Who do you use and ....

[Ocean Lover]

what do you pay for your internet connection?

I use AOL and pay 44.95 per month. This is probably on the high end but I like it and I'm probably afraid to change. The kids have their own screen name and it's easy to set controls and monitor them. I started storing all my pictures there to keep them safe since I lost so many in my crash. Free virus, pop up, adware, firewall etc.I also like the mail system. I can do a search and find any email I've sent in seconds. I use this alot since I work at home. Do other providers have these things too?

 

[Smiling JOe]

what do you pay for your internet connection?

I use AOL and pay 44.95 per month. This is probably on the high end but I like it and I'm probably afraid to change. The kids have their own screen name and it's easy to set controls and monitor them. I started storing all my pictures there to keep them safe since I lost so many in my crash. Free virus, pop up, adware, firewall etc.I also like the mail system. I can do a search and find any email I've sent in seconds. I use this alot since I work at home. Do other providers have these things too?

I use MediaCom and pay about $35 per month for that service. For mail I use Yahoo and can search for any emails I store/send/etc.Yahoo also allows me receive email from multiple email addresses and check them on one page. Foxfire browser does a great job of blocking pop-ups for free. Plenty of free places on the web allow you to store your photos online. You can set your computer to have different user accounts for each of your kids, and control their settings accordingly, blocking certain sites, etc., if you are the administrator.

Warning! when you try to tell AOL "you're fired," they don't like it and usually offer you 90 days free service, and they keep on doing it not allowing you to quit AOL. After the 90 days, you have to pay again, unless you call them and tell them you want to quit again. AOL makes it a biatch to ditch them.

EDIT: forgot to add that Yahoo mail does a great job of filtering SPAM, allowing you to train it on types of email addresses to block or content.

 

[Cil]

Mediacom, about $35.

We had a different experience saying goodbye to AOL.

We quit about 5-6 years ago, but got about 8 months worth of free service before they finally bid us adieu. No hassles. They just kept us on in the hopes that we would never leave. But we finally left.
OTOH, once AOL "takes up residence" inside your computer, it's still kind of there, even when it's gone. It's still there in my control panel, just sort of dormant.
We'll probably get a new computer for me at the end of the year anyway.
Was thinking about going back to a Mac, but am not sure.

I like both Yahoo and Gmail for email. Oh, and yeah, Firefox, but I keep IE handy just in case.

 

[ktschris]

We use Charter. DSL is not available in our area. We pay about 30 a month, but the connection speed is pretty good.

Oh, did you mean down there? Sorry, I guess MO internet info won't do you much good.

 

[OhioBeachBum]

99.95 + tax (about $104) for RoadRunner, IP Phone (no LD charges anywhere in the US), and Digi Cable TV (more or less 1 notch above basic cable, no premiums like Showtime & HBO, but HDTV, music, and on-demand/pay-per-view channels). Master email account + 5 additional, freebie AV/Firewall/Spam/Spyware software. No invasive customization of my desktop software.

That's a promo (1 year) bundle price. RR alone is $45/mo. Phone alone is $40/mo. Once they hit me for full price next year, I'll probably cancel RR (though maybe not - depends on what they offer to keep me from canceling ;-) ) and maybe switch to something like Verizon's broadband.

I keep my email on my local system (Outlook), though Mozilla's Thunderbird is a fair bet for email if you either hate Outlook or can't hack the Office pricing. Email is of course searchable & reorganizeable and all that sort of stuff.

I don't worry much about local system crashes because (a) central server stuff tends to crash or otherwise go unavailable way more frequently, (b) I archive my criticals, like pictures and whatnot onto CD periodically (a 650MB CD holds a lot of pictures ;-) ). I usually get a new home desktop every 5 years or thereabouts, and I'm practically religious about keeping crap software off of it, so I haven't had a "crash" of any sort in well over a decade (and that one I induced myself to test some software I was working on).

I haven't been too concerned with the content-filtering thing, but that's 'cause my kids weren't granted unsupervised computer time until they were old enough to to tell the difference between content and garbage. Guess I've been lucky in that respect - though said luck was aided with the likes of "If I can't trust you to use a stoopid computer, what makes you think I'm going to let you drive off in my car alone later on?", and I did sift through browser logs regularly for a time, until I figured out the boy was actually listening to me ;-).

All the family (and most of kid's friends) do have AOL "chat" accounts (AIM), but we all use Gaim instead of the AIM client gadget, so we don't have to put up with the AIM server pushing "ad content" in our faces all the time.

 

[audie]

we have insight which goes along with our cable - i think it is 39.95/month

 

[Unplugged]

Warning! when you try to tell AOL "you're fired," they don't like it and usually offer you 90 days free service, and they keep on doing it not allowing you to quit AOL. After the 90 days, you have to pay again, unless you call them and tell them you want to quit again. AOL makes it a biatch to ditch them.

EDIT: forgot to add that Yahoo mail does a great job of filtering SPAM, allowing you to train it on types of email addresses to block or content.

So TRUE - AOL is the PITS For novice users at best...

 

[lindatat]

Warning! when you try to tell AOL "you're fired," they don't like it and usually offer you 90 days free service, and they keep on doing it not allowing you to quit AOL. After the 90 days, you have to pay again, unless you call them and tell them you want to quit again. AOL makes it a biatch to ditch them.

OMG - been there, done that. They just bank on the fact that you'll be too busy or forget to make that phone call. But I finally broke free!!!!! Had some major complaints about their customer service as well and sent a long complaint email. Yet I still get a call every few months or so asking me if I'll come back.

Now I use a broadband service called Wide Open West. Pay $39.95 a month and I'm very happy with the reliability and speed.

 

[DD]

I use MediaCom and pay about $35 per month for that service. For mail I use Yahoo and can search for any emails I store/send/etc.Yahoo also allows me receive email from multiple email addresses and check them on one page. Foxfire browser does a great job of blocking pop-ups for free. Plenty of free places on the web allow you to store your photos online. You can set your computer to have different user accounts for each of your kids, and control their settings accordingly, blocking certain sites, etc., if you are the administrator.

Warning! when you try to tell AOL "you're fired," they don't like it and usually offer you 90 days free service, and they keep on doing it not allowing you to quit AOL. After the 90 days, you have to pay again, unless you call them and tell them you want to quit again. AOL makes it a biatch to ditch them.

EDIT: forgot to add that Yahoo mail does a great job of filtering SPAM, allowing you to train it on types of email addresses to block or content.

OMG!!!! YES!!!! I went to AOL Hell once!!!! Took me 6 mos. to finally get rid of them!!!!! They are evil....(imho).

 

[Beach Runner]

We use Charter in GA and Sprint in FL.

Charter is clueless - they can't debug an intermittent signal outage that we've had for months. The only reason I don't switch to something else is that I'm sort of wedded to my charter email address.

We just got the Sprint service at the beach. So far, so good. We have a wireless set up in the owners closet on the first floor, and we get a great signal all the way up to the third floor. Sweet!

Without getting out my bills and looking at the details, I dunno how much they cost because Charter is bundled with TV and Sprint is bundled with phone.