Brandon Posted June 29, 2004 Share Posted June 29, 2004 I first got EarthLink when I went on vacation to New Jersey, USA for a 3 week vacation. I was deciding between EarthLink, AOL, and MSN to connect online. I remembered that AOL was a pain in the butt to cancel their service if you didn?t go for longer then the free trial period. Also, MSN would disconnect every once in awhile, though I have never really heard much about EarthLink before. So I jumped the gun, and singled up for my free 3 (three) months of service that was included with my Compaq Presario X1360 laptop. Setup was a piece of cake. Pop in the CD, Click next a few times, enter your Zip code (USA only) select the numbers you want to connect to, enter in your CC#, address, username and password, then press finish. The software didn?t use more then 40MB on my system, mainly due to it not including its own browser. To sign on, EarthLink Total Access 2004 uses its own logon system and dialer [see figure 1] but doesn?t have any annoying advertisements, popups or reminders that competing products include. I installed the Speedup application, and I will say it did certainly speed up loading most webpages, but at the cost of junky .jpg, .bmp, or .gif that might be embedded onto many of today?s websites (such as the neowin logo on the top left corner) as long as you didn?t go image googling or look at large pictures online, it wasn?t that much of a hassle disable it for good. EarthLink does include a handy toolbar that can be minimized to the taskbar [see figure 2] that can check email, search and give you account options that can be very handy on the slow dialup connection. I tried the service in 3 different locations (about 35 miles apart , then 900 miles apart all with different servers) and from all locations, I never saw fewer than 45.9kb/s, and with one of the locations, I never see fewer than 49kb/s. Compared to AOL which I rarely saw 40kb/s, and MSN was never over 45kb/s on the same lines, EarthLink also connected much faster (even with the V90 modem in the PC card for trial). On average, downloading from one of ATI?s servers, I was seeing about 5-6KB/s, so the speed was definitely there. The only complaint that I have with their access, is when you first sign on, the internet can be as slow as a slug for the first 3 minutes or so (getting about 2-3KB/s) but it does speed up after the initial time. Pros: ? No popups ? No advertisements ? Fast connect times ? High speeds is most areas ? No included browser keeps interface clean, doesn?t use much HD space, and frees RAM ? Toolbar can be minimized to taskbar ? Spam filter blocked almost all spam (that I signed up for on purpose) ? Earthlink Speedup tool will speedup most webpages by 30-50% Cons: ? Slow speeds for first few minuites ? High-Speed cable/dsl not available in most areas ? Earthlink Speedup application reduces quality on all pictures online ? More expensive then some dialup services ($22/ month) Conclusion: I would recommend Earthlink access to anyone that is requrieing a dialup account, although I would not recommend any application to speed up your dialup connection. 9/10 stars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kombolcha Posted June 29, 2004 Share Posted June 29, 2004 oh those poor dial-up users they don't have to suffer :no: i had earthlink before, for the satellite internet service, even though it sucked ass their customer service was A++ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Posted June 29, 2004 Author Share Posted June 29, 2004 yeah, well i cant exactly bring a 1300 mile long cable here to get my 2mb connection (although that would be wicked) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galley Posted June 29, 2004 Share Posted June 29, 2004 Since EarthLink is a real ISP, it does not require any proprietary software. You can use any e-mail client, browser, or newsreader of your choice. Although I have EarthLink DSL, I do occasionally take advantage of their 20 hours of free dial-up service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Posted June 29, 2004 Author Share Posted June 29, 2004 ^^ aol and MSN are "fake" then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kombolcha Posted June 29, 2004 Share Posted June 29, 2004 nah i think he's saying that earthlink gives you a little more freedom, you don't have to use their software to log in. if you have MSN you're forced to log in through MSN explorer, my cousin has this problem, he comes to my house and even though he's changed his connection in the settings menu to "broadband" it continuesly bothers him by popping up and automatically trying to sign him in when he doesn't want to. I think same goes for AOL, you have to use their crap to log in, i don't know if the new versions do this, but i remember if you closed the main browser page, it'll disconnect you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Posted June 29, 2004 Author Share Posted June 29, 2004 u can sign into MSN without using MSN explorer!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+.Aaron Subscriber¹ Posted July 1, 2004 Subscriber¹ Share Posted July 1, 2004 Btw, you dont need to use the software to connect. The software is bloated (but not as much as AOL or MSN). I worked at Earthlink and I got TONS of calls on this product. The software has its own spyware. Its called Earthlink FastLane (unless they changed it). If you remove that program from add/remove programs, it wont do anything. I dont have a good opinion of the software since I supported it and worked with it as well. But nice review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.will Posted July 3, 2004 Share Posted July 3, 2004 OT - where in nj are you? im in south jersey :D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Posted July 3, 2004 Author Share Posted July 3, 2004 vacation in Edison (south of newerk) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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