The best free ISP
Written: Oct 27 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Free, Free, Free, and dockable
Cons: Nag button, Takes up screen space
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| anildash's Full Review: Alta Vista (by 1stUp) |
Compared to other free ISP's (NetZero probably being the best known of them) AltaVista's free access (powered by 1st up) has several advantages that make it stand out from the mostly-identical pack.
The biggest benefit, in my epinion? The dockable ad-bar. The ads on all of these services are, by design, intrusive, but the fact that you can make the Altavista microportal/ad viewer "stick" to one side of the screen means your other windows, like your browser window, will flow around it, keeping you from having to scoot the window out of the way to get to your toolbars or your start button.
This is a big plus, enough to make Altavista a great choice, despite its great drawback: the nag button. Every once in a while (I haven't determined whether it's triggered by bytes transferred or time online) Altavista's "meter" will run down and it will prompt you to click on the ad or on one of the buttons which launch different services of the (recently-relaunched) altavista site.
It's damned annoying, especially in the middle of a browsing session, but you can click on the button, hit back on the browser, and not lose your train of thought too badly. The meter will reset even if you don't wait for the page to load.
Another negative, for those who would use it: AltaVista FreeAccess offers no SMTP mail host or NNTP news host, meaning you can't use AV to send email from a standard client or to read usenet groups from a standard news client. This shouldn't be a big deal for most users of a free service anyway, since they can go with web-based services like Hotmail and Deja.com.
Note: If you set up your friend/relative with AV FreeAccess, opt for a 17" monitor for them-- the ads do take up a little bit of screen space, and the extra inches will be worth it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
anildash
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Member: Anil Dash
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 17 members
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