UPDATE 8/2/2000: Unfortunately, it was too good to be true. Freewwweb has gone under and ceased operations. They are directing their customers to sign up with Juno, but since Juno does not have a Macintosh-compatible client, I am now evaluating several other free ISP's that service the Mac.

Freewwweb was a great service while it lasted. I never understood how they could stay in business with their business model-- they just required their users to load their home page when they connected, no ads, no spam, nothing else. The idea was that if people surfed their home page (run by snap.com), they would generate revenue off banner ad views, and referral fees from shopping. Maybe I was typical of other freewwweb users and found the snap.com homepage to be slow, clumsy, and unuseful. I'm sad to see them go, since they offered a good service, and their standards-based connection made it usable on any platform without special ad-banner clients. Freewwweb, RIP.

Original Review
---------------
Freewwweb is a free internet service provider. Now, so-called "free ISPs" aren't that uncommon nowdays, but the difference is that Freewwweb currently does not require you to view banner ads like most of the others. In fact, for me, it is indistinguishable from the pay ISP that I used to have.


THE SERVICE
-----------------
Freewweb provides dial-up PPP connections with dial-in numbers around the country. I wouldn't say that they have total nationwide local coverage, but there are alot of Points-Of-Presence (POPs) and for my purposes, there is one that is a free call for me in Sacramento, California. Check their web page to see if they have a number in your area:

http://www.freewwweb.com/numbers/axsmain.html

The dial-up connections are 56Kbps and you get access to the web and an account on their email server. Your email address will be of the form user@freewwweb.com. Incoming mail is via POP and outgoing via SMTP. They also provide a NNTP news server with less than total but better than my pay-ISP's coverage. No IMAP mail or web hosting as far as I can tell, but they've got the main bases covered.


THE COST
------------
So, what do you have to do in exchange for free internet? There are no banners or shopping requirements. The only thing you have to do is load their portal homepage, which is provided by snap.com, as your default homepage in your browser. I guess they get something in exchange for this. I don't know how it could possibly pay off their costs, but I'm all for it if that's the way it is. I think we can all agree that loading up a portal page is not a bad price for saving the $10-20 a month on internet service. I make it a point to load the page and read some of the news, just to try to keep this outfit in business.

http://home.freewwweb.com


REGISTRATION
-------------------
Freewwweb has an online registration process where you have to enter your name, address, and other standard information. The only thing unusual is that they request a credit card number, which they state is to be used to identity and age verification only. Some people I've talked to about the service have a problem with this, but I haven't seen anything charged on my card yet, so I assume they are telling the truth.

Update: They now say they are no longer checking for credit card validity and give you a dummy number/date to enter into the registration field.

http://autoreg.freewwweb.com/

They also have distributors that apparently sell CD's with software and a registration number on it, but I didn't need to go through them or deal with that at all, just the online registration.

I did hit one snag during the online registration. I'd completed an application with my preferred username "collin" and received a screen saying I was approved and my account was active, etc. However, nothing I could do on either a Mac or a PC would get me into their system, as I always failed password validation. I emailed customer support, which always responded back in a day (but rarely within a day) with short to-the-point answers. They said my account wasn't in the system. Yet when I tried to re-register with the same username, it said the username was already taken. I asked if they could delete that username so I could try again, but they said that it wasn't in the system, and referred me to pay-per-call tech support. At that point, I just reregistered under a different username and this time it worked fine on my PC. I did have problems initially dialing in from my Mac, but that somehow cleared up by itself on the umpteenth dial-in try. Currently, I can dial-in from both my Mac and PC without problems.

INSTALLATION
--------------------
Many of the other free-ISPs require you to use a special dialer or software to make sure that you are viewing their banners when you are connected to their service. Freewwweb doesn't use any special dialer; you just use the standard PPP software on your computer. The advantage of this approach is that it is completely cross-platform. You don't have to wait/hope for them to develop new versions of a special dialer/banner software for Macs, or Linux or whatever because there is no special software required. I am currently using it on both my Mac, using the built-in MacOS Remote Access control panel, and my PC, using Microsoft's Dial-up Networking connectoids.

In fact, I installed nothing special on my computer to access Freewwweb. They do have some kind of software bundle that you can order, but as an experience user, I'm used to setting up PPP accounts, so I didn't download anything from them. I just went through their online registration process and then entered their DNS addresses, email POP/SMTP server names, etc. into my internet configuration.

If you already have a browser and PPP on your machine, you should just go to their quick set-up page for step-by-step instructions on how to configure your machine to connect to Freewwweb and setup your browser and email program to work with their servers. The instructions are for PC's but Mac users should be able to extract the relevant information without any problem.

http://www.freewwweb.com/quick/quick.html


CONNECTIONS
-----------------
Where the rubber hits the road with an ISP is in the connections: how easy and how fast can you connect? Unfortunately, this is also the place where individual mileage will vary. I can describe the experience I'm having with my connections, but those won't directly apply to your situation unless you live in my neighborhood. First off, the number of incoming lines they provide will vary depending on the area. Secondly, your connection speed will depend on how far you are from your phone company's switch and your wiring quality.

The first day I tried Freewwweb, trying to get my Mac dialed-in, I encountered busy signal after busy signal at around 9pm on an weekday. It doesn't look good, I thought. However, since then, I have rarely encountered any busy signals. It's even better than the pay-ISP I used to use. So, I have no complaints about busy signals.

As for connection speed, I regularly connect at 45,333bps using my US Robotics Courier v.Everything modem. This is faster than the 44,000bps that I got with my two previous pay-ISPs. I also regularly download files at 5.xkbytes/s, which, in my experience, is about as much as you can expect over a 56k dial-up connection. So, I'm also satisfied with the speed of the service.


CONCLUSION
---------------
Freewwweb provides free internet for the minimal burden of loading their portal as your homepage, which sure beats screen-hogging banner ads. In my area, busy signals are non-existant and I get fast 45.3kbps connections. In fact, my biggest problem with the service so far is trying to pronounce its name when recommending it to friends. I usually end up spelling it out.

In any case, it's working for me great and I can recommend that you try it out for yourself. It won't cost you any money to try, and could save you alot.

http://www.freewwweb.com/



Recommended: Yes