I guess I am on a role tonight because I have another question. I guess my mind is just whirling about ways to save money and one thing I was thinking of doing was switching my internet service from aol. I had them free for six months but I know there are cheaper services out there that are just as good. I was actually thinking about checking out netzero. I have a good friend however that also used the free 6 months on her new dell and when they tried to get rid of it it messed up there computer and she was told that this happens once you have had aol. Has anyone else heard of this? It has me afraid to try it. Thanks in advance for any info.

By Ginny~moderator on Sunday, January 9, 2005 - 10:16 am:

If it were me, I'd get a new ISP, advise AOL you will not be taking the paid service when they ask you to renew/sign up, but DON'T remove or delete the AOL from your computer. Just remove it from your startup menu.

I sort of understand what your friend is talking about. At my old job we got new computers from Dell and I removed the Microsoft Office/Word programs because we used WordPerfect. Turns out the programs Dell loads on its computers are mingled with the operating system in such a way that by removing the Microsoft Office stuff I messed up the operating system. We got it re-loaded, and I just removed the Microsoft Office stuff from my startup menu.

The reason for removing programs you don't use from your startup menu is that loading each of those programs takes time, and when each program is loaded it takes up some of your RAM. By taking them out of your startup menu your computer loads the other programs faster, you have more RAM available, and if you ever need the program you can access it through the program menu.

I don't think it is an AOL thing, I think it is just the way Dell loaded the programs.

Personally, I despise AOL. On the other hand, AOL now has what I have read is a very good anti-virus program built in, and some computer advisors in newspapers are saying that if you have this you don't need to have another anti-virus program. Still, it doesn't cost much to renew Norton every year, so I will stick with Norton.

Remember, when you switch ISPs you'll need to email everyone in your address book with your new email address. I would back up the address book and any emails you want to keep before switching on the new ISP, just in case.

By Karen~moderator on Sunday, January 9, 2005 - 12:40 pm:

We've had AOL since 1996. We also have Cox Cable, but keep the AOL since the kids are living here and there and need internet service while in school.

With Dell, the software for AOL comes preloaded. You can CANCEL your AOL membership, just don't try to remove the AOL software. That's the trick. Dell has all this bundled software and removing it really messes things up.

By Palmbchprincess on Sunday, January 9, 2005 - 01:37 pm:

I removed mine from my Dell, and while I remember having a bit of difficulty getting it off at first, I had no problems with other things being messed up. Weird...

By Momoffour on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 12:01 pm:

my personel opinion I hate Aol. We also got the 6 months free with our dell and it took 3 more months for them to quit charging us. We would call and tell them to canceal it and we would get a letter in the mail saying that they were happy that we agreed to a full year service and a bunch of nonesence. I would canceal and go with something else and when they ask to give you a free month don't because that is when we started having problems with them. They neglected to tell us that if you agree to a free month they put you on a contract for a years service and that if you disconnect before the year is up they charged 75.00 for breach of contract. It was a headache.
I am on peoplepc and I like it the first 3 months is only 5.50 and then after that it is under 10.00 and we have never had any problems with them but do check out different ones there is alot out there. also Don't use Wal-marts internet its just AOL they own it.We used them for 1 month and quit they were terrible.

By Dawnk777 on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 07:28 am:

We never took the free internet service when we got our Dell 3 years ago. We weren't interested in using AOL, so we never signed up for it. Now I'm glad we never did! What a hassle!