AOL (America Online) vs. AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) dust0r dust0r@juno.com aol, aim, blah, HEH, ugh, america online, america online instant messenger Ever since 1992, correct me if I'm wrong, when version AOL 1.0 was released, everyone was in great astonishment to the new, and "easy" way of connection to the wonderful world of the internet. But AOL also was colorful, and appealing to the younger, and novice population. This drew everyone in as well. Soon the release of AOL 2.5 was released in 1995, then on to the release of AOL 3.0, in the following year, 1996. This was the more stronger, and more elite versions that came about. Rainman, and VPD (Visual Poser Designer) was popular among the small hacking groups around this time. Then Warez grew, and it had seemed like everything was growing nicely. "Progs", or "Proggies", were designed by talented, and artistic (no pun intended) people. Screen names were stolen, various keywords were made, and havoc was an everyday part of the AOL life. There was a time when good HTML (HyperText Markup Language) could play a fun role in AOL. Boys and girls played, and messed around on AOL the new, and "easy" way of connecting to the internet. Things went on, and AOL grew, and soon overthrew the famous Prodigy and MSN. Years past, AOL got smart (as if), and they released AOL 4.0 beta, in 1998. Soon it was fully released. It was sad to see how AOL had changed, and even the media's response to AOL was overwhelming. So how come AOL is such a big influence in today's society? Why is AOL such a "powertool", when it comes to the media describing the internet? AOL has come along way. But what is AOL really? What makes AOL offers different than other "chat services"? To me, just an easy and fun way to hack and explore. AOL is known now for, again its quick and easy way to the internet. Their new TV commercial states that "AOL is the internet". What a bunch of garbage, those advertisements can really bullshit a lot, in fact, too much. If you didn't already know, AOL is just an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Hence the statement "Internet Service Provider". They're millions of ISP's out there, and far cheaper. It's about $21.99 for AOL, per month. And for other ISP's I've seen as low as $5.00 per month, for the internet. With an ISP, AOL only charges $9.99 per month. That's roughly $14.99 a month for AOL, with an ISP other than stinky old AOL. You do the rest of the math! Plus, AOL lags, and your screen name and account information is not that secure, that's only a few of the disadvantages of AOL. Now, yes, AOL is clean, and neat, and pretty, and colorful. But you shouldn't have to pay for that bullshit. Moving on to AIM (AOL Instant Messager). AIM was released in 1996, around the same time AOL 3.0 was released, but no one had really paid any attention until a while back. AIM is free, as long as you can connect to the internet with an ISP, obviously. There are chat rooms and you can even send, and receive files with other people. AIM just isn't big on chat rooms, that's all. The new version on AIM is pretty secure, and personally I think AIM is just fine. Oh did I mention it was free? Now that you have a basic understanding of the history of AOL, and AIM, let's begin to explore the pros and cons. I'll break it down easier for you. First, AOL and costs, AOL's ISP services are quite expensive, while on the other hand AIM is free what any ISP. Second, yeah sure, AOL has chat rooms and profiles, and easy ways to find people, but, so does AIM. In fact, it's easier to find people on AIM, than on AOL. And the chat rooms don't have lame TOSA's, and Guides. So your more free on AIM, at least I think you are, who knows where Big Brother is hiding. Next, Keywords. I think that AOL is known for its keywords, and that is what they use to market and ploy AOL. When my family first got AOL, my mom and dad were impressed with what they thought was the internet. What they thought to be the internet, was in fact, keywords. Personally KW's are useless, unless you're "Mr.RainMan", and enjoy hacking AOL. The information provided on KW's, is the same information found on the internet. Plus, KW's take forever to load. AIM has no KW's. But again, who needs them when you have the real internet. On to options, AOL really can't compare to AIM, when it comes to options. There's basically the same options on both, except for AIM's away from computer bot, formatting your screen name, and the file transfer option. And for everything that you change there's the Save, and Load buddy list. Which saves all of the information you entered, such as screen names entered, and all of the preferences you choose. All AOL has is a built in photo editor, and a text logger. All I have to say for this is paint shop, and copy and paste. It's all the same. So in this case AIM, wins again. Then there's the I-faces for AOL, and AIM. AOL is nice and pretty, and so is AIM. AOL has pop-ups sometimes, and AIM has a stupid advertisement sign built in all of the time. AIM's advertisement sign can be deleted simply by hexing the advert.ocm file. So all is good. So what's the big difference between AOL, and AIM you ask? Well it's basically an E-mail address. The simple ' @aol.com' is what people pay for. Pitiful, yes? It all boils down to the e-mail address. And God knows there are plenty of free e-mail services out there, the poplar hotmail, and juno, to name a few. So, it's not worth the money to pay for an e-mail address. You can still send files through AIM, just like you can e-mail them through AOL. So, once again, it's not worth the extra few bucks for a ' @aol.com' e-mail address. In conclusion, AIM beats AOL by a much larger margin, though there maybe more AOL users, than AIM users. I also think that if AOL wasn't here, people would be smarter, and would have learned how to properly use the internet, and not just use KW's. After all, AOL is not the internet, as you already know. I just though I'd compare and contrast AOL, to AIM, and then ask myself the big question of..."Why did the makers of AOL create AIM?"