AOL Unremovable?

[aman74]

I'm in a situation in which I may need to install AOL on my new PC. I really only need it on their temporarily, but I heard it's hard to get it completley off of your system. It's a brand new self built PC so I want to keep it pure, at least for a little while. If I have no choice but to install it am I ever going to completely be able to get rid of it? Would I just go to uninstall, thype in AOL and that's it? I'm not good at uninstalling in the first place and on top of that I hear there are other things that may need to be done.

So, is it bad if I have to install it?

And if I do install it, how do I get it completely off the system?

Thanks!!!

 

[spyordie007]

If it's windows XP you could set a restore point and than just go back to the old restore point when you are done. Generally speaking I would say avoid AOL if at all posible because of the problems you are hinting at above.

-Spy

 

[aman74]

Thanks, I'm going to try to. Any dial up ISP's that are good? I'm thinking of ATT.

 

[skyking]

OH man, stay away from that stuff! I built a box for a friend, and he put aol on there while waiting for broadband. AOL set up a internet connection sharing doohickey to the NIC, and sqwuaked incessantly for the 98 disk to finish install, but failed that too.
He brought it back and I blew that stuff away, but what a hassle.

 

[spyordie007]

AT&T has decent dialup, there are also plenty of other companys that will give you "regular old dialup" (the kind that doesnt require proprietory software to connect) for less than $15/month.

-Spy

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Originally posted by: Livedistortion
Thanks, I'm going to try to. Any dial up ISP's that are good? I'm thinking of ATT.

Call your local phone company. I did when I ditched AOhelL (gawd how I wish I had never used it), their rates were reasonable, service was better than AOhelL, and when I switched to their DSL service everything was (and still is) peachy.

 

[foxkm]

I have uninstalled AOL and reinstalled AOL on many PC's, with No Problem, on many different OS's.. The only thing you really need to look for is the WAN device which it installs in the device manager, which you can uninstall manually, if needed.

 

[yukichigai]

PeoplePC is rumored to have a nice $9.95 ISP, though I'm not sure as to how their service is having never used them. I would also say NetZero Platinum is also a possibility if you don't plan on doing a lot of gaming over the net, since it puts a little menu bar at the top of the screen about the same size as the menu bar for most programs. The bar doesn't go away, and if you do manage to minimize it the program kills your internet connection. However I have used the Platinum service (during a free trial) to play games and it did okay. The ping was very low. As far as spyware is concerned you can just learn to supertrick once you figure out what servers the data gets sent to, if any.

Normally I use SBC Yahoo for my internet. It makes you download a large-ish install file and then puts the Yahoo browser on your system plus the SBC Yahoo Dialer, but you can remove all of that and still use the account through normal Dial-up networking. (Which lets you have Win2k or higher automatically redial on disconnect) I find it's actually better to keep the dialer software on the computer and just disable it from running, since I travel a lot and the software gets a list of access numbers for the US when you first use it. Made my trip to Long Beach a lot more downloadey.

 

[CotswoldCS]

You can access your AOL emails via the Internet if you don't want to install the software. If the UK the URL is www.aol.co.uk, but I am guessing that in the US it's just www.aol.com ?

AOL will probably uninstall fine - but it will always leave behind a few things such as AOL files and AOL branding within Internet Explorer. They will probably change your default homepage to AOL automatically.

I hate AOL but the uninstall generally only causes major problems when people upgrade from earlier versions - then things get really messed up and the uninstall often fails.

 

[aman74]

Thanks all!

 

[leolaw]

I have an exactly same situation as you do.

This dan AOL really pis me off, it is like stuck in my new toshiba notebook and cannot be uninstalled!!!!!