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It was always my opinion that access to the internet should be free; that is, paid for by adverticers and free
to the user. That was the case until last year when a falling stock market knocked the financial breath out of
most free Internet Service Providers (ISPs). As of today, only a handfull of free ISPs remain and the ones
which remain place an advertising banner on the screen. I don't blame those that have shut down, after all
any business must make a profit to remain in business. I guess it was too good to last.
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As of this date, the widely available free ISP's which remain are: Juno.com, Netzero.com, Dotnow.com,
address.com and bluelight.com (K-Mart). All five are totally free but some have negative aspects which
makes them less desirable. If you are interested, click on the "Free Internet Service Review" hyperlink
below. If you do want to take advantage of one of the free services, here is a word of caution; always
check local access numbers before signing up with any service provider. Not doing so may result in a long
distance telephone bill surprise. Local access numbers are given during the sign-up process.
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As it stands now, NetZero, BlueLight.com and Juno are loosing money. NetZero stock has fallen to about
$1 per share and has net losses off about 24cents per share. Bluelight.com by K-Mart is loosing money and
may soon become a pay service. Juno is suffering losses of about $50 million per year and it's stock
dropped to about $1 per share. A review I read rated NetZero with four stars, BlueLight .com with three
stars and Juno with two stars. NetZero seems to have good US coverage, great connection speed and an
easy to use interface. BlueLight.com performed about as well as NetZero but some users had problems
during the sign-uo process. Juno performed the worst; Users found Juno's service sloppy and unintuitive
with slower connection speeds and with frequent disconnects. I use Juno's paid Premium Service and and
have those same problems. I use the ShareWare software program "StayOnPro" available from ZDNet and
it helps to reduces the number of disconnects. Happy Free Surfing while it lasts!! Ed
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