Jeff Groves wrote:
> There's no such thing as a free lunch. All the supposedly "free" services
> have some kind of strings attached. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth,
> equipment, and maintenance. They usually do this by selling advertising of
> some sort.
Well, yes, but in many cases the advertising works because they
also provide their customized login software (usually running
on Windows) with the account.
Now if you take the time to analyze the login procedure (which
you usually _have to_ do anyhow if you want to use Linux),
then you can login without _ever_ going through the portal
where most of the advertisement is. Oh, yes, they still
can send you ads in your E-mail, but not much ...
I am not really qualified to tell about the US situation,
but I am personally using this kind of service in France
without a problem, and without getting specific advertisement
(of course, many of the sites I do visit, also carry ads,
but that's another story ... hint: you can get rid of most
of it, on Linux at least, with a few filters in your ipchains).
--
Jean-Louis Debert [EMAIL PROTECTED]
74 Annemasse France
old Linux fan
