Topic: AOL and the Cablenut Program

[tsranch]

AIM alone without AOL.  Haven't used AOL for over 10 years but still use AIM.  The interesting thing here is AIM is installed on the "D" and had to reformat the "C" due to a virus that just wouldn't go away.  Without all the registry additions from AIM, AIM still works without reinstalling, my download bench went from 3500-3800 to over 4500 and COX has it capped at 4000.  Still use the "Adjuster" with my own CSS that I saved. OS is xp-home-sp1

[mnosteele]

AIM alone without AOL.  Haven't used AOL for over 10 years but still use AIM.  The interesting thing here is AIM is installed on the "D" and had to reformat the "C" due to a virus that just wouldn't go away.  Without all the registry additions from AIM, AIM still works without reinstalling, my download bench went from 3500-3800 to over 4500 and COX has it capped at 4000.  Still use the "Adjuster" with my own CSS that I saved. OS is xp-home-sp1

Get rid of AIM and use Trillian, you won't regret it.

 

[The Pretty One]

dannjr this post was such a pain in my rear, but thank you very much for it. I tested AO Hell through a commercial firewall on a Linux server with connection passing through on systems used for research and web at school. The firewall was set to a passthrough state but logging, just to see how many IP's get direct replies to inbound events and which were simply support for AOL. More than 30 were flagged as AOL IP domains. Whats more is over 20 continued with just AOL protection(yeah right) software running and being logged out of AOL. Whats more is this firewall kept locking the connection due to the fact that everything was allowed, user id and passwords allowed, but other personal information blocked, it pretty much shut down AOL repeatedly and had to allow all to complete test. My 3.3 ghz P4 Ht processor at home was benching 3.0 and my 22 mbps connection pushing just short of 20. Now for the hell of uninstalling or so AOL calls it. It totally bogged my computer and caused it to bench at 2.5 ghz. RAM was unusually highly used(about 700 MB of 2 GB). Removing invalid registry helped some but didn't fix. Btw almost 4000 the uninstaller missed were removed. Only solution was to completely reformat. Now I'm getting over 21 megs and benching over claimed at 3.5 ghz according to same test. Thank you for exposing this evil company though I hate reformatting, btw do you know a good firewall other than Outpost which don't support ICS thats free to protect a dial up pc I also removed AOL from(it shares the dial up as backup connection for Linux unit). Thanks again.

[dannjr]

I recently had the pleasure of trying to straightening out a machine from a office with 2 highspeed connections the connection(s) is load balanced one to cable the other to a T1

This particular machine or the problem between the keyboard and chair (The Boss) decided since the AOL people wanted to give him 5 free years to give it a try..
Well the nightmare came true.. He opened up AOL it opened its TCP connection to the WEB on one connection while his MS-TCP was connected to the other web connection.
A couple of things started right away. (this wasnt caught right away)

Files started to get scanned and within a week his BIOS in his computor was hacked and the timers on the BUSS offset to the point that the Mother board had to be replaced..


Now because of time I dont have the exact link but on the SANs website(Securitys) they showed how AOL will allow you to be hacked with the additional open ports..  try here http://isc.sans.org/ under theyre search for AOL

Because AOL itself will sell to any advertiser I wouldnt in my opinion advise using anything AOL.
SO the moral of this story is: IF its FREE from AOL it comes with a Motherboard price along with new DDR memory and a harddrive.. The Harddrive wasnt bad just didnt need more to go wrong with the machine that stays on 24/7....

ThE bad part is that if AOL went out of business tomarrow the only real people Ide feel bad for is the employee's BUT heck while Ide feal bad the turn over rate at AOL is extreem.. Say anything that isnt on there help screens and they get let go..

As for alternate Chat software MNO has posted his feelings on that.. Me I cant tell you what I use AOL might cut me off  

[The Pretty One]

Ah yes, yet even more dirt on AO Hell. I'm sorry to hear it cost your business so much, my hardware was just fine after the nightmarish uninstall I told you guys about in previous post. But this post covers several issues. First AO Hell is mostly gone from my life, at least it and all its "protective" software. My mom seems to not believe me and defends AOL and keeps it on her pc. Whenever her pc is turned on(she's on my router) the firewall I now use(Zonealarm Pro and I do have DMZ set to allow my apps since I can configure Zone Alarm much better without allowing ports) reports all of the previously noted IP addresses trying to connect to or scan  my ports, this does not happen with her pc's power off. Should I be concerned about privacy of my personal pc's data even though firewall reports no breach was allowed to happen? And secondly is a report on McAfee software I once used, this will keep reverting AOL and MSN to server access even though you change it to outbound or blocked, also it never reported any scans from AOL(this also includes firewall plus that you pay for, I found) so it seems McAfee is not only offered by these companies, the paid versions are bought by them, then you're buying them. Seems McAfee is double dipping. Reason I post that here is I have deemed it "AOL related" software and you must be rid of it to finally be free of AOL. It's all worth it in the end, trust me. If you could reply to previous question, I'd appreciate it and good luck everyone!