andrew dodson

For all of you AOL users out there, I have some information.

Several times, I notice (or hear) my Windows computer doing something when I’m not doing anything else on the computer.  I knew it had to be some sort of program running “behind the scenes.”  I decided to check the system processes currently running (ctrl + alt + del, and then click on “processes”).  There, I saw a pesky file called “AOLHostService.exe” seemed to be doing an awful lot, at times peaking at 25% of my computer’s current running processes (the most usually being “System Idle”).

I chose to end the process, and sure enough - that did it.  My processor stopped making the “I’m doing something right now” noise, and all was calm.

The lesson here?

I’m deleting AOL from my Windows computer.  I’ve never liked the controlling nature of the new Security Edition releases with the virus scanning, spyware scanning, etc.  Sure, it’s a nice gesture, but there’s other programs out there that do just as good of a job, and not in an annoying way (see: AdAware, and other good FREE anti-virus programs on the net - I use AntiVir Guard).  I don’t like things going on behind the scenes that I don’t have control over.

I have AOL on my iBook, but AOL doesn’t make a Security Edition for Mac.  It’s just a nice, neat version of AOL that doesn’t do anything annoying.  I’ll stick with that!