Are Mindspring and Earthlink real ISPs?

[Samuel W. Heywood]

Hello:

Are Mindspring and Earthlink real ISPs?  I have heard some talk
about how these outfits are beginning to adopt psuedo-standards
and that they are directing all their users to the bum-steerers.
Are these shocking rumors true?  Can you still get it on with a
normal operating system and can you still use normal browsers and
email clients if you subscribe to Mindspring or Earthlink?

Sam Heywood
-- This mail was written by user of The Arachne Browser - http://arachne.cz/