Website Design in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Development,
Content Management and Web Hosting
Disastrous News - AOL to offer free email
May 13, 2005
When a prospective customer asks us what ISP they should sign up with for their broadband or dial-up, we usually tell them, anyone but not AOL please.
The reasons are quite simple, AOL is trigger happy when it comes to blocking servers. If a single user on a server gets a virus that spews out a few dozen spam emails in the direction of an AOL user, and that user classifies the email as spam, AOL respond by blocking not just the emailer, or even the whole domain, they block the whole server, and they have (despite their claims) no working means to get a server unblocked. In our short working life, we have twice had AOL block one of our servers due to a mishap on the part of one of our users.
This of course is a nightmare for us. We effectively have to ditch the whole server, move everyone on the server to a new server and change the hostname and IP address of the server before we can use it again.
There are of course many other reasons for not signing up for AOL. They are relatively expensive and they don't make it easy to cancel. They also prevent you from using your own domain name as an email address. You are forced to advertise AOL thru your email address for the duration of your deal with them. This is really silly. If everyone else can allow email users to use their domain for email, why can't AOL. Same reason as in the above paragraph.
But from today AOL has begun beta testing aim.com - its free web-based email service - available to all net users and not just those dwindling numbers of AOL subscribers. This week it reported that 2.3m subscribers went AWOL last year. And no wonder!
Anyhow, the service is available via AOL's Instant Messenger (IM) service and includes a whole host of stuff such as spam and email virus protection and 2GB of online email storage.
The interface and underlying technology for AOL's AIM Mail service is based on technology from Mailblocks, a consumer web-based email service acquired by AOL in July 2004.
In April AOL unveiled its internet telephony business, unveiling a number of calling plans designed both to keep existing subscribers and win new business in the US.
We wish them lots of failure in their new venture, and in general.
Comments (0)
No comments.
