MSN 9 Premium

James Martin · Sat 19 Jun, 2004 23.43

I don't need a fancy version of IE. My normal IE with the Googlebar to shut up the popups works fine.

I tried the MSN Explorer that came with my XP for a week and I hated it.

Blob · Sun 20 Jun, 2004 12.05

Flava wrote:I don't need a fancy version of IE. My normal IE with the Googlebar to shut up the popups works fine.

I tried the MSN Explorer that came with my XP for a week and I hated it.

I hate MSN Explorer 7 as well

itsrobert · Mon 21 Jun, 2004 09.44

I too hate AOL! They were my first ISP, and they were pretty awful. That was about 6 years ago - have they imroved since then, or got worse?! Do they still have that annoying voice telling you that you have e-mail?

Anyway, as to MSN - I'm not a lover of these browsers. When Yahoo joined BT, they sent me all this software, including BTYahoo's own browser. I really don't like it, and opt to use IE instead.

DJGM · Mon 21 Jun, 2004 13.20

I'd imagine BTYahoo's own "browser" is just a custom front end for IE anyway. I know for a fact that Tiscali
also offer their own "browser" which is just a Tiscali-esque customised UI, relying on the IE rendering engine.

Pete · Thu 24 Jun, 2004 15.59

BT Yahoo's browser is indeed a popup blocking shell for IE. Most ISP browsers are.

hjr · Sat 26 Jun, 2004 14.15

When you register for MSN9 does it include a free subscription to msn encarta online?

James Martin · Sun 27 Jun, 2004 02.02

itsrobert wrote:I too hate AOL! They were my first ISP, and they were pretty awful. That was about 6 years ago - have they imroved since then, or got worse?! Do they still have that annoying voice telling you that you have e-mail?

I used AOL 1997-1998 and yes, they were DIRE!

Their own built-in browser really did suck cock - it didn't display ANYTHING correctly... Gecko gone wrong. That was V3.0i which worked on Windows 3.1 and 95. Version 2.5i was even worse - this version (in use until November 1996!) didn't even suppot frames!

Things got seriously better when they released a Windows 95 edition of V3.0i in the early Summer of 1997, mainly due to the fact it had IE 3 intregated with it. The really good thing about this was that when IE 4 came out that Autumn, I was able to install THAT and AOL now intregared IE 4 instead of 3 - not intentional either!

It used AOL's front-end and stuff... and their own navigation buttons but the pages themselves were displayed by a disguised IE.

I did like the AOL-only content they laid on though at the time - until they moved over to using HTML for everything anyway.

Resented the fact that the email facility was shite.

I understand things got a lot better with AOL 4 however by the time it came out, I had joined the recently-opened Freeserve, who I'm still with today (albeit under the Wanadoo banner, and on broadband) and getting an excellent service from.

Pete · Sun 27 Jun, 2004 10.22

I was using AOL 9.0 yesterday while fixing a computer up the road. It's a bizzare shell for IE that just makes no sense whatsoever.

Out of interest - how would one set the computer up so it dialed into AOL but then the user could use Firefox? And is AOL email compatable with Outlook (2003 no Express)?

Ben · Sun 27 Jun, 2004 20.40

Hymagumba wrote:Out of interest - how would one set the computer up so it dialed into AOL but then the user could use Firefox??

Easiest way is to just run the AOL software and then use Firefox.

DJGM · Sun 27 Jun, 2004 20.59

Hymagumba wrote: And is AOL email compatable with Outlook (2003 no Express)?

No. The only dedicated e-mail clients you can access AOL mail with are AOL Communicator and Netscape 7.x . . .

James Martin · Mon 28 Jun, 2004 12.56

It is bizarre isn't it?

I just use IE and that's it. I think being forced to use AOL's own shit is a poor show actually.