After purchasing our new home my husband and I were looking to cut expenses. Since we both have internet access at work and anticipated little need for it at home we decided to drop our previous ISP and go with NetZero.

We had evaluated the ad bar and decided that we could deal with that distraction. We also understood that access would be difficult at times and the connection speeds could be slow.

Over the course of nearly two years we were relatively satisfied - after all, you get what you pay for and we weren't paying!

However, we recently decided to move up to a cable modem and a connection through our local cable company. Our computer was sufficiently new to accommodate the needs of a cable modem. We installed the network card, the cable modem and the software. We could not access the internet. Over the course of 16 evenings (and complete weekend days) we removed the network card and reinstalled it, did the same with the cable modem, we reinstalled dial up networking, we worked in DOS, we manipulated settings, we did everything. Through customer support at the cable company, the computer retailer, and the network card folks it was determined after 16 hours on the phone (and I didn't keep track until day 3 of this mess) that installing NetZero had rewritten our registry.

This meant nothing to me until someone uttered the words "not reversible" and "reformat the hard drive." I'm still not sure what the registry is but taking that drastic step worked. Before I went that far I decided to see if Net Zero could help us out.

I paid the $14.99 to speak voice-to-voice to a customer service representative. Shama was horrible. She could not understand what I was saying and would not transfer me to a supervisor despite my repeated demands. Nor would she reverse the charge to speak with her. She did consistently state that NetZero does not rewrite the registry. Since she never demonstrated that she understood what I was saying I think she was just parroting a denial.

I would never recommend this to anyone - no matter how strapped for cash they might be. There is no savings equivalent to having to take the time to reformat your hard drive.

Recommended: No