The New FreeLane- Certainly Not The FastLane!
Written: Dec 18 '00 (Updated Dec 19 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Free
Cons: Limited Options, Mutant Ad-Banner
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| rpllingrock's Full Review: FreeLane Excite.com (by 1stUp) |
After a short layoff, FreeLane is back! Better than before? Hardly. But at least there is another national choice in Free Internet providers. It does need more access numbers and to revamp the lame ad bar.
This review is for FreeLane version 2 on Windows ME and 98SE (through a LAN).
Installation
I recall using FreeLane in the past, but I don't recall the size of the download. If my memory serves me correctly, a typical 1stup download was about 850 KB. This was much larger, 1.7 MB in size.
This installation requires a computer restart before using the dialer. I didn't, and it still worked fine.
One thing I did not like was the fact that FreeLane loaded on Windows start up with no visible means of disabling it. But running msconfig, and disabling it under the Start Up tab can accomplish this. Just uncheck the FreeLane by Excite box.
Access Number(s) & Busy Signals
You'll notice that many areas of the country are not even included in their list. Normally, I have a choice of about 8-10 local numbers, covering two area codes, 203 and 860. This was not the case. I was given one choice, a number in my own town. I see large voids in my home State of Connecticut, where before it appeared the whole state was covered.
As of this writing, there are 13 numbers dedicated to this state, and only 25 states listed overall. Excite does promise expanded coverage in the coming days.
Normally a dialer will cycle through numbers that you've selected, but being limited to just one, I was at the mercy of other FreeLane users. Very exasperating indeed if this were your only means of Internet access.
And to top this all off? No automatic redial! So make sure your left mouse button is in working order because you're going to need it! There is a minimum of two clicks to redial each time. As I write this, I am on attempt #45!
You want options like docking? Forget it! Unless I am completely lost here, there aren't any options to speak of. A paltry HTML help file offers basic help. In a nutshell, here's your options, you can move the banner!
Some of this review was done on a FreeLane connection through my paid ISP and using the "LAN" connection option. It was so difficult to consistently make a connection to the FreeLane server.
Connection & Transfer Rates
When I was able to connect, rarely did the connect rate fall below 47K. Transfer rates were typical of the connection rate. By this I mean, if you connect at 50K, but are only transferring a maximum of 3.1K per second, either your connection rate dropped, retrained, or the ad banner is sucking up valuable bandwidth. I would tend to believe it was the retraining and not so much the ad banner.
Running my silly little test of transferring a 512 KB file using GetRight, and segmenting the file into 2 parts, therefore milking the bandwidth, the transfer rate was 4.1K to 4.6K, and this with the average connection of 48K.
The Ad Bar
After starting the program for the first time, I noticed that the ad bar was small compared to bars we've all become accustomed to. On my 17" monitor, it measures approximately 4 inches by 1 inch and can be floated to an area on your browser where it doesn't block anything too strategic. At least that's what I thought.
When the actual bar "comes to life", a box drops down with the advertisement. Bigger and bolder than most that I've come across. Both of these bars combined consume about 1/6 of the screen. The box can be closed quickly by clicking the "X" in the upper right.
Fifteen minutes into my connection and I knew I wasn't going to like this.
In my estimation, a new ad appeared every 30 seconds after closing, requiring your input or just stare at it! ;)
There are 8 buttons on the module, consisting of e-mail, Holiday, Shopping, Auctions, Search, Music, Finance, and Travel. I won't carry on explaining each button since they're all self explanatory. Click a button and be transported to either a sponsor site, or an Excite page.
Overall
I can understand Excites excitement in getting this dialer program out as soon as possible after the demise of 1stup, so I will go easy on them. Any other Free ISP would have garnered 1 star, but Excite is capable of much better service than this. Maybe they now realize that providing Free Internet isn't as easy, or cheap, as when they were on the client end of their relationship with 1stup.
This ad bar requires too much attention. An ad-blocking filter will remove the ad but not the large box. Hopefully, with further versions, many of my gripes will be addressed, then again maybe not! ;)
System stability was never an issue, even though Windows Millennium isn't shown as compatible. For the first time in months, I was actually able to shutdown a free ISP dialer without something strange happening, and amazingly enough, restart it in a single session.
You do get web-based e-mail. But then again you can get this without using this service.
Epinions has this listed as "By 1stup", but this is outdated. According to the dialer, it's powered by Predictive Networks.
If FreeLane is the wave of the future for free providers, then I am quite disappointed.
When the service is upgraded, I will update this review accordingly.
Recommended:
No
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