Abysmal AOL Security ...

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First off, let me say I'm only using AOL as my ISP till my minimum term contract runs out. Plenty of people told me plenty of things, before I switched to AOL from Freeserve. But, when I first got this new [Dell] computer, pre-loaded into it was a free, three month AOL- ISP offer. Like the cheapskate I am, I took their freebie bait.

At the risk of veritable inundation by "told you so" emails, I'm still gonna pass the following info on.

Sick of the sight of screen warnings re: the need for separate spyware protection, on top of any anti-virus programme I had, I decided to download yet another AOL freebie -- namely, their own spyware detection/protection software.

Prior to this, I 'd already been using another free, downloadable-from-the-web programme called Ad-Aware. But, what the heck, I thought, and decided to put AOL's equivalent product to the test. So, I dutifully downloaded, installed and then ran it. Whoopee! All clear, it proudly announced; none of that nasty spyware stuff found.

You can probably guess what I'm going to say next. Yep, that's right! I immediately opened & ran my Ad-Aware. Ha! Think you're on a roll? Guessed what's coming, again? Heh.

Seven, hidden, tracking cookies! Huh! Hidden from AOL, maybe, but not from Ad-Aware.

Needless to say, AOL's second rate shit's now been uninstalled. Who needs to waste valuable 'puter space with such a crappy, waste-of-space-programme as theirs? Eh?