I don't know what all that means, Mike, but I'll check with my isp.

I thought this article I just found really expressed well, many of the things I've felt about AOL over the years:

An important word about America Online

America Online was my first ISP back in 1995, when the only other choices were Prodigy and Compuserve. Karan's Korner was first built and hosted on AOL. Back then, AOL was definitely the best choice, and is still a popular starting place for beginners.

In the few years since then, hundreds of new ISP's have come online, providing much better services than AOL. Internet professionals consider AOL to be a place for "newbies" but not an ISP to be used for serious internet users or business. The Information Systems Management Handbook says:

"...AOL makes it easy to get started on the Internet for beginners; however, AOL is not well-suited for business subscribers. Its proprietary software interface is not designed for business use, though if simple e-mail and web access is all you need, it may suffice. Its network speeds are rated the slowest of the major ISPs."

AOL is a popular tool for beginners, and their marketing policies certainly have made AOL the largest online service. Offering up to 500 "free" hours has convinced many people to sign up. However, as everyone knows, being the biggest doesn't mean it's the best. Having the largest market share only means that their marketing has been very successful. This is true in ANY area, but seems to be common in the computer industry - for example: Windows has by far the largest computer OS market share, but it is also FAR from the best. Microsoft just has great marketing (spelled M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y).

Basically, the only people who believe AOL is really good are AOL's CEO, Steve Case, and those who don't know any different. People who know the real issues avoid AOL. Here are a few reasons why:

1. AOL's captures control of your computer once it is installed, guaranteeing that you will have great difficulty UNinstalling AOL. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to get UNsubscribed and have the credit card charges stopped.

2. Contrary to their advertising campaigns - AOL is NOT the internet. In fact, AOL intentionally keeps it's users off of the internet and "locked in" to the AOL interface as much as possible. AOL's protocols conflict with or ignore standard internet protocols that were established long before AOL existed.

3. AOL is apparently SO popular, that it sometimes takes many days for email to get through. Here's one user's account: "...a coworker sent me e-mail from her boyfriend's AOL account in Ohio. Her message took three days to reach me. A postcard she mailed to another coworker arrived a day earlier. She was already back from her trip and at work by the time I got the message."

4. AOL intentionally avoids providing "Help" information about using the actual internet. This is because AOL does not want you to "browse the web" or use the actual internet outside what is provided in the AOL interface. Consequently, most AOL users remain uneducated about using the real internet. AOL's attitude is, "keep them ignorant and they won't know what they are missing!"

5. AOL's subscribers spend 80% of their time looking at the company's own "content" -- a miscellany of entertainment, chat and travel services -- rather than using it as an inexpensive route to the Internet.

6. AOL subscribers don't realize how much control AOL has over their online experience. This control limits their exposure to the wealth of information available on the internet. If you think AOL's information is impressive, you should explore the internet - it's overwhelming!!! Basically, AOL is acting as "Big Brother" - only allowing it's users to see what AOL wants them to see. If the same level of censcorship was used anywhere else, people would probably protest or boycott.

7. There are several lawsuits against AOL for:
cencorship of free speech and content
continuing credit card charges after unsubscribing
overbilling: adding 15 seconds to the connection time, then rounding up to the next minute

8. AOL's protocols are not Internet-standard? Here are a few examples:

1. People who manage email lists have to add special coding in their messages just so that AOL users can access a website - "Click here if you're on AOL" the tag usually says. Have you ever wondered why AOL addresses are the only group that need this "special" link?

2. Every email attachment becomes a separate download for AOL users, whereas the attachment comes in with the message for those who are using internet standard mail software. Often, AOL recipients can't open internet-standard pictures that arrive as attachments.

3. Because the AOL mail reader intentionally strips the coding from website addresses so that they cannot be double-clicked on, AOL users have to manually type the website address into their browser. They aren't told that they can simply Copy/Paste a website address into their browser and go to a website w/o having to type in the URL. Most AOL users don't even know what a URL is!!! (Uniform Resource Locator - a website address)

4. AOL screen names are unique to AOL and do not work on the internet until they are conformed to internet email standards.

5. AOL keywords are unique to AOL and do not work outside AOL. The internet does use keywords, but not AOL keywords. For example: In 1999, when Rosie O'Donnel told her audience to visit her website, she only gave the address as "AOL keyword Rosie" and did not give out the URL. Consequently, no one outside AOL could get to her website. She was obviously not informed by AOL about this fact.

6. AOL's non-standard email protocols prohibit the use of most third-party web-based email services, effectively blocking AOL's users from retreiving their email from anywhere in the world, except through another AOL user's computer!

7. AOL's non-standard protocols prohibit the use of wireless internet access points, such as Apple's Airport, 3Com, and other similar devices. The international wireless transmission standards are ignored by AOL. If you desire to use wireless internet access points at home or the office, you will need to use Earthlink or another standards-based ISP, instead of AOL.

8. Many websites that display just fine in Netscape or Explorer, do not display properly in AOL's browser.

9. AOL caches (or stores) many web pages in their servers so AOL access APPEARS faster. However, most useful websites these days have pages that change often, and AOL's cache servers don't usually send the latest updated page. Knowledgeable webserver managers turn OFF caching to ensure dynamic pages are sent properly. AOL doesn't care whether you see the correct page or not when you are browsing "outside" AOL.

etc..........

The point about whether AOL is good, bad or worse has never been the issue with me. What has concerned me is that AOL is the dominant service provider, good or bad. It's a matter of percentages, the greatest number of potential clients will come from AOL and they will never here or understand that AOL is inferior.

You can control where you base your business, but you can't control the path your customers will take to get to you.

Cynthia,

You probably know all about reverse DNS by now, but just in case, take a look at this FAQ. I wouldn't have thought it was a big deal not to have a reverse DNS entry, as it appears many servers are missing that entry. But as Mike found, it may make a difference with some ISP's, at least in the case of mail servers. In any case you can have St. Louis Internet make sure your web sites are set up properly.

Holly

Mike,

I posted the information on AOL not to convince you, but for the information of all readers. I think it's time for you to write to the AOL Legal department again - breach of contract? Even if that's not correct, perhaps it will get their attention.

All,

My isp wrote the following in regards to the most recent DNS things we've been doing:

Problems connecting to SOG sites
 

I have had from time to time the same problem, but I figured out that the reason could have been, that my computer does not accept cookies. After I disable the cookie protector, I can connect.

Tito,

To the best of my knowledge this very nasty problem has been solved. I have been error free for months.