In the big city, I only thought AOL was bad. I signed up for TXU up here a few weeks ago because it is the only phone service and I needed something to get online asap. If I were going to have to be here using it much longer, I would bail. But I'm stuck with it for now. Unlimited service my A$$! UNLIMITED LOG OFFS!! What a piece of Sheesh service. Every time a squirrel jumps on the string running from my tin can to the road, I get logged off. During peak times, forget it. So, all you web savy guys, what is the best and the worst? My kingdom for an ISP that doesn't suck. ------------------ "We're having a pretty good time considering one day we're all going to die." Steve Martin, 1976
Are you using dialup or DSL? In many cases, it's not the ISP that is the problem, but the copper that runs to your house. I'm not saying this is what is happening in your case, but it's just a thought. Changing ISP's may not do you any good. Getting frequent disconnects could be a sign you have horrible lines in your area. As for ISP's, I have a backup dial-up account I rarely use anymore from Texas.Net. I use it as a backup. I've been with them for about 4 or 5 years I think and have never really had any major problems. ------------------ "I had mine chewed off by a boss one time." -- Behad leaves us wondering if he gets hazard pay...
Thanks for the tip, Doctor. It could be the wiring, but if it were, I would expect a more uniform pattern to the log offs. I can get on at non peak times and it works like a charm. Peak hours is when the problem arises. Also, some of the locals here have told me that they have the same problems during peak usage times. I'm just pissin' and moanin' until I get back to the big city. I don't really expect to be able to cure it. I got tired of problems with AOL in Houston, got hacked really badly, and canceled them when I signed on for this up here. Now I've got to get a new ISP for Houston when I return, so I want to hear about experiences by others, particularly in Houston. I have heard that use of the DSL systems increases problems with hackers, which I wish to avoid. Any thoughts on that? ------------------ "We're having a pretty good time considering one day we're all going to die." Steve Martin, 1976
That's what "they say", although I know it is worse on cable than DSL or dialup. But I think it's not as big of a problem as it's made out to be. However, it's still worth your while to get a program like blackice for windows, or keep a firewall running for Linux machines. Here, we have a Linksys DSL router that has built-in firewall. Then Blackice on the windows machines, and I run Linux most of the time, and I keep it secure enough. ------------------ CC.net's most courteous driver Oh yeah, and I'm looking for a job right now, so hire me please
If you're worried about hackers spend $100 on a cheap router with NAT. It will keep you safe. The problem with good internet providers it that they are usualy bought out by bad providers. The first two which come to mind are Hypercon and PDQ. A uhm... friend of mine (*cough*) uses PDQ for DSL and hasn't gotten a bill in about 8 Months. On the other hand, some businesses that he knows use PDQ and are regularly double and triple billed. PDQ was a good provider, merged with Internet America, and lost control. The only ISP that I know of that I would qualify as 'great' from top to bottom in Texas is the aformentioned Texas.net. From tech support to QOS, they rock. ------------------
Inherently it doesn't cause any more problems that I know of because at any given point you have an IP assigned to you that with no firewall would allow you to be "hacked". DSL and cable modem services are what are called "always on" services, but that doesn't mean that they are "always on" for you. Get a free software-based firewall such as ZoneAlarm and if you want, get a NAT-based pseudo-firewall router from a company like Linksys and you'll be pretty much impervious to hacks if they're configured correctly. ------------------ "I had mine chewed off by a boss one time." -- Behad leaves us wondering if he gets hazard pay...
Thanks guys. After the hacking, I loaded up with every defensive measure I could find. I have Black Ice, and it is great. It is amazing how many hackers there are out there. I know some hits are false positives, but when you get the same IP and user attacking you repeatedly, it it pretty clear it is not just a false positive. I suppose if you regularly get offline using the DSL, it would avoid the "always online" problem. I'll check out Texas.net. ------------------ "We're having a pretty good time considering one day we're all going to die." Steve Martin, 1976 [This message has been edited by PinetreeFM60 (edited June 23, 2001).]
When the same IP address keeps hacking you, what's to say it's not a false-positive everytime? BlackICE Defender was known early on for giving out false-positives which was one reason why people frowned on it. The biggest problem it had originally was that it was one-way protection so to speak. This meant that it could protect stuff from getting in, but if you happen to be infected by a trojan or by some spyware, they could communicate out from your PC without BID never knowing a thing about it. I don't know if they've since changed this, but that was the biggest negative against the software. ------------------ "I had mine chewed off by a boss one time." -- Behad leaves us wondering if he gets hazard pay...
____________________________________ So, if they installed a trojan horse, they could still be getting in? Unseen? Is there any solution short of reformatting my hard drive entirely and starting over? I get a number of hits which indicate someone is looking for the trojan horse. I watch my memory closely, and do not see any change in it. I would expect to see some indication if they were still getting in. Also, my problems seemed to go away. It seemed to be a virus, or perhaps a password stealer, tied to my aol account. ------------------ "We're having a pretty good time considering one day we're all going to die." Steve Martin, 1976
I've had AOL (1995), AT&T Worldnet (1996-1997), PDQ (1998-1999), and Road Runner (2000-2001). The best dial-up service I had was from PDQ. I had no disconnects and it was really affordable at $9.95 a month for unlimited access. The only negatives with PDQ was a yearly contract. I don't remember alot about AOL except that it was expensive. AT&T Worldnet gave me limited access but other than that it was good. Nothing beats DSL or Road Runner though. ------------------
Smokey, I will be getting Road Runner in about a month. Do you really like it? Had any trouble with it? Also, I understand that the closer you are to a Time Warner "sub-station" (for lack of a better term), the faster the service. Is this true? They built a new station two blocks from my house. ------------------ Beware the blank post! Ain't Miss Be haven!
Scanning you is not a problem. Let them scan. A good firewall will stealth your ports and technically "hide" you from their scans. A trojan can get on your machine via a floppy disk (as an example) and communicate back to hosts if it's designed to do so. The earlier versions of BID would never detect this. I have no idea if they've since changed this. The best way to get rid of trojans is using a good virus scanner. Here's my suggestion : 1) Get a good software-based firewall like ZoneAlarm. 2) Get a good antivirus program such as AVP, Norton, or Eset NOD. And keep your virus "dat" files up-to-date. 3) If you're still paranoid, get a NAT-based router such as the one made by Linksys. That should keep you safe. You may also want to do a search in this forum for similar topics about firewalls or routers. Some of us have discussed this in further detail a couple of times. You may gain more info doing that as well. ------------------ "I had mine chewed off by a boss one time." -- Behad leaves us wondering if he gets hazard pay...
I love it. It is real fast like my college's T1. I've never had any major trouble with Road Runner. This summer my service has not been interrupted once. Last summer, my service was interrupted a couple of times, but not for longer than an hour. Not necessarily. I think that is for DSL only. The speed of Road Runner depends on the number of users in your area (possibly the substation). The technician will check to see how strong your connection is during installation. I've never had any problems with speed. ------------------
Thanks, Doctor. I'll try to follow your suggestions. The term "once bitten, twice shy" pretty much sums up my attitude now. I ran Norton, Kill Password, and a bunch of other stuff when I had the problem. Getting off aol seemed to be the thing which really helped the most. I think someone sent me something in a poem I downloaded from an email. Now, I don't even open attachments from people I know. ------------------ The world is divided into two groups of people: Those who try to divide everyone into two groups, and those who don't.
Did you say squirrel? ------------------ Rarely is the question asked: Guns kill squirrels than REDRUM to fools across the nation?
My RoadRunner service is awesome. I routinely get 1.6Mbps downstream versus a T-1 at 1.5Mbps. The internet service stayed up through the worst of the flooding. My cable runs along the ground outside my house and was under 2 feet of water, and the internet service was uninterrupted. In fact, my PCS phone was down all day Saturday, the long distance was out on all the pay phones around here, and the only way I could call my parents was PC-to-Phone.
AOL, and Roadrunner both have the same parents company of time warner correct.. all owned by same people? ------------------ Shane "Save Our Rockets" "Life without basketball in Houston........without an arena that is what it will be"
Once I moved back to the Irving area I decided to go with cable modem service instead of using the DSL service I had used for about 3 or so years. It's definitely far faster than my DSL service was, but I don't think it's quite as reliable. I have about 3-5 outages per week it seems although they're very brief. The one thing I hate is it takes about 1-2 minutes at least for the modem to "re-connect" after it's lost its connection. With DSL I could also get a static IP address and run a server. These @Home knuckleheads won't let me do either. Anyway, jamcracker, how are you measuring your speed? Using a speed test? Every one I go to gives me something different and I'm sure it depends on how overloaded they are. I'm reasonably sure I'm getting anywhere from 1.5 - 5 megabit throughput though based upon the transfer time of files I've downloaded. It varies a lot, but has been consistently faster than my DSL service and around 50% cheaper, too. ------------------ "I had mine chewed off by a boss one time." -- Behad leaves us wondering if he gets hazard pay...
