I knew AOL would finally screw up the one good thing they had going- Their free Kaspersky based AV.
Apparently they discontinued it and are now relying on the crappiest possible program they could find: Mcafee.
http://www.activevirusshield.com/antivirus/freeav/index.adp?

AOL is crappy. they are sneaky and evil

AOL was the first ISP i ever used, using the free CDs.. they ask for your credit card info, saying they are just verifying your age. after the Free CD runs out of days, if you don't call in and ask for them to 'end your subscription', they will start billing you.. without you ever knowing

aol sucks! and most of their products are filled with adware/spyware. also, when you try to uninstall AOL, tons of files get left behind. you have to manually search your hard drive for AOL files and delete them all. (like 5mb worth of files don't get uninstalled..) and they hide in system folders

i made a promise to myself to never use anything AOL related

That's why there's allot of choices available.

The now former AOL Active Virus Shield was alright, but somewhat of a mess. In my opinion if someone really wanted Kaspersky Antivirus they would have been better off just buying a license for the real thing without stuff disabled in it. It's actually not too surprising that they'd switch to something like McAfee.

AOL was the first ISP I had too, and I was glad to get rid of it, which wasn't an easy task. After uninstalling it of course, it left behind files scattered all over the place which I had to manually remove. AOL is a big commercially over-rated pile of crap. They could have a better uninstaller, but they choose not to. I think they actually 'enjoy' leaving behind components as their way of saying screw you and goodbye. I have roadrunner high-speed cable now, and it's been great. Pages load in seconds no matter what the size. It's brute strength and lightning speed makes it a joy to surf.

Someone should come out with an AOL junk remover, hell, I'd have bought one.

I had one years ago that would kill most AOL components on a PC, but every download website I submitted to never listed it. Probably some of the spicy language in the readme file wasn't "kosher" for them.

Edit: It probably didn't help either that I had named it "Kill AOL."

Yeah, some folks are a little touchy in the language department.lol Do you still have that Kill AOL program? I would run it just to be sure all of AOL's crap has been trashed. I think I got it all, but it wouldn't hurt to run it just to make sure. So you designed the program? Wow, I wouldn't know where to begin doing something like that.

AOL is fine as long as you don't use their software or expect anything of use from their call centres. We've been on AOL for several years now and the connection is solid, only had one, possibly two, problems in all that time.

I've just set up my new laptop and there's not a trace of AOL on it despite using them for internet.

I was just referring to AOL's software in general. Too much stuff and junk occupying lot's of space. I didn't like their browser either. Actually, I didn't know you could get online with AOL without some of their software. i.e 'browser. I never experienced any down-time with AOL, so in that respect they've been good.

PC Decrapifier ?

I remember when AOL was like that years ago when we had dial up,
Had to leave AOL browser running minimized or the connection would be cut just so I could use the 'better' (compared to AOL) IE, that was before I knew about firefox.

Never been back with AOL since

They probably didn't like my French.
The program isn't in existence anymore and was only useful maybe five to seven years ago, so no go there in distributing or posting it. No programming whatsoever, all it was was a batch file and a .reg file that worked like a charm on my system.

Oh OK, I see. Well, maybe I'll google "Kill AOL" and see what I come up with.
Thanks

You definitely aren't going to find the batch file and .reg file I made, it isn't online anywhere. Although it's probably on some CD-R or floppy disk around the house someone gathering dust.

Yeah, it probably is and their making bucks with it..lol No, but seriously, someone else might have had the same idea as you and created one but I already googled it and nothing came up anyway. No big deal really.

I've had AOL since the early 90's. Can't seem to let go even though so it sucks a**. At least it's free now.

But I do agree that it leaves behind waaaay too many files when you do an uninstall. And yes, their tech support is the pits. I got no where the last time I tried calling them. And the funny part is AOL seems to be the only program around that will drop the connection to their service even when you aren't using their dial-up anymore. Can we say wonderful? lol

I'm glad to say I have never ever had AOL, or any of its software. I'm very happy with the current level of service from my ISP, Virgin.

Removing AOL messenger Guide

I could not find any decent removal instructions for the browser though.