NetZeroStars - A Cautionary Tale
Written: Feb 13 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: accelerator - I think
Cons: useless tech support, bad QC on install disks, the usual litany of sins
The Bottom Line: Got a NetZero install Disk? It might - might, mind you - be useful as a coaster!
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| scmrak's Full Review: NetZero |
I've watched with interest the proliferation of internet "accelerators," those mysterious proprietary executables that claim to speed up your modem connection by a factor of five - EarthLink and the like. Since my soon-to-be ex-ISP Southwest Bell doesn't bother to offer this service (for fear that it might cut into their oh-so-holy DSL market, I assume), I couldn't try it out before. But my recent move gave me an opportunity to check the ISP market, so I scoped out local options. There was EarthLink, an accelerated AOL (no way!), and Juno and NetZero. EarthLink only has one local access number in my neighborhood, so it was down to NetZero and Juno (same difference, basically). I picked NetZero - the accelerated version, NetZero HiSpeed.
Four hours later, I cancelled the account...
What You Get
There's a free version of NetZero (which, I guess, is where the "zero" comes from), financed by a ton of onscreen ads. With NetZero Platinum, $9.95 per month gets you a bare-bones internet connection with a single email address, unlimited dialup access, junk mail/spam filtering, and another twenty web email addresses (similar to hotmail). Toss in another $5.00, and your $14.95 gets you NetZero HiSpeed, with an integrated accelerator that speeds up most surfing by a factor of "up to" five, and a pop-up blocker. You still have to look at a few NetZero sponsor ads, though - I think. I'm not certain, for reasons I'll discuss later...
In the Best Buy store where I did my online comparisons, the accelerator looked handy: it greatly speeds up pageloads of text, html, and picture files. It doesn't do jack for downloads, though, and also doesn't do anything with high-security content such as online banking forms.
What You Don't Get
In a word, support. You have free phone access to a series of insultingly simple and repetitive FAQ recordings - at the top of every menu, thirty seconds are devoted to telling you to consult the help files that come on the install CD. Not just one menu, mind you, every menu. If you want human tech help, it's $1.95 per minute (and I'll just bet they talk r...e...a...l... s...l...o...w...) Those vaunted help files? The one on my install CD wasn't so special: every time I clicked on a link, it sent me to a blank page. It was looking for files on some documentation writer's hard drive (no kidding - the link targets were on C://Documents & Settings/jhorowitz/Local/Temp or some such place).
You also don't get parental control capability or virus protection (like AOL and MSN). That latter's no big deal in my book.
The Install
Installation is deceptively simple - plug in a CD-ROM (you can also download from the 'net) and let 'er rip. All you need do is choose a usercode (screen name) and password, or enter one that's already been set up for you. Give the dialer your phone number, then pick a local access number from the list - the installer grabs the modem and dials, and then... and then...
And Then?
And then... I don't know - I never could get connected, and there was no installation help available unless I visited NetZero on the web. That's a little hard to do if you're doing an initial install, wouldn't you say? I tried all possible local access numbers and also followed the Quick Help suggestions (these, by the way, were for Windows 98, on a CD dated 2003 - go figure), during which time I figured out that the Quick Help suggestions weren't worth diddly.
So I tried calling the help line. Lots of "look at the quick help"s later, I gave up and started looking for the cancellation line. A total of twenty minutes waiting on hold sealed NetZero's fate as far as I was concerned. I was outta there!
Recommendations
If someone gives you a free NetZero install disk, throw it North and run like the wind - South!
Recommended:
No
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