Exactly what made this company so awful?
I don't know a thing about it. Who here had to deal with it?
>>54661061
For me, they just symbolized a mainstream ISP during the dialup era, which didn't jive with my contrarian tendencies at the time, and then in later years with backwards people who couldn't adapt to advances in technology.
They would give you 1 month of free dial-up internet if you signed up and then they would make it next to impossible to cancel.
They had an entire department dedicated to preventing cancellations, and they had "solutions" for every excuse in the book.
>oh you cant afford service?
>we have many levels of service, you can get just 500 hours a month for only $10 pls dont gooooo
>oh you're poor and gonna sell ur computer for food money?
>dont worry we'll send you a free computer if you only pay $10 more per month
never used them myself either. Apparantly they also never gave access to the actual internet, just a walled guardian of pages they administered or approved of.
You know that thing Facebook tried to push on India recently? Basically that but not free
Steven Case and terrible security.
>>54661158
That's not true. They were a standard ISP, at least when I used them in the 90s, although they also provided some of this type of content as well.
RIP inside-aol.com aolhackers.com and all the IRC chat rooms
![Y4RZmQf[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/cn7XtwG.png "Y4RZmQf[1].png")
>>54661220
tfw archive.org didn't save any of the pictures ;_; https://web.archive.org/web/20120919231102/http://www.aolhackers.com/?dir=Hacks
>>54661209
From the rest of the Internet's perspective, that was the problem. AOL dipshits thought that AOL = entire internet.
>>54661107
>we'll send you a free computer if you only pay $10
For real?
Dayum they were a rich af company
>>54661220
>Windows
>Internet Explorer
>McAfee
>LimeWire Pro -- kek paying to steal
>all those quick launch icons
Clearly a hacker on steroids.
>>54661061
>I am 12 years old the thread
Had AOL from 3.0 to 9.0
You used to have to log on to the internet through their AOL client.
If you closed it, the internet would disconnect.
I used to login and then use >internet explorer to browse because the AOL client had a lot of useless shit.
When we finally switched to >roadrunner, the tech came by and just switched something in our bios or something and we were able to connect without the AOL client.
Definitely was in the BIOS. AOL does some shady shit when they tried installing your shit.
>>54661986
They wanted to sell you a computer on a payment plan just so you wouldn't cancel service.
Adding $10 more per month would cover it over a 2 year period probably, especially if it was some emachines trash.
>>54661986
No, they were just retarded. That's why they no longer exist.
>>54662304
Nice shitpost, retard.
>Kazza
>Having someone call the house and drop you from the internet
>pixellated porn
>>54663491
>no longer exist.
They are still around as a shadow of their former glory. I don't know if it's sad or comical.
>>54661986
>"af"
kill yourself
We had AOL when I was a kid and it was slow dial-up, but all publicly accessible internet back then was slow. When we switched to other service providers I realized the internet was much cooler than AOL made it seem. By the time I started to learn how computers work and started working in the field, AOL was already nothing but a footnote in internet history.
The last time I encountered their software/services in the wild was two years ago. A man in his 90s was using it on his home computer and needed me to do a virus removal for him. He was unable to immediately understand the difference between the internet and the AOL browser.
It felt weird backing up his data, re-installing his OS, and then re-installing his malware browser, but $160 is $160.
>>54661061
it was too botnet-ish. If you had even the most basic of tech understanding, you just felt dirty using it. I remember being 7/8 years old and thinking it was weird how it was setup
