Metropol

Is it just me and pete that are still using this? I must say I'm really loathing Skype. It just seems to be very shoddy for IM.

I never used it really, but like hotmail it's one of those services we got to know and use which hark back to the beginnings of what most of us remember as "the internet"

A bit like www.altavista.digital.com, freeserve, Netscape, AOL, CompuServe, geocities, all visited by millions of us every day, now gone.

AOL isn't gone. It's UK operation got bought out and rebranded, but it still exists in the US.

Ahem!

Some of us still have websites on Freeserve's fsnet! It might not get many updates any more, but you're still welcome to visit!

Oh, and lest we forget, here's an image hosted on said site:

hehe, you know what i mean! AOL and freeserve used to be "the internet" for many people, some of us can probably recall the ubiquitous aol cd which was given away with practically every computer/technology magazine, and the piles of freeserve CDs that used to be in Dixons on the counter. i used to collect aol cds and have them as coasters in my bedroom. i had loads of the things.

I remember making the mistake of installing a FreeServe CD once on my Windows 98 PC and it completely took over, adding Freeserve branding even to Windows Explorer. I don't miss those days. At least you can just connect to the net these days with no client configuration needed.

interesting thread - are there any other internet companies that have been and gone that you miss?

Well Microsoft used to run an IRC network. They closed it down before everyone else closed theirs down. IRC was a fabulous thing way back when, before it became seedy.

Yes, I remember my initial load of the Freeserve software re-branding everything in sight. Think that was Windows 98, but might have been 95.

Back to the initial point of the thread. I had both Live Messenger and Skype accounts and followed the instructions to merge them when the option was first offered. I'm now in the situation that I've, effectively, lost all my Messenger contacts until I happen to be online at the same time as they are. They then appear in my Skype list from that point on. However, if they're still on Messenger, I don't show up as 'online' when I'm in Skype, so they all think I've died. That's with the exception of 'er indoors, who knows I'm not dead, but doesn't want to talk to me anyway!

I think a lot of people have migrated to ChatPS.

wells wrote:I think a lot of people have migrated to ChatPS.

Yawn.

Dr Lobster* wrote: I remember making the mistake of installing a FreeServe CD once on my Windows 98 PC and it completely took over, adding Freeserve branding even to Windows Explorer. I don't miss those days. At least you can just connect to the net these days with no client configuration needed.

Thinking about it now, this may have been a big contributing factor in IE winning the browser wars - Freeserve CDs (along with the plethora of other free ISPs which turned up around 1998-2000) simply contained branded copies of IE4 (later IE5) and added the ISP's dialler details into dial up networking. There was pretty much nothing else to them and they all worked in the same way. It looked awfully like an off-the shelf solution provided by Microsoft which allowed their browser to quietly take over the world, with all the distribution costs funded by 3rd parties.

Dr Lobster* wrote:interesting thread - are there any other internet companies that have been and gone that you miss?

I'll always have a soft spot for X-Stream. Before Freeserve, this was the original free ISP. Nowhere near as well financed, it didn't give you a CD-ROM which would provide everything you need, X-Stream had to be downloaded (therefore you needed access to the internet elsewhere!) and you also had to source your own web browser if you didn't have an up to date one installed already. If you were using Windows 95, you also had to manually install TCP/IP networking as this wasn't installed by default! The service was paid for by advertising, when connected a connection monitor with banner advertising took over the top 10% of the screen when connected and could not be moved or covered up in any way.

Connection costs were expensive - if you lived in a major city there would be a (geographical) local rate number to use, but for most of the country you could only use a national rate number.

Later on, a local rate number for the whole country become available and the advertising banner got much smaller.

Freeserve looked like a quantum leap forward when it came out with a complete solution on a CD and not having any intrusive advertising, myself and everyone I knew who used X-Stream had abandoned it by the end of 1998.

X-Stream's last attempt to fight back was an attempt to pilot true free internet (something we still don't have today) when they introduced access through an 0800 number with no subscription or fees payable, you just had to put up with the advertising and put up with getting kicked off every hour. This sounded too good to be true, and it was - their equipment couldn't cope with the number of people trying to dial in on it, you either got an engaged tone or it would connect but the connection was unusable through lack of bandwidth.

According to Wikipedia, X-Stream survived until March 2000 and managed to get bought out rather than go bust, but who was still using it from late 1998 when Freeserve and their ilk came along I don't know.

But still, X-Stream was my first ever experience of having an internet connection at home, and I was grateful for them at the time.

I used to chat on ICQ. It's still going but I don't know anyone that uses it anymore.