annnnnnd noooooow tooooo leeeaaaaarn the meeeannning of slooooooow....

[icarus]

Wow. Our dial-up service is reaching epic dimensions of slow. It's taking upwards of a minute to load a web-page.

Hello, experts of the universe! (And you too!)

Do you have any recommendations for ISPs?

Earthlink was a customer service SNAFU and we can't get sbcglobal.net in Seattle. The local phone company charges an arm and a leg for DSL. I'm not able to pay more than twenty bucks a month for internet service, and reasonable speed dial-up is okay with me.

Will we get screwed if we go with something like netzero.com or pcpeople.com?

Right now we're using NoCharge.com and the dial-up provided by the university, but they've both suddenly bogged down. In all likelihood part of the problem is spyware (Ad-Aware isn't working *kicks it*) but... it was slow before, too.

Help?

Comments

[mad_maudlin]

I don't know about stuff like customer service, but we had NetZero for a while and even the free version was a reasonable speed if you were willing to put up with the massive banner ad. I assume that goes away if you're actually paying for it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I just read the TOU and they say flat-out in item 2 that they're collecting information on the sites you visit. WG wasn't pleased, but I wonder if all the ISPs do that. That was one thing that sent me to Earthlink, the fact that they didn't collect such information.

Icarus

[rhiannonmr.livejournal.com]

Haven't used dialup in yrs myself. Last ISP I had was a local one that charged $16 a month. You might want to check the local yellow pages to see if there is a local service. A friend of mine swears by PCPeople. She's been using it for awhile and she thinks they are great. Have you checked into cable? I use TW and for the most part I am happy with them and they do 24/7 customer service, unlike SBCglobal.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

That's good news about PCpeople. I'll check out their TOU.

The cable service in my building unfortunately is ridiculously expensive and far beyond my budget. Hooray for monopolies I guess. *waves a flag listlessly*

Icarus

[ursula]

Um, in what sense is Ad-Aware not working? If you know you have spyware and you can tell that it's having an effect on your connection speed or disabling Ad-Aware, then even getting DSL won't do much besides let your computer throw ads at you or steal your personal information or e-mail spam to everyone else in the world that much faster. Try SpyBot Search and Destroy, update your virus software & run a scan (you can get MacAfee from the UW for free), and look at your currently running programs-- if you're running Windows you can just hit ctrl-alt-del and look at the list-- and Google the ones you don't recognize to see if any of them aren't supposed to be there. (This advice provided by glasseye, your friendly neighborhood sysadmin.)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's a few things going on.

My fundamental problem is that I have a laptop with a very low processing speed. I'm running an AMD 3D processor. So I can't update to anything above Windows 2000.

The latest and greatest versions of most software won't run on my machine for this reason. Even if they say that they're compatible with Win98 (which is what I have) time and again I find that... yeah, not really. The usual symptom is that it runs like sludge. Rolling uphill.

The situation with Ad-Aware is that my old version wouldn't update the definitions, and the new one runs incredibly slowly. Which is something I've grown very familiar with as my system is increasingly outdated.

To cap it off, I have ongoing problems with Explorer, and can't use the latest version of Mozilla either (sludge). I repair Explorer about once a week. I've had to repair it ever since I got a spamming virus in 2002.

A year ago we had to do a complete wipe of my machine. The IE problems continue.

Anyhow, when I tried to install the latest MacAfee from the college, Explorer started running like sludge. On a frozen hill. (Oh hell, not again...) I tried to uninstall it, did that incorrectly (oops), and then when I tried to do it correctly the utility just hung (probably looking for components that I deleted instead of uninstalling). I probably need to get the disk from the college -- since I can't download anything at this speed -- reinstall/uninstall. Or I can get the speed up I can download it again. If that doesn't work I yell for help.

I just have to limp along with what I've got until the summer.

But I'm getting some scary errors so I'm running a back-up tonight, and I save everything to an external hard drive. This past weekend it spotaneously restarted. A couple times. It's not unusual to get a Fatal Exception error (though that's improved since the wipe).

Icarus

[ursula]

Hmmm. You could try other browsers-- Firefox is supposed to take up fewer resources than Mozilla, and you might also look into Opera-- and you might also look at how many programs are set to run at startup and turn off as many as possible. (Windows setups usually have all kinds of junk running in the background.)

But it sounds like what you really need is a new system, or at least a newer system. If your acquaintance runs to computer geeks, you could probably get somebody's old computer for a smile and a cup of coffee, but then if that were true you probably wouldn't be asking livejournal . . . UW surplus has systems for next-to-free, but you don't know what's wrong with them until you set them up, and I'm guessing you aren't interested in that sort of deal (I'm not, but I live with a guy who installs Linux on webplayers for fun, so I know such people exist!) glasseye recommends RE-PC, a local company that refurbishes and recycles old computers; he says that when he was working for the school district, they had refurbished and perfectly functional iMacs for prices on the order of $100, and they have repair/ warranty options available. Their website isn't very forthcoming about full systems, though, so you'd probably have to make a phone call.

[supergrover24.livejournal.com]

Does your university offer a discount with local ISPs? Mine does--I get $10 off a month on my cable internet (Time Warner), so it might be something to look into.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

The university goes one better -- they provide free dial-up. :)

The down side is it's running very, very slow. :(

Hence, the search. Alas, this is Seattle, yet there are no good deals on DSL.

Icarus

[fiercefragile.livejournal.com]

I use triton.net (http://www.triton.net) which is more expensive than most at $19.95, but reliable and quick. It's dedicated hosting, which means you can leave your computer connected constantly without being logged off for being idle, and there is no limits on the time you can be connected. They had a deal for the first year, $9.95 - $12.95 I think, depending on the options. I use plain old 56K dialup and I very rarely have trouble loading pages quickly. I'm not sure where you're living, but if it's available, look into it. I don't think they gather info...but it wouldn't hurt to check.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hey! You know, triton looks pretty good. No weird stuff in the TOU either.

Icarus

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

If you suspect spyware/adware, try SpyBot (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html) instead of AdAware. I think it works better.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Bless you. *kisses your feet* You just solved 90% of my connection problem.

Icarus

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that was helpful. :-) (No need to kiss feet, but the sentiment is much appreciated. *g*)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I've been reading the history of Mughal India. Feet kissing was in. ;)

Hmm. The problem seems to have returned, but there's no spyware now. *frowns*

Icarus

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Maybe it came back? :-(

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think it's a combination of factors: the slow connection speed, the spyware, and the fact I haven't been able to delete virus protection components that seem to demand more of my system than it can handle.

We've taken care of the spyware. Now I have to deal with the other problems.

Icarus