AOL: dropping ngs

Subject: AOL: dropping ngs
From:
Date: 1/27/2005 11:11 AM US Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: .com


yodedude2 wrote:
Hi Y'all, just to pass along the news that AOL is dropping their
newsgroup reader service. "...discontinued in early 2005", their
message says. Oh, they also apologize for the inconvenience. They
must have read too many Douglas Adams novels. later, ron


You will see more and more of that, newsreaders are obsolete, now that
the new Google interface is up and running


AOL is the only service i can get that is consistant. I'm just gonna pony up to
a cable service.

On 28 Jan 2005 23:35:37 GMT, (Fx199) wrote:

AOL is the only service i can get that is consistant snip

Surely, you must mean "consistantly bad."

dB

I've been on AOL since version 1.0a. I'm not bragging, it's more of a sorry
admission. Over the years I've seen more and more of the service deteriorate or
be eliminated. I've been saying for years I'm going to drop them (I do have
other accounts to use), and I really need to get around to changing everything
that I need to change. The biggest problem is relocating a well-publicized (at
least two magazines and a book as well as innumerable links) website and
leaving a trail to follow. Oddly enough, one of the more trouble-free aspects
of AOL up to about a month or so ago was the newsgroups. Time to leave.

--Bob Farace

"I only believe in fire." --Anais Nin

On 29 Jan 2005 02:03:39 GMT, (Bluemuse) wrote:

I've been on AOL since version 1.0a. I'm not bragging, it's more of a sorry
admission. snip

Were you around when AOHell was GNN? It was a pretty novel concept at
the time, but CompuServe ran rings around it in terms of services.
However, GNN was "idiot friendly," which is what Steve Case picked up
on. He figured (rightly so, it appears) that a large segement of
newbies buying PCs or Macs for home didn't have the knowledge,
aptitude or desire to learn the ins and outs of navigating the 'Net,
and 1.0A for DOS and WinBlowz was an attempt to put "the best of the
'Net" under one umbrella. He also figured that those people weren't
smart enough to learn about the real Internet, and he jacked the
prices up dramatically before word got around that there WAS a whole
Internet out there. I remember AOHell 3.0 was about as good as their
software got; since then, it's been an endless procession of
"bloatware" that fails in various degrees.

Over the years I've seen more and more of the service deteriorate or
be eliminated. I've been saying for years I'm going to drop them (I do have
other accounts to use), and I really need to get around to changing everything
that I need to change. snip

If you're using them as an ISP, you'll find just about anyone is
better than AOHell for that purpose. Most ISPs give you at least as
much server space, at least as many e-mail accounts and give gratis
NNTP access as part of your monthly fee. Of course, you'll have to
get a good newsreader, of which there are several out there from which
to choose. Forgot "goo goo groopz;" it's useless except for archive
fishing and is a magnet for morons like Noodles. Figures on news
traffic from ISC show that "goo goo groopz" only handles 0.4% of the
total of Usenet postings, and the number is dropping. Look for "goo
goo groopz" to be gone soon, except as an archive utility.

The biggest problem is relocating a well-publicized (at
least two magazines and a book as well as innumerable links) website and
leaving a trail to follow. snip

Just copy the HTML to the new ISP, and put an auto refer link on the
AOHell page that'll take them there. I'm not sure if AOHell provides
referral service on discontinued pages, but then again, you should be
able to put enough hidden code on your index page to get "goo goo" to
pick up on the correct link in a short time, anyway.

Oddly enough, one of the more trouble-free aspects
of AOL up to about a month or so ago was the newsgroups. Time to leave. snip

The ONLY thing AOHell has going for it is their infamous chat rooms
full of toads...period. There is no "value added" to paying those
exhorbitant fees for AOHell service. You get a lot more with any
other ISP, even the cheapies like NetZero.

dB

I don't remember GNN. However, I did subscribe to Apple's AOL clone, eWorld,
for the short time that lasted. It was so empty of users you could almost hear
an echo. (Still have the disks somewhere, I wonder what they'd sell for on
eBay? ) AOL back then was more like the old-style BBSs, just a lot bigger,
since nothing was connected to the internet yet, and a lot of folks relied on
FidoNet to pass messages out of their own systems. Then AOL got net access and
didn't announce it right away, but we started seeing messages from outside AOL
appearing in our mailboxes.
AOL's not my ISP, I've just been slow leaving. It's been nice having the
same email address for something like thirteen years. The website actually has
its own domain now, I just have to reorganize it and let people know. As for
Google Groups, I only use it like I used to use DejaNews--to find old archived
postings. The web interface is too clunky. I have the same gripe with web-based
email.

--Bob Farace

"I only believe in fire." --Anais Nin

On 29 Jan 2005 06:40:51 GMT, (Bluemuse) wrote:

The web interface is too clunky. I have the same gripe with web-based
email. snip

Right...YaHell's MAPI mail service has that clunky/kludgey Java
interface, which sucks hard. For awhile, YaHell was giving POP3/SMTP
access, so I was getting it with Eudora, which was nice, but then they
started charging for that privilege, so I dropped it. I think YaHell
was using the free POP3 access as a trial balloon to see how many
e-mail accounts they could steal from ISPs. They probably did...until
they got greedy.

dB