While we were visiting Hilton Head during this summer, I had tried to use NetZero, but they didn’t have a POP (Point of Presense) there. So, I tried AOL for the first time with their 1025 free hours. One thing nice about AOL (probably the only thing nice) is that they sure do have a lot of access points, so I was able to use the internet while on vacation. Before my trial period was up, I called to cancel it. And as I expected, they tried hard to keep me on. The lady asked me what I thought of it. I said it was OK. Then she started to tell me some of the benefits of AOL. They have a lot of access numbers. (That’s true, but I don’t travel that much.) They have AIM and chat rooms. (Whippee.) Also, you can type a keyword and it’ll bring up the website without typing www and dot com. (Oh, that’s really neat.) She asked if there’s anything I don’t like about it. I said I don’t like the fact that the browser has to go thru the AOL proxy server. Also, they block many ports. She responded that it’s because they have a very secure system against viruses. Needless to say, she failed to convince me to pay for AOL. I’ll just stick with my free NetZero, thank you, until NZ decides to change their business model. Just this past weekend, I got another call from them on my cell phone, but I just let it go into my voicemail.