Recently, I came across yet another free Internet Service Provider, Address.com. Everything looked good - free email, somewhat nice website, small download, plenty of access numbers. Yet, despite all that, If this isn't the worst free ISP there is, someone show me what it is!

Address.com does use an advertising bar, which is exactly the same bar as Bluelight.com. It's obvious why - Spinway.com is what powers both of these free ISP's. You can migrate it, by default it's at the bottom of the screen. You can dock it to the top or let it float. Too bad the Address.com bar isn't as stable as Bluelight (despite being the same thing!).

The website you visit is rather nice, but it's lacking everywhere. There is a click for email and a handful of links to news and sports sites, but nothing in the way of a customizable homepage. Also, it offers none of the features offered by iFreedom.com (my latest favorite). Outside of the email, it offers no newsgroups, no internet hard drive, zero webpage space (though they say it's in the future).

Signing up was my first mistake. You have to fill out a small survey, in which they ask for your address (street address, oddly not the city and state), and my big hitch, your phone number. Then you get the usual demographic information. From there you pick out your email address and password.

The download isn't that bad at all. It's 1.17 MB (if I remember right), and about a 5-10 minute download. From there, installation is a breeze (thankfully the uninstaller is a breeze too). Type in your ID and password, choose your numbers (oddly it automatically picked my numbers because Bluelight was already installed), and you are on your way.

That's where the problem starts. As with a lot of free ISP's (conspiracy?), the initial connection is always wonderful. But when you connect 2,3,4 times, problems start. No different with Address.com. My first connection was quick and I had it running a couple hours before shutting it down to reconnect. It connected slowly, and shut down in about 15 minutes. No problem I figure, bad time with a lot of traffic.

Well, I never got connected more than 30 minutes before it shut off on me. Finally, one time I did get connected for about an hour before I hit the straw that broke the Camel's back (oh yeah cliche time!).

The thing crashed my entire computer. Dead stop. It gave me the illegal operation message for the Kernel, and when that is shut down, you are SOL. I did my hard reboot and tried again (I don't care how many times it crashes, I am evaluating if this is the cause). Again, the exact same deal. I rebooted, got past ScanDisk, and headed straight for the uninstaller. After that, I have had no crashes of any type. Far from scientific, but two straight identical crashes is enough for me.

Safe to say I absolutely do not recommend this ISP to anyone. Maybe your computer won't pull the same stunts, but as long as MINE did, I can't recommend that you download this. You might be asking for trouble.



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