AOL is the way to go.

Or maybe they’ll find out about it on their own when they get a coaster in the mail from them every 2 weeks…

I think it really depends on what you want out of your Internet Service Provider. AOL on one side would rather you stay away from the Internet and only interact with its service, while charging you a premium to do so. Most other ISPs would rather let you have full unfettered access to the Internet, allowing you to use whatever browser and e-mail client to do so.

AOL is good for newbies, which is why I put my Grandma on it. But once you get the hang of what you can do on the Internet, you would probably be further ahead to save a few bucks and get another ISP.

P.S. A little tip: Never use the e-mail address provided by your ISP. Sign up and get a free one from one of the web based providers. This way, if you ever decide to select another ISP, you don’t have to worry about losing your e-mail address.

My local mom-and-pop ISP recently sold all of their dialup accounts to Earthlink.

Initially, I wasn’t too bothered by it; I figured all dialup was mostly the same. Now I know better.

With my old ISP, I would consistently connect at 50666bps, and often at 53333bps. Now with Earthlink, I connect at 33333bps, and 34600 on a good day. Plus, my actual throughput with Earthlink is much less…

With AOL, I connect at over 50kbps consistently, with good throughput. But, AOL has a nasty of habit of nagging you "You’ve been on-line for 30 minutes. Do you want to stay connected?" Yes, thanks, I do.

So, my point is that even though us techo-wonks tend to deride AOL, one could do a lot worse.