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Internet Technology |
Free Access to the Net
by Ed Zuckerman, Ph.D. |
| Internet Technology Table of Contents | Read my lips - not just a free email account, not a free web page for you, not free bells and whistles. But free-to-you, dialup-from-your-computer, access to the whole internet and, of course, email. This means you do not have to pay $20-25 a month to America OnLine, ATT WorldNet, Compuserve, Concentric, MSN, Epix, Earthlink, or your local ISP (Internet Service Provider). Well, okay the truth is that there is no free lunch; someone has to pay. In this case it is the advertisers whose messages you cannot remove from the bottom of your screen. Interested? Look under "Free Internet Access" at these sites.
FreeINet.com, Juno.com, and Address.com make you go through the signup process before they let you download the software you will need or learn about local access numbers (POPs - Points of Presence) and so I cannot be sure they have software for Macintoshes. FreeINet has Macintosh software. Altavista.com's software works only on Windows, is both downloadable and available on CD for $5, and the site offers lots of detailed instructions for downloading and setting up. Netzero, shows their POPs and will sell the software on a CD. Address.com's software on a CD is free. Most if not all give you several free email addresses (accounts), and allow you to use the Instant Messenger products from AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, etc. Some, like Juno, offer a free webpage. To access any of these just type into your current browser "www." in front of their names. Advice? Offers and companies change so, if you don't like the offers of those above, do a search on google.com with free internet access. Also, there is no risk in setting up accounts at several of these sites and using them until you decide which you prefer. And I just bought three years of Compuserve. |
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