http://live.pirillo.com/ – In the beginning Ameria Online – AOL – was a necessary part of the Internet. They were, in a large way, responsible for the commercial success of the Internet: thanks to their aggressive marketing tactics (such as giving away free floppy disks and CDs) they were able to open up the world of the Internet to people who would otherwise not get online.

In a time before the Internet was so ubiquitous you generally had to jump through a lot of hoops in order to get online. AOL – along with a handful of other ISPs – offered an easy to way get online, by automatically installing all of the software, rivers, and low-level components that computers did not originally come with.

Years ago – before broadband was an option – we would recommend AOL as your Internet Service Provider. They offered an easy-to-use all-in-one package that got you online easily. Nowadays, however, AOL has simply become a way to view advertisements on your desktop.

Our recommendation is to avoid AOL. You can use Internet Explorer just as easily as you can AOL.

Want to embed our Is AOL a Bad Thing? video in your blog? Use this code:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3U3hzPHe0dY"></aram><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3U3hzPHe0dY" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4), MP3 Audio (.mp3), Microsoft Video (.avi)

Is AOL a Bad Thing?