Disaster I can now conclusively prove that AOL kills computers....lmao

well, tonite my mom was on her computer, and it froze up mysteriously. while she was on aol, of course. this proves that aol kills computers. 3rd computer this year. no joke, aol is bad news. 1 winXP laptop, 1 winXP desktop, 1 win98 desktop.

when i unplugged it and then restarted it, there was a message: "Operating System not found". this is the 3rd time in a year ive seen that message. 3 different computers. but all direly in need of upgrades, so it all works out for the better. still, i was hoping to string that one along for another month...looks like my comp becomes general use family comp for a few weeks...

weird thing tho, the harddrive spun up to almost a hyper speed when it rebooted, and all the fans were screaming in it. next reboot, it sounded like all but the processor fan had died...and the harddrive was making unnerving clicking noises. strange...

 

sure it wasnt a virus or the harddrive dieing, i doubt very much aol software is going to delete your operating system and cause your computer to make those noises.

 

AOL should be classified as a virus anyway. Ive never seen any program screw up an OS as badly as AOL seems to so far in my IT career.

 

The hd sounds like its having a fun time. Its not really AOL that kills computers, its just what happens to people that use AOL. No offense here, but the people that use AOL (thinks of computer-illiterate grandfather) are the type that get themselves into problems. They are left to guessing what is wrong, and usually, that guess is not the correct answer. Trying to fix this problem leads to another and before they know it their computer is dead. AOL is an easy option for them, so thats why they use it.

So, typically, AOL is virus-like in that its customers typically know too little about their computer to maintain its functionality.

 

The reason why AOL messes up computers is because a vast majority of its users are complete computer n00bs. These are no ordinary n00bs but the kind of people who delete IE and stuff.

AOL is cruddy but it takes a lot to destroy a computer to the point where the OS 'disappears' and this can't be ALL down to Gay-OL.

And finally.... I hope AOL is collectively fired into the centre of the sun along with all people who don't like computers

 

Aol is horrible. If you want aim you can download it for free, and alll the other dial-up services are cheaper. Also, now basic dsl services can be as cheap as $25.

 

AOL is generally insecure with everything including your ip. Some hackers prolly got ur ip and is hacking you.

 

AOL in the old days (3.1/95) and compuserve played games with the dailup adaptors, made it hard for the newb to get rid of it.

but i remeber an AOL tech telling me that they had no plans to even begin to support NT (this was in 2000) well, i guess their still not supporting XP

 

AOL absolutely sucks, period. My wife uses it only because she likes the "news thingy" and she's had that AOL account since practically the AOL for DOS days...I keep telling her I'll set her up a nice RSS feed with constant news updates and a handy gmail account, but she keeps using AOL..

I have gotten her to use Firefox for almost all browsing though...that's definentally a step in the right direction.

 

aol and i are archenemies... i have nightmares about it... no, but i have had bad experiences with it. its way overpriced, no features that you cant get for a lower price elsewhere, crap tech support, really annoying tv ads and ****ed up parental controls... i tried going onto google on a friends computer and it blocked it... this was a couple years ago, but i doubt its changed. luckily this friend switched from the dark side. i still do have nightmares about their old really annoying ads, though.
j/k.

 

amen to all that has been said so far.

[Rant]i have never seen such a buggy program in my life. whenever i see someone who complains that their computer is slow the usual cause is an AOL related program. whenever we have problems with a computer at work it is usually AOL related. yeah i know how they are making the internet better they are taking more computers off it . *whew* [/Rant]

 

I've actually had a friend with AOL, and it is the most evil thing I've ever seen. It wouldn't even let his msn messenger use the internet. It blocks every port on the pc and starts using OS system files for God knows what. I think some sort of horrible plague should just mysteriously kill all of the AOL executives and the company go into double bankruptcy. That would be great!

 

the noises, no, i dont think aol could cause the noises. complete system shutdown if you try to run aol and word and the calculator? i believe its within the realm of possibility. aol was the reason behind all my computers locking up and dying. i have banned the use of aol on my new computer.

 

Can you even hear yourself?

 

WireFrame is right. I don't even think you know what you're talking about.

 

I totally agree. And my parents still use it despite us having cable. Well just my mom, but it's her computer that's whacked not mine.

Anyone here a good enough hacker to hack windowsupdate and disable *aol*.exe from running? Everyone who couldn't figure out the remedy to their new "problem" shouldn't be online anyways. It kinda works like Darwin arwards- winners of them improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it. As was mentioned, AOL makes the internet better by taking out computers that use it and thus often prevent them from getting online.

 

Have you never heard of the ole IE exploit Formating C:

It was one of the funniest exploits I ever ran into it basically caused you to unknowingly run a cmd prompt command Format C:/ | y so it would just kill your computer instantly.

I know a few people are going to be like no its not possible thats bull etc... Ok guy let me do my google search and when I find it again I will post it and you click on it non believer!!!!!!!!!!

 

Localized biological warfare

 

yea, aol sucks. it wasnt my fault we used it to go online. dang it....

tho it was a good thing, getting that one off the internet. i was looking for an excuse to upgrade my moms computer for her, it was horribly outdated.

wanna hear a horror story? my aunt just bought a new top of the line dell, 3.2 Ghz, hyper threading, a gig of ram, the whole shebang. and what does she use to go online? aol. it almost killed me when i heard about it. its slowly degrading the speed of her computer, tho she doesnt really feel the slowdown. her last computer ran win 95, so anything is better for her. it pains me so, to see a new shiny computer sink into the cesspool that is aol...

 

Runs just fine on mine...

I have had AOL for some time now. Runs great.
Although I have heard and read many horror stories, here's what I do to keep my system running smooth.
After logging off I run Ad-aware se and Spybot S&D. I check for updates for both evey day. After running those, I run crap cleaner. I didn't name it, I just use it. I also run the cleaner module of WinXP Manager. You need the .net framework for that one. After that I run NBG Cleanr. If you can't read Russian don't bother with that one. Lastly I defrag. This is an every day thing for me with my system. I also would HIGHLY reccomend the McAfee anti viral portection AOL now has for free. It auto updates.
I would venture a guess the folks having problems with AOL are the same folks that don't do regular maintance on thier systems. Yes, I have done beta testing for AOL but, no I don't work for them.