Specifications

www.pcmag.com SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 PC MAGAZINE
33
FIRST LOOKS
BY MARGE BROWN
A
merica Online is seri-
ous about maintaining
its lead in the battle for
ISP supremacy. AOL 9.0 Opti-
mized
elegantly incorporates
more custom sign-on informa-
tion, communication options,
security and parental controls,
and productivity features to en-
tice the 24 million existing sub-
scribers—not to mention pro-
spective users—to participate in
the
AOL community.
Perhaps the most noticeable
feature is the customizable wel-
come screen.
AOL 9.0’s enhanced
sign-on interface has a larger
video panel and brings to the sur-
face more video programming
for broadband users. There’s also
an
MSN-style QuickView page
of personalized daily informa-
tion services. You can select from
six welcome-screen navigation
toolsets (such as Nightlife and
Great Discoveries) and six corre-
sponding Stories and Features
categories.
Based on those welcome-
screen preferences, a new Quick
Start guide to
AOL content ap-
pears on the left-hand side of the
welcome screen (nicely balanc-
ing the Buddy List window on
the right-hand side). You can also
choose to bring to the surface
local sports events, local weather,
and Yellow Pages listings.
The redesigned interface
and icons for
AOL Mail, Radio,
Video, and Pictures bring dy-
namic multimedia content to
the forefront of
AOL. The AOL
channel structure has given way
to a more appealing system for
navigating the Internet beyond
the confines of
AOL.
AOL 9.0 adds permanent stor-
age for
AOL Mail: 20MB per
screen name (up to seven screen
names), for a possible total of
140
MB per account. We like the
new Microsoft Outlook–style
mail interface, with a file direc-
tory on the left-hand side of the
screen, a message list in the mid-
dle, and a new message preview
pane on the right. A small but
AOL 9.0: Custom-Tailored for Mass Appeal
welcome improvement is that
the mail client displays the file-
names of attachments below
e-mail messages for one-click
downloads. There’s also a new
photo-editing tool; we got good
results using it to crop and cor-
rect image brightness before
e-mailing a color photo.
Instant Messenger SuperBud-
dy icons—animated 3-D charac-
ters that come to life based on
common chat abbreviations—
enhance
AOL 9.0’s creative ex-
pressions. The service adds an-
other dimension to personalizing
IMs with expanded icons, wallpa-
per, and audio options.
Annoying instant messaging
spam (or SpIM) is addressed
with
AOL
’s new IM Catcher fea-
ture, which holds
IMs from un-
known senders in a scroll box for
review but doesn’t filter the con-
tent. Improved e-mail security
features include a new Spam
folder for depositing
AOL-fil-
tered spam. Users can review the
contents of this folder and mark
those that are confirmed junk
mail.
AOL’s enhanced spam-
fighting technology analyzes
confirmed spam to improve its
filters. You can also block access
to the Spam folder under the
Parental Controls section.
Other enhanced
AOL parental
controls include WebUnlock and
a revised online timer. WebUn-
lock lets a child request a parent
to approve access to a specific
Web site blocked by
AOL’s filters,
even if the parent is working at a
remote
PC. The enhanced online
timer lets parents allow Web
surfing only during specific time
blocks, which are set according
to the day of the week. Parents
can also use the new Cash Card
program to prepay into an ac-
count that their teens can use for
shopping online.
AOL 9.0 brings a few notable
productivity features, too. Chief
among them is the shared calen-
dar, which lets you see the cal-
endar entries made by others in
your household. You can also
use this feature with other
AOL
users to schedule events such as
team practices.
There’s no question that
AOL
9.0 is a compelling upgrade for
current
AOL users. But if you’re
deciding between
AOL and the
competition, note that Micro-
soft’s
MSN service isn’t standing
still, either.
MSN is slated for its
next major upgrade later this
year. We haven’t yet been granted
access to the new service, but
Microsoft representatives say
the upgrade will emphasize im-
proved communication and
browsing features, including
Pop-Up Guard (for controlling
pesky ads) and the Outlook Con-
nector (which will integrate
MSN
calendar, e-mail, and contacts
with Outlook 2002).
Both
AOL 9.0 and the upcom-
ing
MSN emphasize broadband
services with informative and
entertaining audio and video
content, parental controls, secu-
rity, and creative personalized
communications with station-
ery, fonts, integrated images,
audio, and video.
MSN currently
wins on price (broadband ser-
vice, $39.95 to $49.95 per month;
dial-up service, $21.95 per
month; with another
ISP, $9.95
per month), and promises even
more favorable service packages
later this year.
We’ll continue to hear of more
AOL enhancements this year,
such as the
AOL Journal, planned
for this fall. The
AOL-MSN com-
petition fuels innovation from
both camps, resulting in fine
choices for those who want
structured Internet content.
AOL 9.0 Optimized
Direct price: Broadband service,
$54.95 monthly; dial-up, $23.90
monthly; through another ISP, $14.95
monthly. Requires: 128MB RAM;
130MB hard drive space; Microsoft
Windows 98, 98 SE, Me, 2000, or XP.
America Online Inc., 888-265-8001,
www.aol.com.
llllm
You can customize the new QuickView page to suit your inter-
ests and locale.
AOL 9.0’s new welcome screen gives broadband users a wider
variety of video and audio content.