I have just been contacted by Toucan ISP. It's 4 quid cheaper than AOL for the same "unlimited" service.
The closer didn't know if their service supported Linux but did invite me to check and see that an ISP review would give them 5 stars.
I did manage to find 1 favourable review. Some of the others were scathing. All of the others I mean and one pointed out they were a sister company to Tiscali. The one whose personel throw you in the rubbish.
So is there a service that compares with AOL, allows Linux and beats AOL's price? Anyone here care to recommend one?
I find Pipex extremely reliable, but fairly expensive compared to the likes of Tiscali. On the other hand, I've heard that Tiscali are crap so for the sake of a few quid a month I'm staying with Pipex.
Same here (Pipex, despite what it says in my sig) - if you feel the urge to give someone a free month for a referral, you know where to ask ! (the group, not me specifically)
As for supporting other OSs - as someone else said, I can see no reason why any OS can`t be supported as long as you can go via a router (and i`d make that a *strong* recommendation too)
They do not support anything but Windows -which I am a fan of even though I want to change. It's a freedom of choice thing. It was years before I got a battery drill but I can't recall how I managed without one. I just didn't want to change. Who knows what I am missing? I may find myself saving decades not running security scans and finding patches all the time.
They no longer support usenet. Not that I could stand their format when they did.
You can only use one computer on their router. No big deal a cable to my other one would be good enough for me to work two through one. And if I ws serious I could buy a different router.
I'm getting small glitches waiting for my hook up after AOL changed their network software -at which time they doubled my bandwidth and lowered the price a few bob.
I would without hestiation recomment AOL to newbies and lamers and I consider them a very good ISP for people in my position: Not that much of a geek but not disinterested in alternatives.
What are they like about Usenet?
That's the Tiscali saviour. They are one of the most popular according to ISP Review but the site blasts them. If they don't change their management v v soon they will have estranged a substantial portion of Britain and France.
Firstly because it means that the OS and any loaded firewalls etc become your first line of defence against attack. You are also at risk should you inadvertently let anything onto the computer that disables the software firewall etc - things can go pear shaped very quickly. It is harder for anything on the PC to knobble an external firewall. Also the TCP/IP stack that is facing the net is the routers and not the Microsoft one.
From a security POV you also only have a single line of defence with a USB moden rather than defence in depth - i.e. hardware firewall in router, inability of direct addressing of the internal hosts due to NAT in the router, then any firewalls etc running on the PC.
Performance can take a hit - not all USB modems will do more than
1Mb/sec. Of those that do you can get a fair size CPU loading from the modem.
Stability: some systems have slightly flaky USB which can get stressed by lots of high speed USB modem traffic. You also introduce yet another set of kernel mode drives to support the hardware - they are unlikely to be as well tested/reliable as the basic network card ones you would be using to talk to a router.
Flexibility: connection sharing between more than one PC is much simpler using a router.
VPN endpoint capability - a suitable router makes allowing external secure access to your system easy should you need it without additional software or the need to run a Windows Server OS. (WinXP / 2K can only create the client end of a VPN by default)
Egress filtering - it is easy to restrict outgoing connections as well as incoming on a router - you need add on software for that on Windows.
Yup. By rights it ought not be turned on in the first place. That is a lesson they seem to be learning slowly.
By bundling access hardware that only comes with Windows and sometimes Mac drivers.
By only offering tech support on platforms they support.
And/Or by doing something like AOL used to do where you had to run their bespoke client software to even connect (they used to establish a VPN connection over the top of the basic ADSL PPPoA one - again the client software was Windows and possibly mac specific)
Most of these are circumventable with your own hardware if you can cope without tech support.
They can (and do) refuse to support you if you have problems, however.
I should say that Demon Internet were *very* helpful in my dialup days when I had problems with the Solaris ppp implementation, even though they do not 'support' Unix. YMMV.
AOL is proprietary software that you need to install to get online with them. Their software dials up, not Windows DUN. They even install some sort of virtual network driver for the broadband. They have software for Windows and Mac, not for Linux. AFAIK this is still the case and there is therefore no way you can get online with them unless you install their crappy software.
As if it were needed - yet another reason to never ever use such a diabolical service!
Thanks, some very good points though I think I'll stick with my USB modem and software firewall for now. In due course I'll get an all in one modem/firewall/wireless AP.
The rootkits are a bit worrying, just downloaded and tried out a rootkit scanner:
Unless you need wireless, then that is best turned off...
Yes very good site - they have some really useful utilities for free download.
There is some frightening stuff out there - including root kits that write themselves to spare regions of flash on your MB or video card, so that they can be present and up to mischief right from power on before you get a chance to load *anything*
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