AOL - It's so unethical, no wonder it sucks!

[Aristotle]

Good lord. Does the degree to which AOL sucks ever end?

In case you didn’t know that AOL was horrible and haven’t been worried ever since you heard that iChat was going to work over AIM services, I have a bad reality check for you in the form of some recent nasty changes to AIM’s Terms of Service. Here’s the part that really sucks: ”Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.”

[Gesslar]

I think I'm just going to stop using AIM. I suppose this is the same for ICQ?

[Grantref]

Their current TOS has removed "You waive any right to privacy".

However, considering how AIM packets are sent without any sort of security on them there's not that much privacy in it anyway.

[kestra]

I recall watching a show once where this one made collected all those free CD's that AOL mails out en masse.
He literally had a room full of them. It was very weird to see. I think he was planning on sending them all back to AOL.

I've always heard bad things about AOL, and their crispy clean commercials creep me out.
Speaking of programs, does anyone else find it pathetic how many security patches Microsoft had to come out with over the last year? Seems like their having alot of problems.

Can anyone recommend any other stable, less monopolistic browsers?

[Nazon]

Originally posted by Grantref
Their current TOS has removed "You waive any right to privacy".

Indeed.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1776146,00.asp

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by kestra
Speaking of programs, does anyone else find it pathetic how many security patches Microsoft had to come out with over the last year? Seems like their having alot of problems.

Can anyone recommend any other stable, less monopolistic browsers?

Yes, every security patch represents another hole in the unpatched Windows, or IE, or IIS, or Outlook, or whatever it be. It's really not good enough; that's why I don't use Windows.

You use Internet Exploder on Windows? First step, get Mozilla (or Firefox, or Firebird, or some variant). That'll cure most of your trouble. However, it's not perfect; some features (Flash and Java come to mind) are quite definitely dodgy.

Second step is to trash Windows completely. But just using Mozilla will help you a LOT. Plus, you get lots of features, like tabbed browsing!

[kestra]

I have been using Mozilla, actually, and pop ups and spam have reduced drastically.
Giving up IE is like trying to quit smoking. You know you should, but just can't seem to do it.

[Azyael]

Originally posted by kestra
I have been using Mozilla, actually, and pop ups and spam have reduced drastically.
Giving up IE is like trying to quit smoking. You know you should, but just can't seem to do it.

Bah, for me, the switch was EXTREMLY easy. I have the forums set as my homepage (Helps to remind me to vote), so when IE magically kept switching my homepage to something else, it drove me nuts.

Mozzilla works beautifully. Fuck IE.

[Gesslar]

Could we come back to the topic of AOL and away from IE/Firebird/Outlook/Etc