Using firefox as browser for AOL Broadband

[Chief]

Hi guys

My folks got hooked up with AOL broadband and I went over today to get them all sorted, wireless network etc.

Everything works great but does anyone know if you can use AOL broadband without the crappy AOL browser?

If I open firefox it automatically opens the AOL browser so that you can log in!

Is there something I'm missing. Once the shitty AOL browser is open and minimised firefox works fine but when you close the AOL browser it also seems that you close down your connection to the net!

Driving me nuts, I must be missing something

Any help would be appreciated

Chief

[kisinkiet]

lo chief,

I used aol for some years, because it was the only ISP to offer a 24/24 7/7 connection for a fixed duty here.

also, I have a little experience about it, even if it's a bit old. Well, it was mandatory to use the aol 'browser' to connect on the internet. I used opera, but the aol browser was always open.

once a day, I discovered a tool wich etablish only the connection to the internet. something wich use maybe 5 mb on the HDD, and the same in memory, not like the fat aol tool. I heard it's used by aol ppl (maybe tech ppl, dunno) to connect on the internet without using the 'browser'. anyways I had to tweak the ini files, because the tool was 'designed' only for USA, but I succeeeded

well, even if I remember this from 2002, I guess this tools still exist and can work correctlly. unfortunatelly I doesn't remember it's name.

on another side, I heard that ppl using linux have an aol connection. so I guess there is a tools to connect, as they use the inet too. it can be an alternative solution ......................

cu

[computer2slow]

Found this having never have to had to deal with AOL I can't say if it works.

The key is to log in to your AOL account and stay logged in. Some configurations might require that you do something within the AOL framework every hour or so, to keep the connection alive, but my experimentation suggests that if you're using the Internet at all through the AOL wire, that's good enough for it to keep you online.
To browse the Web with Firefox, for example, connect to your AOL account as you normally do -- and this works with their free 1000 hour accounts too, by the way -- then leave that program running and launch Firefox. It'll automatically use the AOL account as your dialup Internet access and you're good to go.
The only wrinkle here is that it appears that AOL still sporadically blocks outbound mail connections from other mail programs (us tech types call this "SMTP" for the simple mail transfer protocol). I get around the problem by using an SSH Tunnel but if you're persistent on your send attempts it eventually seems to work without any fuss.
Oh, you can't use the AOL Address Book or other AOL features in these third party programs, so if you want to have user@aol.com as your email address, you're in a bit of a tricky situation. I believe that there are third-party email programs that can access your AOL mailbox, but I'm not sure. Perhaps someone else can comment on that?

source http://www.askdavetaylor.com/can_i_u..._with_aol.html

or

1) Launch AOLTray - Usually found in Program Files\America Online 9.0\
2) Right click on the AOL icon in the system tray and select "Start AOL dialer".
3) Enter your Screen name and password if prompted
4) Once the dialer icon appears in the system tray, right click on that and select "dialer Settings".
5) Check Save Passworsd and Automatically sign on.
6) Under Default Dialer, Click AOL Dialer to set that as default.
7) Save settings.
8) Go to Control Panel > Internet Options > Connections
9) Select "Dial whenever a network connection is not present"
10) Click OK.

In the future, you shouldn't need to use AOL Tray to launch the Dialer

source http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewto...014752#1014752


Good luck.

[Chief]

Thanks guys, I'll give this a go next time I'm at my folks house.