Yes, I admit it. I am a user of free ISPs. In the several years that I have been a willing driver of the information superhighway, I have only used free ISPs. For a year and a half, I used FreeI. But then, like so many of them out there, they went under. When they did, they sent us all to NetZero. I tried it for about a week.

First off, downloading the software is fairly easy, even on my slow modem. It took me about 15 minutes to download the 4.7 MB file. You may ask yourself "Why such a big file?" In exchange for free service you agree to view adds from various businesses online. Thus the need for a large file, this contains the banner bar. But it is more than just banner adds. The banner bar is equipped with a handy search engine, instant notification of new email messages, and various links to shopping, games, and other internet services.

Installing the software is a breeze. And finding access numbers feels like striking gold. Even in my remote area, I had 4 access numbers to chose from. I can't say this for most of the free service providers I have tried. Also, I connected every time I logged in and 9.5 times out of 10, I connected at my true modem speed.

I can't comment one way or the other as to the technical support they provide. I never had need of it. But out of habit, I did peruse their FAQs and found them to be quite helpful and informative.

Unfortunately, I do not own a top-of-the-line computer. Because of this, NetZero tends to sap my system resources and I came close to crashing several times. NetZero's banner is very graphic intensive. This tends to lag my computer. And when the banner changes, it makes the browser pages either load very slowly or not at all. Admittedly, if I had a better computer, this ISP would probably do a stand-up job.

As it is, until that happens, I have found an ISP that has no banners at all, and this will have to do until I get a better vehicle for this superhighway.







Recommended: Yes