- It takes forever to sign on.
- While signing on, you can't minimize it to open anything else.
- It likes to freeze while signing on.
- Often times it will freeze at the last step of signing on.
- The dial up noise is ear killing
- Once you're signed on, it may take up to 10 minutes for your buddy list/welcome screen to show up, during which you cannot do anything.
- You can never be sure you're signed on, even if you see the welcome screen. Always have a messenger or other connection-based program open: if it stays signed in, you're connected. More often than not, these programs will remain signed out because even if AOL says you're connected, you're not.
- Your buddy list may never load; instead you will receive an error message.
- Once signed on, you may not really be signed on. Every window you open may say "Error" or "Cannot be displayed." If this happens, you just need to wait until the "Connection has been lost" screen appears; they can't tell you right away that you've been kicked off so you must way some time.
- Sometimes, when they kick you off, your phone rings. They're just calling to make sure you know you've been booted. Caller ID will say "No info."
- During anytime while you are online, you might receive the "WAOL have caused an error" message; you must click okay and you lose everything.
- During anytime online, all your pages may stop working because the connection has been lost but before you can reconnect, you must wait for the "Connection has been lost" screen.
- If your connection has been lost and your pages won't work but you don't realize what's happening, you might IM someone via the AOL buddy list. Your messages will appear to send but the receiver will not see them and they cannot respond.
- On 7.0, more often than not, your computer will just freeze instead of going to the "Connection has been lost" screen. CTRL, ALT and Delete will become your friends.
- AOL doesn't have the capacity to deal with all its users so sometimes your page won't load and you will receive a message saying that the response from the server has taken longer than expected and to please try again; expect to lose your connection.
- ALL of the above could happen less than one half hour.
- Disconnection rates can exceed 10 times per hour; I know from personal experience.
- During the "down time" between regular internet usage and the connection lost screen, you will not be able to chat, view any pages online, or open your mail. However, sometimes you can do all this in a different browser just because AOL is stupid.
- You could view everything in a different browser, but more windows are often a hassle and AOL as an ISP alone is as unreliable as AOL as an ISP/browser.
- At any given time, AOL can just simply disappear; everything will still be signed on but it will have closed of its own free will. You will either have to restart AOL or your computer to continue.
- Ay any time, AOL will temporarily freeze because it doesn't have the power to view the page which you are viewing. Simply open another browser until AOL regains consciousness.
- AOL is temperamental; it will freeze whenever it pleases and swearing at it generally makes the problem worse.
- If none of the problems above occur - Bravo! However, you're still faced with the feat of trying to surf the internet with an ISP connected well below 56k and a browser which does not support many of the elements which are standard and commonly used in many personal and professional websites which exist.
The only real solution to all of these AOL problems is to not use, never think about, and vehemently deny the existence of AOL.
Δ = New
∇ = Updated
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