Who says that computers aren't naughty little brain children?

[Nancy]

I have AOL. I was editing my Address book, and found several addresses there that I had definitely not put there. Further investigation found that these sites had Auto-Added themselves into my address book. Some were shopping sites, and some were individuals I had emailed, but didn't necessarily want in my address book.

Thought I would let you guys know. Some people will send on information to everyone in their address book without looking. I wouldn't want anyone to send their personal info to a site that they hadn't planned on.

Pass it along to your friends on AOL, as well.

 

[Ross]

Not to bash AOL but you won't have that problem using another email client, at least not yet. Nothing is sacred out here anymore, NOTHING!

 

[LUVMyBirman]

AOL @$$@$@$#$$

AOL @$$@$@$#$$

Nancy,

Did I ever tell you why I am not on AOL any longer? To make a long story short..... they updated my billing plan unannounced to myself. Was on the BYOA "Bring your own access". We have DSL as the main carrier. Anyway, over a two month period our credit card was charged by the hour mounting charges over $1000!
Charged by the hour because my DSL is on 24/7!!!! Ouch. I also cannot send digital pictures to a few people that have AOL now. When others off the service do not have an issue??? They are on my _ hit list!

 

[nadi]

AOL

AOL

I also had a problem with AOL. We were using another co and decided to try AOL since we got one of the freebie disks for like 150 free hours, after 8 hours of use they charge my credit card and refused to credit it back. I sure am glad it wasn't like Gina's. I keep telling anyone who will listen not to use AOL. All of our friends and family no longer use them.

 

[Lorraine]

I had AOL free for a year back in November 2000 until 2001. When you registered though, you had to give them a credit card number. At almost 11 months later, I told them I wasn't going to renew and I didn't. I expected them to take my email address off, which I told them to do, but they didn't. I didn't find that out until I went back just to check and see if they had. What happen is they charged my credit card, telling me I was using AOL again, which of course I wasn't. I got that straightened out and did get the charges taken off by agreeing to take one more free month and then i told them one more time, i would not renew. What they explained to me was that they never take your email address or password off. If you ever for any reason log back on and get back into AOL they will immediately charge your credit card as an active user. I thought that was a bunch of "you know what" but I promptly removed anything and everything on my computer that AOL on it. I too will never use them again.

 

[Peggy in Alaska]

AOL -

AOL -

Ditto on the AOL thing! Never used them, heard too many horror stories ages ago.

 

[Ross]

O.K. people, I'm sure Nancy didn't want to get our panties in a bunch over AOL, so lets not bash it. The point is it's a security risk to anyone in AOL address books and within the AOL email program itself.

I know a few people who absolutely love AOL and would never switch. One of the most expert of computer gurus that I learned from is a diehard AOL fan. That's fine too. We just need to find ways to keep them secured, which is becoming increasingly difficult to do these days.

I too once tried AOL. I think most everyone has at one time or another, so just please realize what may or may not be happening in those address books.

 

[Peggy in Alaska]

Okay, Ross, no more AOL bashing from me, but what about that worm?

2 of our 3 home computers have it. The systems guy at my office was kind enough to put the fix on a CD-rom so that I can take it home tonight and try to fix it.

The problem I see with downloading from the website is that the computer keeps shutting down before the download is complete. I am hoping the CD-rom works for me.

 

[Ross]

Here ya go Peggy, save it to a floppy! it's only 164kb big and write protect the floppy once it's on it!
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.removal.tool.html

You'll have to disable system restore and then restart in safe mode before running the removal tool. See the complete instructions with the link.

 

[Nancy]

Regarding the Address Book, it might be related to some type of cookie thing. Maybe ya'll should take a look at your own Address Book, just to check things out, even if you don't have AOL. I checked out all the Mail Controls to see if it was something I had inadvertently allowed--no such animal.

I've had AOL for years, but I have dial-up. It's slow sometimes, but not impossible. I even use the slower speed provider because the traffic is minimal and I don't get kicked off like I do on the high speed ones. So far, so good. Works for me. Maybe I'm just used to it. Everything I've heard you say, I've heard from others as well. Just hasn't been a bad experience for me.

Now, their telephone service-That's something you don't want to try! When there's a problem, it's impossible to correct it. You end up in either computer or telephone limbo, and there is not a human being in existence at that company, I'm quite sure. Run totally by robots--Press 1, Press 2, Press 3--blah, blah, blah, then a hang up. "Hey wait a minute, there's no category for my problem!!" This after 45 minutes of waiting. Bad, bad, bad

 

[Ross]

People using Outlook Express or Outlook should have their security set to restricted sites zone. See the attached.

 

[Nancy]

OK, I found the problem with the Address Book, in the Settings section under Address Book. The default is set for Auto-Populate. Guess I didn't look far enough. I changed it. Time will tell if that helps.

 

[Ross]

That should do it Nancy. I don't know why they even have a setting like that. Well, yes I do, so they can advertise to you like they don't already.

 

[Nancy]

The thing I really don't understand is why it didn't automatically add all the addresses I have emailed to. Pretty peculiar, I'd say.

 

[Ross]

There is a setting somewhat like that in OE also. Anyone using OE or Outlook should also use plain text for their mail sending format. I don't, but technically you should. Viruses can be had in HTML webpages. I know how secure I am, do you?