Simply the best...better than all the rest...and FREE. (AOL Flat Rate)

Member Name: TheDrowningMan

Product:	AOL Flat Rate
Date:	22/01/01 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free, Parental controls keep viewing for kids safe, fast, very user friendly.

Disadvantages: Cant communicate with people on different isps without using a messaging servise such as AIM or MSN.

I have been with AOL now for about 2 years, and i use it very frequently, sometimes for a number of hours a day. My phone bill got HUGE, and late last year, just as i was going to change to a free ISP, AOL went free!!! Well, i thought 'this must be my lucky day', and it was! For a monthy fee of £15, you can use the net for an unlimited time each day, and the calls wont cost you a penny, and you dont have to change your telephone company, or anything silly like that.

AOL has many useful features, including its own email client, so you dont have to sign up to ones such as hotmail or yahoo. It also allows you to have 'favourites' where u can save your favourite sites for easy access. You can make your own profile of yourself, for viewing by other AOL members, and there is a chat facility, so again you dont have to sign up to other companies to go to chat rooms. You have your own buddy list, where you list friends or families screen names, and it tells you if that person is online/offline, and you can send them an instant message, by just clicking on their name.

The IM service is really good and fast, and very user friendly, as is most of AOL, it has a handy toolbar at the top of the screen, that has all the important things, including 'Read email, old or new', 'Write email', 'IM', 'Chat' and preferences etc. You can have up to 7 different screen names on each account, so each person can have their own aol 'account' where they set their own preferences and favourites, buddylist etc. Parental controls can also be set on each screen name, so if you are a parent, you can limit what sites your son/daughter can view, i.e 16+ or 18+ etc, and can also put chat restrictions and download restrictions on, so you will always know that what your kids are viewing is safe and perfectly suitable!

I think AOL is a brilliant, very user friendly and fast FREE ISP, and with so many useful services on it,
is a fantastic choice!!

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