ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, Freewwweb
ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, Freewwweb
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I don't remember how I found this free dialup ISP in late March 2000, but unlike free Internet access provided by NetZero and 1stup, Freewwweb didn't have a desktop client. Therefore, it was relatively easy to configure PPP on Linux to dial in and connect. It was also very simple to add a couple of lines to my Junkbuster blocklist to get rid of pesky ads.
While the Freewwweb configuration instructions say that you need to set your web browser's home page to http://home.freewwweb.com (which redirects you to a special Freewwweb portal at snap.com) or your network connection will stop, they're lying. The connection works fine even if you set your home page to something else (even a blank page).
Performance is often atrocious and the modems often fail during the dialup process (BUSY, NO CARRIER, etc.). In addition, there are usage limits (total minutes per month and also individual sessions are limited to five hours). I didn't realize this at first and thought there was just some sort of mix-up with my account, but a technical support person responded to my query by explaining the usage limit and suggested that I simply open another account. I ended up opening a total of four accounts.
Around late June and early July 2000, the news server, which never worked very well to begin with stopped working for good.
Today FC reports that Freewwweb filed in bankruptcy court for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors. What a way to declare independence!
Today fetchmail retrieved a very special e-mail from the still-functional POP3 server:
Return-Path: sbd@freewwweb.com Delivery-Date: Sat Jul 22 05:00:13 2000 Delivered-To: user@localhost Received: (qmail 24286 invoked from network); 22 Jul 2000 05:00:13 -0000 Received: from localhost (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 22 Jul 2000 05:00:13 -0000 Received: from pop3.smartworld.net [216.70.64.28] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.4.3) for user@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 21 Jul 2000 22:00:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by ims-1-in.smartworld.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id JAA08297 for user; Fri, 21 Jul 2000 09:26:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 09:26:31 -0400 (EDT) From: sbd@freewwweb.com Subject: IMPORTANT: Freewwweb Service Termination Dear Freewwweb Subscriber, Your Freewwweb service is no longer available. We're pleased, however, to announce that we have reached an agreement with Juno to continue providing you with completely free Internet access and free e-mail-you can even continue using your Freewwweb e-mail address! All you have to do is download a copy of Juno's free software and use it to create a free Juno account. Any e-mail sent to your Freewwweb address will automatically be forwarded to your Juno account-just follow the instructions you see the first time you use the Web through Juno. If you're currently forwarding your Freewwweb e-mail to an address other than Juno, that forwarding will no longer work once this change takes effect. We will only be able to forward your e-mail to Juno addresses. [boring Juno configuration instructions omitted] We're confident you'll enjoy Juno's service-Juno has been in business for more than 5 years, and millions of people use their service every month. Just download the software now, create your Juno user name, and you'll be using the Internet for free again in no time. Many thanks for your support, Steve Daum CEO, Freewwweb
Apparently, Freewwweb thought they could make sufficient advertising revenue by using Snap.com as a custom portal. However, they were only generating approximately $180,000 per month; meanwhile, WorldCom was billing Freewwweb $1.2 million per week for use of their network. Hmmm, it wasn't such a great business model, eh?
Somewhere around July 20, the SMTP server stopped relaying outgoing mail.
I'm guessing that many subscribers have fled to Juno or other free ISPs since the traffic seems to be considerably lighter and I'm getting the best throughput from my 56K modem since my early months with Sirius Connections. The SMTP, NNTP, and POP3 servers are now dead or aren't receiving connections. I guess it's time to find another free solution until I can get DSL hooked up....
My four Freewwweb accounts to three discrete point-of-presence local access numbers are now all dead. I booted Windows and tried some of my other free PPP dialup accounts (AltaVista/1stup.com and freeDEM.com). They all suck performance wise. I had tried NetZero too, and quickly clobbered that account (although I picked it back up later).
Okay, admittedly this isn't a really a comment about the now-defunct Freewwweb service, but I did leave the dead link intact and today I received in my inbox:
From: spammer
To:
Subject: Broken link in yourdomain.com
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 22:30:28 -0500
There appears to be a problem on this page of your site.
On your page http://yourdomain.com/linux/isps-who-suck.html
when you click on your link to http://www.freewwweb.com/
you get the error: Domain name lookup failed (may be a transient error)
As recommended by the Robot Guidelines, this email is to explain our robot's
activities and to let you know about one of the broken links we encountered.
LinkWalker does not store or publish the content of your pages, but rather
uses the link information to update our map of the World Wide Web.
Are these reports helpful? I'd love some feedback. If you prefer not to
receive these occasional error notices please let me know.
"Spam Master"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Spam Master"
President
Spammer Inc. ("Always watching the Web")
http://seventwentyfour.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wow! I am so impressed by getting e-mail from a 'bot. It's so personal, so results driven. I could put a bogus URL from the offending company's web server in this page, if only to hopefully put their spider software in some sort of infinite loop. ;-)
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| Last modified on
Wed Jan 1 18:29:18 GMT 2003
by tarahertz@yahoo.com |
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