Free Net Service a Good Deal if You Don’t Mind the Ads
Are you still paying $20 a month for Internet service? So am I. But after test-driving four free Internet service providers, I might not be for long.
I’ve used AT&T;’s WorldNet service at home for about four years. But when my husband and I bought a new computer recently, we thought it might be an opportunity to start fresh with a new provider--and a free one at that.
Quite a few free ISPs exist. The best-known--or at least most advertised--is NetZero, which sponsored NBC’s halftime report during the National Basketball Assn. playoffs.
The vast majority of these free ISPs rely on advertising dollars, instead of subscription fees. That means most display banner ads on your computer screen some or all of the time you are online. The four providers I tested--AltaVista Free Access, BlueLight, Freeinternet.com and NetZero--all use banner ads.
Those ads can be an annoyance because they cut into your screen space. I have a 17-inch monitor, and when a banner ad was stretched across the bottom of the screen and a Web page I visited had an ad of its own, there was little room left for other content.
Aside from displaying ads, the ISPs work much the way my AT&T; account and other paid Internet accounts do. They put an icon on your desktop, which you click to dial in to the Internet. Each of the four ISPs also offers free e-mail.
There are some differences between free ISPs and paid accounts, however. Some free ISPs have less-stringent privacy policies. Free internet.com tells you upfront in its terms of use that any communications over its site may be monitored, and that “no expectation of privacy is afforded.” Eek!
NetZero collects both personal information--such as name, address and phone number--and “tracking data,” such as how often a certain Web site is visited.
AltaVista and Freeinternet.com offer service for PC and Macintosh systems. BlueLight and NetZero are PC only, although both say Mac versions are coming soon.
Because I already have Internet service, I was able to download software for each of the ISPs from their Web sites. All also offer their software on a free CD, although NetZero charges $3.50 for shipping.
I tried out the ISPs on a PC with a 56K modem and using Internet Explorer as my Web browser. The results follow, ranked in my order of preference.
AltaVista Free Access
AltaVista impressed me with its ease of use and reliability. I had no problems getting started, no busy signals dialing in, no glitches while online.
Of the four ISPs, AltaVista’s software downloaded the fastest (two minutes). It offered the greatest number of local access numbers for my city (five). And its registration process was complete without being intrusive.
I also was impressed with AltaVista’s customer service. I had ordered software on CD for three of the providers even though I intended to download from the Internet. AltaVista’s arrived within days, in a holiday week no less.
Like the other ISPs I tested, AltaVista displays a banner ad on your screen while you are logged on to its service. The banner ad idea is similar for each of the ISPs, so I’ll explain how it works here.
AltaVista’s banner ad, which it calls a “navigation bar,” contains a large advertisement, as well as small buttons that link to AltaVista’s popular search engine, its e-mail service and other advertisers.
The navigation bar can be “docked” at the top or bottom of your screen. When it’s docked, it occupies the full width of your screen and displays headlines based on your preferences, such as news, sports, weather or stock quotes.
The navigation bar also can be shrunk to about half its width and “floated,” or moved anywhere on the screen. I liked this option better because it interfered less with my Web browsing. (The “docking” function is not available on the Macintosh version, according to AltaVista’s help page.)
The Free Access service uses 1stUp.com software, which runs several other free ISPs including Excite.
AltaVista uses its Web-based e-mail as part of Free Access. Web-based means you can check your e-mail from any computer with an Internet connection.
It’s going to give AT&T; a run for my money.
BlueLight
I really wanted to like BlueLight. The service, named for Kmart’s famed “blue-light specials,” is a venture operated by the discount retailer and Web portal Yahoo.
Yahoo is my search engine of choice, and I regularly use a number of its services, including Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Travel. I also have a Yahoo GeoCities Web page.
But BlueLight kept letting me down. Its software took a long time--13 minutes--to download, and the service acted glitchy whenever I was online. Web pages loaded more slowly than with the other ISPs, and I had difficulty signing off from the service. It took nearly five minutes on one occasion.
BlueLight’s registration process was straightforward, although it went into more detail than AltaVista’s. There were three access numbers for my city.
The service uses a BlueLight-branded Yahoo page as its home page, as well as Yahoo’s Web-based e-mail. So if you already have an account with Yahoo, which I do, you can use that as your BlueLight account name as well. The service uses software from Spinway.
BlueLight’s banner ad initially pops up across the bottom of your browser, and like AltaVista’s, can be shrunk to about half its width and moved anywhere on the screen. But BlueLight’s banner ad had a function that the other providers didn’t offer.
If you visited a “member site,” meaning one of the multitudes of Yahoo pages or the BlueLight home page, the ad disappeared. This was a big bonus for me, since I use Yahoo so often.
But overall, the service just didn’t perform well.
NetZero
NetZero’s software took 35 minutes to download, and its registration questionnaire was as comprehensive as the long census form. (We got one; I know.)
In addition to the basics, it asked for household income, years at current residence, languages spoken at home, whether we had pets and the makes of our vehicles.
NetZero had four local access numbers for my city. NetZero’s “My Z Start” page is impressive. NetZero also offers the option to use Quepasa.com, a Spanish and English Web portal, as your start page, but I chose My Z Start.
My Z Start offers news headlines from ABCNews.com, sports from ESPN.com and ads for Web pages I might actually visit, such as EBay.
But then I tried to move the banner ad, which NetZero calls its “Z Port,” parked across the top of my screen. The first place I tried to click was at the right corner, where it said “Dock” and had up and down arrows.
But my computer gave me its error sound--bong! Then I tried to click a four-way arrow at the bottom of the Z Port--bong! Even when I clicked on the Z Port’s big advertisement--bong! So I went to the Support page.
In the “Using the Z Port” chapter, the directions suggested placing my cursor on the ad and right-clicking with my mouse to choose which of three types of Z Port I wanted to use. I thought this might allow me to choose a “floating” option. So I right-clicked on the banner ad--bong!
Frustrated, I closed out of Internet Explorer, ready to give up on NetZero. As soon as I did, the Z Port came to life. I now was able to move it around the page using the four-way arrow I’d just tried. I relaunched the browser and this time had no problems. But I’d had about enough of NetZero.
One other thing to note, NetZero’s e-mail is based on your computer, instead of on the Web, which means you’d be unable to check your account at any computer other than your own.
Freeinternet.com
I don’t normally pay much attention to terms-of-use agreements, but Freeinternet.com’s wording jumped out at me: “We reserve the right to monitor any and all communications,” and “This is not a secure communications medium.”
Gee. No one is going to learn anything exciting by monitoring my Web surfing or my e-mail, but it’s still a disconcerting thought.
Freeinternet’s service is comparable to AltaVista or BlueLight. Downloading its software took just three minutes, and setting up my account was done through a user-friendly five-step “setup wizard.”
Freeinternet starts up with its own page, which is a little less sophisticated than the other services’. I had no problems dialing into the service, and what littlebit of Web surfing I tried was glitch-free. Its e-mail is Web-based.
Freeinternet does not require your name or address to register for its service. And the privacy policy on its Web site says the company “strives to provide free and anonymous Internet access while maintaining a strong commitment to user privacy.”
But Freeinternet has nothing to offer over the other ISPs, and anonymous or not, I still don’t want someone reading my e-mail.
*
To read previous E-Review columns, go to https://www.latimes.com/business/columns/ereview.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Top 10 ISPs
Here are the top Internet service providers as of Monday. Ranked by millions of subscribers:
America Online: 23.0 million
EarthLink: 4.2 million
NetZero: 4.0 million
1stUp.com (includes AltaVista): 3.5 million
Juno: 3.0 million
MSN Internet*: 2.6 million
Freeinternet.com: 2.2 million
Spinway (includes BlueLight.com): 2.0 million
Prodigy: 1.7 million
AT&T; WorldNet: 1.5 million
Sources: ISP Planet, Times research
* Six months free with one-year signup
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Free Internet Service Providers
AltaVista
Free Access
Where to download:
https://www.zdnet.com/downloads /altavista
Platform: PC and Mac
Software:
Download from Web site, or call (877) 584-5551 for CD (Windows software only).
System requirements:
n PC: Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000; Internet Explorer 4.0; (NT users need Remote Access Services and Service Pack 5).
n Mac: Power Mac, Mac OS 8.0, Apple Remote Access and QuickTime
Bottom line:
Consistently performed well
BlueLight
Where to download:
https://www.bluelight .com/freeinternet
Platform:
PC only
Software:
Download from Web site, or call (888) 945-9255 for CD.
System requirements:
Windows 95, 98 or NT; Internet Explorer 3.01 or Netscape 3.0
Bottom line:
Pages loaded slowly
NetZero
Where to download:
https://www.netzero .com
Platform:
PC only
Software:
Download from Web site, or call (800) 333-3633 for CD ($3.50 shipping charge).
System requirements:
Windows 95, 98 or NT
Bottom line:
Registration questions intrusive
Freeinternet.com
Where to download:
https://download.freeinternet .com/
Platform:
PC and Mac
Software:
Download from Web site, or go to https://www .freeinternet.com/url.php?url=software.php to request CD.
System requirements:
n PC: Windows 95, 98 or NT; Internet Explorer 5.0
n Mac: Power Mac, Mac OS 8.0 and Stuffit 5.1.3
Bottom line:
Privacy policy worrisome
