldn't connect once (and I tried for 3 hours!). If you can connect in your area I hope you have better luck than my friends and I.
  The next on the list was Blue Light. Ah, memories of the Blue Light Specials in Kmart.  Well, this is no discount ISP, Blue Light easily is the best free ISP favored by all reviewers! The setup isn't bad and it's nowhere near as bad as the NetZero interrogation.

Summary

  The new free ISP winner is definitely WorldSpy with it's total lack of ad banners. You still have to deal with their startup page, weak e-mail and connection hassles but all of these ISPs will improve, add more Local dialup numbers and eventually get better.  I've heard that NetZero has already redesigned their software for a less obtrusive ad banner similar to Blue Light.
  If you have good experiences with Alta Vista, please e-mail me with the city you live in.  We're always looking to give a fair review.

The Future

  I'm sure you've heard the ads about the new Free DSL service that's supposedly going to arrive soon.  When

  Where Blue Light really shines is its interface.  Replacing the movable bar, it places itself on the bottom of your screen, automatically resizing your browser and any other web based application you run. It may still be there but its as unobtrusive as these things get.  Connection speeds were good to excellent in all areas.
  Free I Net was the last on our review list.  This was recommended by a fan of this site.  Installation was simple but the program glitched for me several times (everyone else reported a flawess install). My biggest problem was that my area didn't have what I felt would be an adequate number of local dialups. The software is somewhat similar to Blue Light but clunkier. It uses its internal browser for the default start page but for anything else, it loaded my Internet Explorer. I thought it was way too cumbersome. Connection speeds were good to average.

** WorldSpy is the newest ISP I've tried.  The best thing is there is no ad banner! The worst things are that there aren't that many dialup numbers and it can sometimes be hard to connect but when you do connect it's probably the best free ISP.

you go to their site, you have to answer a lot of questions about yourself, how much you earn, how much you spend, etc. A lot more questions than the upcoming census!  I almost feel that this is a scam to collect a ton of demographic information. I signed up early and if it comes through for me, I'll let you know how it goes.  But remember, DSL isn't easy.  The install is difficult, requiring someone to come out to your house or business at least twice to check the line. And major DSL providers have a lot of trouble keeping up the systems.  So can you imagine getting technical support on something that's free?  Good luck!