AOL? Get rid of it.

A client recently questioned why the work I did to update his site wasn't displayed. When I asked what browser he was using, he said "AOL." Aha! AOL's browser is notorious for caching (or keeping old files) and not refreshing itself to display new content. When he checked the site using Internet Explorer, everything was as it was supposed to be.

I used to use AOL for my personal email. I paid 9.95 a month since I used my DSL connection to get on the Internet, not AOL's connection. It was easy to use and I had a couple of different screen names for various purposes (friends, online subscriptions, website registrations and one for posts to various bulletin boards I followed for travel, business and hobbies).

A few years ago AOL offered free email accounts if you brought your own connection (as I had). Well, it soon became evident you got what you paid for. Writing emails became an annoyance as advertisements would impede the progress of typing. If checking via the web interface it took a number of pages to get to the mail. I eventually wrote friends and family and asked them to use my main email and have switched my other email addresses to Gmail and Yahoo. I deleted AOL from my PC altogether and am no longer held hostage to their insistence on downloads and cookies.

AOL was, for many people, the first experience with the Internet. Actually, for a long time, AOL was confused with the Internet. It is no longer that be all -end all. I'm not crazy about Gmail because you can't put messages in folders, but it is certainly easy to use and I can preview my messages on my personalized Google homepage. And it doesn't slow down my computer or bother me as I type.

As for the client with AOL browser issues, we put a message on his site urging viewers to use IE or Netscape as AOL is not appropriate for a website that gets updated once a week.