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Free_Internet_Whats_it_Really_Cost
| Free Internet: Whats it Really Cost?
If you're sick and tired of paying 10 or 20.00 a month to your
ISP for Internet Access, listen closely to what I'm about to
say. "You don't have to." Yep, that's right; you can surf the
Web totally free if you don't mind giving up some of your
precious screen real estate to banner ads.
Most of the Free providers want your personal information as
well and will ask you to fill out lengthy registration forms
when signing up to use their services. They'll want to know if
you're married, own or rent, if you have children, and so on and
so forth. Some of them will even track your surfing patterns and
sell that information to third parties.
According to Jupiter Communications, last year 2.5 million
people signed up for free Net access. That number is expected to
grow to over 10 million by the year 2003. That's a lot of people
who are interested in getting something for nothing.
Let's take a look at some of the more popular services and what
they have to offer.
Address.com: This free ISP tracks your surfing patterns for ad
targeting purposes. Downloading and setup are fairly simple. The
banner they place on your screen is 486x86 pixels, which is not
a bad size for this type of service. They also offer free email
accounts, free webpages, and URL forwarding.
FreeInternet.com: The banner size for this service when undocked
is 509x76. You'll be asked for a lot of personal information
when registering and your surfing habits will be tracked and
shared with third parties for targeting banner ads. Their
website offers free email accounts, weather, shopping, and its
own instant messaging system.
AltaVista Free Internet: http://www.microav.com Another free
dial up from the search engine Alta Vista. service. The banner
placed on your monitor is 502x84 pixels undocked. The sign-up
process is pretty simple and they don't ask for as much personal
information as some of the others. During setup you're given the
opportunity to select backup dial-in numbers in case the first
one is busy. This download works on Windows or Macs and is small
at 600K.
BlueLight.com: Did someone say K-Mart? You'd be right on with
this free dial up service offered from Yahoo and K-mart
combined. The registration process is pretty painful as they ask
for a lot of personal information. Your surfing patterns are
tracked and shared with third parties. The banner on your screen
measures 486x86 pixels. The download is large at 3.51 MB but if
you don't want to wait you can fill out a form on the website
and you'll be sent a CD.
NetZero.com: With claims of over 4 million registered users,
NetZero must be doing something right. Registration requires a
lot of information and the download is large at 4.76 MB. The
banner on your screen will be 800x88 pixels and you'll be forced
to click on it from time to time or face disconnection. Like
most other free services they track your surfing patterns and
share them with third parties. They also offer free email
accounts and customer support.
There are many free dial-up options to choose from. If you don't
like the ones presented here, go to
http://www.nzlist.org/user/freeisp for even more choices.
Whoever coined the phrase "you don't get nothing for free"
obviously never knew about free Internet access. As long as you
don't mind giving up some of your personal information and
viewing banner ads, free dial up is not such a bad deal. Even if
you decide to keep your paid ISP, a free dial-up account can
come in handy as a backup should your ISP ever go down.
Free Internet access can save you a lot of money, so what are
you waiting for? Take the money you'll save and buy your honey
something nice to help make up for all that time you spend
online and if that doesn't work you can always save up for a
good divorce attorney.
About the author:
Merle http://www.ezineadauction.com "Where the Best Deals in
Ezine Advertising are Made" Subscribe to Ezine Ad Auction
Authority and be kept up to date on new auctions as they're
added and much more subscribe@ezineadauction.com For advertising
information send mailto:advertise@ezineadauction.co
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