AOL [hell]?

Beats me, these days. They used IE back when I last saw it. I have no idea what they use now. I vaguely remember hearing them allowing a choice a few yrs ago. Anyone know for sure?

LOL @ phish.

Neither AOL nor IE use any proxies.

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If I am not mistaken, doesn't AOHELL use Netscape as a browser?

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Would be nice, but it uses AOL Explorer, integrated into AOL.

So, I talked to AOL live chat today at work, such a great help they are [/sarcasm]. They ask you questions that make no sense just to be able to get rid of you and not say "I don't know the answer to your question" and instead say "After you do that, you'll be all set." They asked me to do stuff like clear my cache, which is understandable but considering I did that already why do it again? They asked me to disable AOL topspeed..told me to do something else with some artwork which I refused to do since it seemed completly pointless. At the end he ultimately suggested re-installing AOL with the "latest version" giving him the excuse to end the conversation [/peaceful rant].

Ah, the joys of first line tech support. Leave your brain at home and read our script.

As an update, after calling AOL again, he got the right tech support that actually helped him. Apparently it was something to do with McAfee and AOLs virus protection. I only disabled McAfee not AOLs virus protection.

I think AOL tech support (like most call centres) gives a vastly different experience depending on who you happen to get answering the phone. I've been with AOL for ages now and had some excellent people and others who put the "hell" in "AOLHell".

By the way, just as an aside I have maxdsl with AOL and have used their broadband service for years. I think anyone who can't make their connection work really should be looking at their own computer skills, not AOL's shortcomings. I don't have any problem at all and my connection is stable and reliable, synced at over 7 Mb (though I'm not usually getting that as a real speed). I hardly know I'm with AOL as I don't use anything connected with them - Thunderbird's my mail client and Firefox preferred browser. It's just a nice solid connection in the background and until the end of February, wasn't capped at all. That's sadly not a way forward now that lots of very greedy people have fast broadband, but there are worse providers out there in terms of restricting how much you download. Mind, I am paying £29.99 so I want something in return!

Do you still have to have their software open to connect? Or is that just with their dialup?

I don't even think you need it with dial up, but it's probably easiest just to use it. As for broadband, no of course not! I don't have their software on here at all - I just plug the router into my phone line, then input the username and password to get the router and internet up and running. It certainly doesn't need AOL's help. They simply enable the maxdsl on my phone line and stay very much in the background.

Well back when I last saw it, you needed their software to connect with their dialup. Granted, that was about 10 yrs ago. Who knows what the protocol is now.

Hi Moira,

It might be worth mentioning that most of the copper wire connections in the UK are owned by BT. Other companies have to be given access for competition purposes but they really do very little other than provide a billing package?............ unless you actually want software from them.

Pretty much the same as we have with electricity and gas supplies.

JPnyc............... this is a sort of legacy from when these services were state monopolies;)

If you read ADSLguide (now known as thinkbroadband) there are plenty of guides to get aol dial up working on computers without the aol software, but admittedly it sounds complicated and 10 years ago you probably couldn't do it. They used PPPOE which I now gather isn't the case. But I'm not really an expert on connecting aol dial up without aol software :)