I just found out that AOL mail still works

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I worked with a guy 10 years ago who had an aol address and wouldn't change it or even get a second Gmail or something so he wouldn't miss any important emails. And he admitted he was still paying. I signed up for an aol address to show him it was free.

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sumanep@reddit

Why he would change to gmail? Aol has 1000g for free and gmail only 15g

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reddit_tom40@reddit

I’ve had my aol email address since the days of dialup, and yes I quit paying them the day I moved off dialup, but I still use the email address. It’s free so why not. I also have a gmail address but I like using the aol one for things likely to send me spam.

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SterquilinusC31337@reddit

there was a period when you saw an AOL address and laughed at the person. Now when you see one you recognize your fellow antediluvians.

(I never had AOL).

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Efficient-Sir-5040@reddit

There was a period when you saw a word like "antediluvian" and laughed at the person. Now when you see one you recognize your fellow sesquipedalian.

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dysamoria@reddit

I get treated suspiciously, asked if I’m a bot or something, on social media sometimes because I’m somewhat formal in language usage, use high school level vocabulary, and occasionally college vocabulary (and I don’t immediately jump to sarcasm and rudeness). What a world.

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Efficient-Sir-5040@reddit

I get treated condescendingly, asked if I'm being rude or sarcastic, on reddit sometimes because I'm somewhat wrong in ascertaining an individual's ability to understand when I'm actually agreeing with the subject, use PhD-level vocabulary (including proper hyphens), and occasionally post-doc vocabulary (and I don't immediately jump to chastising someone who's actually agreeing with me). What a world, indeed.

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jessek@reddit

Yeah it’s basically the last dial up ISP available for a lot of the country and there’s old people who still use that

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meesersloth@reddit

My step mom was one of them. My dad had To work years to get her to understand the free version was damn near the same.

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Psychological_Bid777@reddit

My 75-years-old neighbor still uses AOL on his Gateway PC.

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gadget850@reddit

I remember when my CompuServe email migrated to AOL after the 1998 buyout.
https://www.compuserve.com/

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litsnsirn@reddit

I still have the free one that I use as my main generic email, I’ve had it since the very beginning.

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kaeptnkrunch_1337@reddit

In Germany, AOL was not so widespread. But you can recognize the silver surfers when they claim a T-Online email address as their own. You still come across Hotmail here from time to time

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Roselittletaur@reddit

My main email account is still an aol account. I've been using aol mail for 20 years now lol.

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AllReflection@reddit

Starting 20 years ago was still late in AOL’s relevance 😅

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TheLastREOSpeedwagon@reddit

People seem to have forgot that AIM was still big up until 2010 or so

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AllReflection@reddit

It was losing steam by 2004 when I had Trillian pointing to AIM, MSN, yahoo, ICQ, and god knows what else.

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Kal-ElofKrypton@reddit

Trillian was the best!!

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Espada-De-Fuego@reddit

Yeah!

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HairyPersian4U2Luv@reddit

Meebo was mine.

Google fucked it up. They bought it and basically shut it down.

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Guilty-Shoulder-9214@reddit

‘Member Paltalk?

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Shejidan@reddit

I’ve had my aol email for 31 years.

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netsysllc@reddit

I have a friend that works there. Was laid off at one point but went back and has been their early 30 years

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NoorksKnee@reddit

I have an old AOL email address from the mid-90s. It is completely compromised. Last time I checked, I had to delete thousands of spam emails. I only maintain it for nostalgia.

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TechnologyFamiliar20@reddit

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50f8ce64e4b0a0c4aab51a7b/1396242837378-G8OEPURYGNFCDJ8BNB8N/oculus_like.gif

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cc_hg@reddit

I had a Netscape account when I bought my first PowerMac back in the ‘90s. After Netscape ceased to exist my email automatically got redirected as an aim.com address. I'm still using it for weeding out junk emails while keeping the Gmail strictly between friends.

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bubonis@reddit

I was a beta tester for AOL when it was being ported to Mac, back in like 1991. I’ve never paid them a cent. My aol.com email address is still mine and still works.

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SterquilinusC31337@reddit

Man... I use to hack/abuse Q-link, the c64 precursor to AOL... Must have been cool to beta test AOL.

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bubonis@reddit

I admit it was interesting. Until that time my online life was text-based local BBS's, a PPP dialup connection to a local college (where I knew a sysadmin) so I could telnet to a few MUDs, and brief subscriptions to CompuServe, Prodigy, and the fun-in-concept-not-in-practice GCP Network. Having a functional and responsive GUI via AOL was pretty novel back then.

In retrospect, given what AOL turned out to be, there were some experiences that seem almost laughable by today's standards. AOL had chat rooms, of course, and each chat room could host (I think) 32 people at once. (Maybe 24? I don't recall.) The "Lobby" was your landing point when you entered chat, and if Lobby got too full it would automatically make a "Lobby 2" and "Lobby 3" and so on. It was considered a VERY busy day on AOL when the original "Lobby" filled up. I only saw it happen two or three times in the 3-4 months during beta testing.

Another thing was how responsive AOL was to beta tester suggestions. I remember making some suggestions about the home screen -- the first thing you'd see when you connected. The original release had a single "top news" headline on it and to see any more you'd have to go into the "News" section of AOL to look. I suggested that since they had all of this free space, why not put two or three headlines on the home screen? Like two days later I logged in, AOL pushed an update, and the new home screen now had three headlines on the home screen. Another time I commented that most of the icons throughout AOL were blue-themed. I suggested changing up the colors not only to break up the monotony but also to show different sections; a red icon would bring you to news, orange to chat, purple to email, etc. About a week later an update was pushed and suddenly all of the icons were color coded.

One thing which got a lot of people annoyed was the fact that AOL for Mac was originally going to be a separate entity from AOL for Windows (or more accurately, AOL for DOS). If you had friends on Windows you would only be able to interact with them through AOL via email. Worse, links and other AOL-hosted shared content would be different on the Mac side vs the PC side; your PC friend could send a Mac user a link to an AOL article but it wouldn't work. This generated a great deal of backlash and was one of the first things that was addressed.

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handamputation@reddit

this was nostalgic and interesting. Thanks for posting this!

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wyohman@reddit

"Must have been cool to beta test AOL."

These are words I never thought I'd see in a single sentence.

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valuecolor@reddit

You win the sub for today.

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MonkMajor5224@reddit

Wait until you find out about dial up

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jfoust2@reddit

I think it's been about eight years since I helped a client with dial-up.

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omgfoz@reddit

What? That recent??? I could believe 18 years, but 8?

When my phone switches to 4G nothing loads, I cannonly imagine 56k these days...

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PreparationPlane2324@reddit

I helped move a family friend to their retired forever home in a very rulal towm. while waiting for the satellite dish and service to come in, I set them up with dialup. I even went to aol.com just to feel that nostalgia again.

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omgfoz@reddit

Did you have to search using their specific predefined keywords?

Better, did you log into AIM?

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MonkMajor5224@reddit

As of 2019 there are still approximately 250k people in the US who still use dial up.

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jfoust2@reddit

I was stunned, too. Elderly rural customer.

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BronzeCaterpillar@reddit

I've got email from 2007 in my aol account. Although mine is @aim.com

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Rattlehead71@reddit

I started using AOL when it was released with Geoworks Ensemble (alternative GUI for DOS in the olden days). 35 years ago. I wonder if my email still exists? It's been decades.

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picardia@reddit (OP)

You might have luck but I read that accounts are deleted after 1 year of no logging in

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rufus_xavier_sr@reddit

I judge people with aol.com email addresses. I can't help it, yahoo.com as well.

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Huge-Enthusiasm-99@reddit

I still use mine!

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Away-Squirrel2881@reddit

Does it still say “WELCOME! YOU’VE GOT MAIL!”

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Inspector-Dexter@reddit

My mom asked me to set the "you've got mail" clip as her notification tone when she first got a smartphone and she's used it ever since. It always turns some heads when she gets a text message in public because for most people it's the first time they've heard that clip in years. She still uses her AOL email address from the '90s as well

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wAsh1967@reddit

My netscape.net email still works. Had that long before AOL took them over.

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DavidLaderoute@reddit

You've got mail...nah....spam!!!

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1leggeddog@reddit

Dude. I'm still using my hotmail address.

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CyGuy6587@reddit

There's still an AOL client: https://youtu.be/jUsym8iAWHY?si=Q27CUr_Zmx951HZU

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booknerdcarp@reddit

Crazy question - do you have to use their web interface or do they have IMAP options?

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Xenolog1@reddit

IMAP is available.

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teknosophy_com@reddit

Ha, "works" is a vague term. It functions but it just shovels spam into your inbox :D

But srsly, yeah some people still use it, and like Pioneer said, some people still pay for it! Back around 05 when they came out with free tier, they shrugged and said "Why bother telling the paying customers?!" so a lot of them are still paying. They also have a TON of bogus fake paid services, like McAfee and other fake security/cleaners.

I port my clients away from it gradually, but I'm done with Gmail and its hyperparanoia. I move people to mail.com or bluetiehome.com now. Both have this rare technology called Real Human Being Phone Support.

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Snowdeo720@reddit

We have a contractor in a rather technical role who uses an aol email address.

Blows my mind every time I see it.

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Lord_Waldemar@reddit

My dad uses an AOL address for his company for almost 30 years now

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mondalex@reddit

AOL and Yahoo mail are the same nowadays.

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phillymjs@reddit

They still have a desktop client, and there are people still paying for it, for some reason.

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YUSEIIIIIII@reddit

I use my @aim.com account regularly.

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DavidEBSmith@reddit

My Compuserve email address still works ….

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Darkurthe_@reddit

I know a couple of older timers who still use AOL. I'd say something but I still use my Yahoo mail....

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VTECbaw@reddit

I’ve had my AOL e-mail address since 1996. I still use it

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at-the-crook@reddit

if you miss the dial up tones, I can provide you with a 33k baud modem

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geforce2187@reddit

Y o u ' v e G o t M a i l

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Harverator@reddit

😂I had a free account because I used to work for them. If only I could remember my password!

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ChrisC1234@reddit

Yup... my AOL email account is over 30 years old now... DAMN I only use it for junk mail at this point.

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AviationAtom@reddit

Short email address. A domain name is something completely different.

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countrypride@reddit

There was a time I would have laughed you out of the room for having an AOL address.

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MechanicalTurkish@reddit

You can still get a dialup AOL account. There are people out in the sticks who can’t get broadband.

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Techaissance@reddit

I mean, my dad has had the same email address since the 90s. He’s like “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”

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JackieBlue1970@reddit

I actually deal with 2 different businesses that have aol email addresses.

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Sea_Quality@reddit

I registered one myself a few months back just for fun. Wish there were a way to get my original account back from the early 90s...

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TrannosaurusRegina@reddit

What happened to your original account?

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Sea_Quality@reddit

When I moved out of my parents house and got my own Internet service I stopped using AOL, they also switched, and I think there was a time where you could still use your old AOL account with aim without having the service but I never did that, so it's just lost to time. I could try registering it again to see if it isn't taken, but what would be fun is to go through are all my emails from 1992-97 which I am sure are long gone.

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Distribution-Radiant@reddit

Yahoo hosts AOL email these days, and they purge older emails.

I logged into mine semi recently a few months ago after a couple of years, everything was gone. Same when I logged into my yahoo email account.

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