Who uses EarthLink? What do you think?

[spinbaby]

Our ISP just went bankrupt and sold our account to Earthlink. I'm trying to decide whether to go with them or shop for another ISP.

[Systematic Chaos]

1. I haven't heard anything bad about Earthlink

but I never used them while I was on dial-up so I have no personal experience. My dial-up service was Juno and they were good, but that was over two years ago.

Just DON'T go near AOL 9.0 Sloptimized!

[dofus]

2. We've used it for years,

when it was still Mindspring and have been satisfied with it. Actually, we're now on Everest, but still have Earthlink for the one computer in the household that uses dial-up and that user is content.

[Catshrink]

3. I used to have it and thought it was great

especially the "spaminator" that pretty well took care of unwanted email.

I got tired of waiting for DSL in my neighborhood so went with cable. (I live in the armpit area of the armpit town known as Mesa, AZ)

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Hey!

I met my wife, who lived in Mesa at the time, on the internet. I liked that general area so much I seriously thought about leaving Vegas for there instead of having my sweetie come here.

Don't get me wrong, it ain't nothin' personal. But does that tell you just how much of an "armpit" Vegas is?

[eileen_d]

17. I'm in the same boat

Just cancelled Earthlink because I got tired of waiting for DSL here in Big Sky Country. I thought their service was fine; I didn't use my e-mail address so I don't know about the spam filter.

[bowens43]

5. No problems with earthlink.

They've been my ISP fro several months. No issues.

[Midwest_Doc]

6. EarthLink has Great SPAM Protection

EarthLink offers permission based e-mail spam protection to all subscribers free of charge. SpamBlocker can reduce spam to ZERO. I use it - and love it!

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Had 'em for years...

started out with Mindspring, and now they're Earthlink.

I use Verizon DSL for most of my time online, but keep the Mindspring account partly because a zillion people have the addy, and their mail servers are among the best. Lots of backup mail servers. And free Spaminator, which catches more than half the junk. Their news server is pretty good, too. Few hangups or busies on dialup. I wish they'd put virus checks on the mail servers, but then I wish everyone would.

Verizon's DSL works well, but as an ISP, they're kind of sucky. Earthlink does a lot more for you. It's an ISP, not a phone company.

They've probably got as many nationwide phone numbers as AOL by now, so anywhere I go I can log on. They also have DSL and cable service in many areas. And satellite. And Blackberry. And webmail.

Customer service is pretty good, but expect some hassles with any outfit that big. Infinitely better than AOL, though, or some other outfits I've heard of. The biggest problem I have is that when you call them, they assume you know nothing and go through the basics. When you get past that, they're pretty good in solving problems. I don't have to call them very often-- just when a phone number doesn't work (they change them every so often) or they changed some logon parameter without telling me.

Unlike AOL, you do NOT have to use the monstrous software they give you unless you like it. Even on dialup, I use my own mail, news, and browsing stuff.

The lowdown:
http://www.earthlink.net/

A start page for members:
http://start.earthlink.net/start?id=1

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. On the last upgrade I lost the ability to vote on some on-line polls.

Haven't figured out what's creating the block. You might want to ask them if the trouble is in the pop-up blocker program.

[markbark]

9. Two Words....

Spam Magnet

That and it took 5 months and a threat to procecute any additional billing as credit card fraud to get them to cancel my account. :mad:

My $0.02...... YMMV


--MAB

[Melsky]

10. They are ok

I don't use their software, I just use them for the internet connection. Have not had any problems.

[Democrats unite]

11. Hope you never have to call their tech support.

Unless you like waiting hours listening to recordings.

[neebob]

12. The same thing happened to me three years ago

and I've been happy as a clam ever since. I've not had a single problem with Earthlink.

[emulatorloo]

13. GREAT tech support, great support website, great service

I had Earthlink for about 4 yrs, and I really liked it. They were very reliable, I don't remember many outages.

I called tech support about 3 or 4 times during that period and they were knowledgeable and helpful and resolved my issues (which were weird setup issues re new modems on my end). I have both a Windows and a Mac Machine and they were knowledgeabe about both platforms. I did not have to wait a long time to talk to a person.

Their website has a lot of very clear tutorials for setting up your browser, newsreader, etc etc.

They have local access #s around the country which is good if you travel.

Once I got a fraudulent email from "Earthlink Customer Service" that told me I was to go to a website and enter my credit card #. Obviously it was a fraud, so I called Earthlink and told them about it. They thanked me for reporting it, had me send the email headers, and gave me 3 months credit on my bill for helping them out.

The only reason I left them was because I wanted to upgrade to broadband and they did not offer that in my area. When I canceled, they were very gracious and did not try to pressure me into keeping the service (unlike AOL, for example).

ON EDIT: sorry have to edit every post I write for clarity or grammar

[dreissig]

15. Canceling AOL

Canceling AOL is very difficult. No matter what reason you offer for canceling, they have a response ready. "I'm dying of cancer." "We have a support group on line." Etc., etc.

I found that complaining about smut has some stopping power. AOL is awash in smut! And it's pretty raunchy, too. I wonder what the fundies do about it - do they just ignore it?

[AlabamaYankee]

14. Just canceled Mindspring/Earthlink

My biggest problem with Mindspring/Earthlink was the overwhelming spam. Since I had an older Mac, the Spam blocking software didn't work. I also experienced frequent disconnects, which may or may not have been phone line related. With out new eMac we moved up to cable.

I did have a problem canceling. They only end the service a the end of a billing period, which is not a problem, but it didn't happen, so I got on their IM customer service. The guy I chatted with was very helpful, terminated the contract and promised that the charge would be removed from my credit card. We'll see.

If their anti-spam software works, you might as well stay with them,

[BigMcLargehuge]

16. had em for a while until I got broadband

no complaints at all