Earthlink TotalAccess 2004

[InfoQuest]

I am helping a friend that just purchased a brand new computer. It came
with 6 free months of EarthLink Internet Access. I am not with EarthLink,
therefore I am not familiar with the TotalAccess 2004 software they are
offering. Though having the accelerator may be positive, I am a little
leery of all the things in this bundle and the changes and additions it will
make to the system. Any additional information, thoughts, experiences,
direction, etc. would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Big Mac]

"InfoQuest" > wrote:
>I am helping a friend that just purchased a brand new computer. It came
>with 6 free months of EarthLink Internet Access. I am not with EarthLink,
>therefore I am not familiar with the TotalAccess 2004 software they are
>offering. Though having the accelerator may be positive, I am a little
>leery of all the things in this bundle and the changes and additions it will
>make to the system. Any additional information, thoughts, experiences,
>direction, etc. would be very much appreciated. >Thanks!

I had Earthlink dial-up before broadband became available to me & I
had to leave Earthlink.

The Total Access 2004 does not "take over". It is just a bundle, with
the main Earthlink software, and the Accelerator, and also an email
client similar to Outlook Express. Plus a pop-up blocker & whatever
else they might have now. I liked it. With Earthlink you also have
some free Usenet access through their own Usenet server.

The regular price of $22 a month, once you throw in the accelerator &
Usenet access, could be considered justified. After all, if you went
with a $10 ISP, then added $5 for acceleration, then another $5 for
Usenet, well there you go. You also get voice tech help.

But I must add here that if you've got DSL available, you can get DSL
for $27 a month through Yahoo/SBC I believe (price good for a year).
So for $5 more you are speeding at least 6 or 7 times faster, and
maybe faster than that (DSL depends on how close you are to the phone
company's equipment). And the bonus with DSL is that it uses the same
phone line you use voice, yet it "splits" off & you can use both at
the same time (send/receive calls while online with DSL).

But after being on cable at 3000 Kbps (vs my old dial-up at 45 Kbps),
I could never ever go back to dial-up, or even go to DSL, DSL is
still much slower in most cases than I have now). I am used to
getting a 2 Megabyte file in a few seconds now. No more hours spent
downloading something (Windows service pack 1 took me 4 hours at
dial-up speed). I can now grab movies or music off of Usenet,
where-as before at dial-up it was not practical.

Big Mac