By @Macarlo
Team OS/2 registered

 Hi All.
I'm here in order to denounce another dirty stroke: some free ISPs (free?....) are forcing Windows agreement. These free ISPs are using dedicated dialers only under Windows; if you are using another operating system such OS/2 you can't use the free ISP. I'm Injoy Extended Client registered user and I want use my Injoy because it is the best in show in the dialers universe. Last year I denounced here that AOL was forcing Brazilian users to join Windows, Steve Case dismissed the Brazilian AOL exec. Now I expect that DOJ examine the free ISP case...and ask Microsoft.

Photo above shows IG web site: try connect it using Injoy...

Incredible, but here is another case for DOJ investigates Microsoft. Sincerely, I'm using Windows 2000 and judge it an excellent operating system, but dirty strokes not with me, man!!! Is Microsoft using this newness - the free Internet Services Providers - in order to force people to join Windows. Yeah, man, is true! I'm living in Brazil, South America, and several free ISPs has been started here his activities. Including one that is really fine, called Super11 (also the telephone call is free and you can stay connected continuously without expend a cent!!! - using it I sucked all StarOffice versions for all platforms quickly and easy...). The only problem, man, is I was forced to use Windows. Because this free ISP don't accept another operating system; if you use UNIX, OS/2 etc you simply can't perform a correct connection: or the connection is not performed or is performed but anything can be transmitted or received! If you try connect Super11 -or another free ISP- using Injoy, you can connect, but no data passes!
By default free ISPs don't supply his DNS numbers (you are encouraged to download an "Installer" that have the ability to insert the free ISP name in the head of your browser (MS Internet Explorer) and the DNS numbers will be automatically allocated for you. Using appropriate tools I discovered the primary and the secondary DNS of all these free ISP that are running in Brazil but it is for nothing. I put the DNS numbers into my Injoy -and also tried the IBM dialer and Ilink/2- and was good-for-nothing.

If you have not the appropriate tools you can follow a tip from the OS/2 user Alejandro Alvarez in order to detect the DNS of a free ISP:

"If you have Windorf 9x , try to connect to your ISP , and run winipcfg.exe (it sounds like the DDNS Monitor ) , then press Advanced... and read the DNS field, copy it and put it number into the DNS field of INJOY."

Only if you are using Windows dialers - from Windows 95/98 and from Windows NT4/2000 - the free ISP accept the connection. Revolted, I contacted some OS/2 users in the OS/2 Supersite Mailing List (Hardware and OS/2 Users) and the problem apparently was clarified: these free ISPs are using dedicated dialers only under Windows. Here is some words from the OS/2 user John Brush about this question:

"I have tried a few of the free ISP's and found that they use dedicated dialers only under windows. I made a quick look at the files and ini's and the usual places and couldn't find the info needed to dial up from something other than Windows.

Do you know the secret to extracting the addresses from these dialers??
:-) Which ones are you trying to connect to?

Just curious as I would like to try a few of them and see if any are worthy of an OS/2 user :-)"

A requested a help from the OS/2 user Karen Mansbridge-Wood and she says:

"I wrote to all of the major free ISPs in the US to let them know how little I thought of this.  The one I find most inexcusable is NetZero.  NetZero's software is Java based, and for them to add in the requirement that Internet Explorer be installed on your hard drive, even if you don't use it as your default browser, is insane.  There is no reason why NetZero's front end should not be importable to OS/2 because it doesn't depend on the Windows environment, but having the IE requirement hardcoded into it certainly does make running it prohibitive for OS/2 users.  FreeWWWeb is the only truly free ISP in the US which is fully compatible with OS/2.  If you go to their site they have a section that provides instructions on how to set up *your* dialer to use their system, and the instructions are easily modified for use with the OS/2  alternative providers dialer, or any other OS/2 dialer.  There are a couple of reasons FreeWWWeb is superior to the others:  there is no required front end flashing you advertisements while you are on line, they provide a news server so that you have access to the Internet newsgroups through their service, and they office high space access (even cable) throughout almost all of the US and Canada including some very small communities you wouldn't think a free ISP would support.  I can't complain about them at all."

Some free ISPs accept Mac OS over there Windows but Mac is the only one exception! If you have at this time the some problem with free ISPs I encourage you to email me reporting it.

But in Italy this problem not exist as you can see here in the message below, from the OS/2 user Nino:

"Hi,

here in Italy there are many many free internet providers but they all work
perfectly with OS/2. 100% of them support the Linux operating systems so you
have no problem when using OS/2.

Nino"

Also in Netherlands no problem with OS/2 as you can see - the OS/2 user Jan H. Henkes Jr. says:

"In the Netherlands there are too many free providers to list. One
amongst others is free access through the HCC (Hobby Computer Club), the
largest association in it's kind in the world with over 130,000 members.

Free ISPs in France that I'm currently using are:

www.worldonline.fr
www.libertysurf.fr
www.free.fr
www.fnac.net

Those are operating nationwide and some of them even in several European
countries.
Numerous other free ISPs do local areas like bigger cities, etc.

None of them gives any problems with OS/2.

The only ISP giving me (big) problems was a payed subscription to
Club-Internet with 20 hours of phone connection included.
At last I found out that their WinBloat'9x 'only' telephone number does
work fine for OS/2,
but the number they provide for 'other OSes' than Viru$9x assigns a
0.0.0.0 GWY IP address, and although connection was successful I were
never able to make the i-net apps find the nameserver.

Kind regards,

Jan"

In Spain also have not problems as you can read in the e-mail below, from a OS/2 user:

Here is Spain and I get running Airtel and
Alehop (two ISP providing free access) with Warp 3 (red
spine, the very old) and the IBM dialer, Compuserve is
also working despite some recent changes.

Cesar Recasens

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 Free ISP? Grip it with Stay Connected!

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