Terrible... particularly for under-18s (alladvantage.com)

Member Name: mazca

Product:	alladvantage.com
Date:	30/03/01 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They do eventually pay out (so I hear)

Disadvantages: Buggy. Daft age restrictions. Slow website. Viewbar unreliable. Support department very slow. Mac support very shaky. How long have you got....?

Don't Get Paid and Crash your Computer! would be a much more accurate slogan for Alladvantage than the unimaginative and downright misleading 'Get Paid to Surf. Get ready for an extremely long account of

I signed up for Alladvantage as soon as the Macintosh version of the Viewbar banner software came out. I had plenty of reservations about it - the old 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' hypothesis - but was willing to give it a try as it didn't sound like very much effort and my finances were hardly glowing with health. So after spending half an hour going through their laborious, slow and buggy sign up procedure I finally arrived at the 'Your Account' section of the website.

'Ah...' I thought. 'Now it looks like I might finally be able to download this'. So I clicked the 'Download Viewbar' link. After waiting for their server to load my request, a page appeared. 'Hello Mr Smethurst. Our records indicate you are currently under the age of 18, and, as such you are not permitted to download the Viewbar until we receive written permission from a parent or guardian....'. The gist of it was this: I had to print out a two page document, full of legal terms, and get my father to sign it, then send it off. I then had to wait up to thirty days for it to be processed. Once processing was complete I would receive an email from Alladvantage. Then, and only then, could I download the viewbar and start to make any money at all.

Being a fool, I went through this ridiculous procedure. THREE MONTHS later I was finally permitted to download the Viewbar. So I did. When it finished downloading, I double clicked the installer - it then , without consulting me at all, surgically attached itself to my copies of IE 4.5, IE 5.0, Netscape Communicator 4.6, and Netscape Communicator 4.0.3. The only browser it did not attach itself to was the one I use all the time: iCab 2. So in order to use it I had
to start using IE5 again.

So I now launched IE5. The tremendously ugly MacViewbar launched and I waited... 'The Viewbar has been unable to connect to AllAdvantage's servers.. please try again.'. So I did. Again and again. and at no point did it work. I emailed tech support.

Three weeks later they replied (in the meantime I was stuck with a nonfunctional Viewbar attached to all my browsers), telling me to downalod an update.

I did, and it finally connected. (more than four months after I had initially attempted to download it) Over the next few months, I got sporadic performance from the Viewbar software - sometimes it worked, sometimes it refused to connect, other times it just crashed my Mac. It also kept bothering other people who weren't using it in their accounts to register for it.

After three months of enduring this rubbishy piece of software, I checked my account balance. Five pounds and three pence. I use the web at least 15 hours a week - it should have been more like thirty pounds. I decided AllAdvantage could cram it - I cancelled my account.

Unfortunately, what I didn't realise is that the only way to properly remove the Viewbar is to use the uninstall function in the installer, which I had long deleted. And with my account cancelled I couldn't download another installer. I had to do a lot of program file deleting and reinstalling to get my browsers working without the Viewbar- it was almost like rehabilitating them from a drug addiction :).

I've heard rumours Alladvantage are going bankrupt. I sure hope so.

Summary: