AOL Desktop Still Exists in 2025… Is It a Ripoff?

[@jayt1077]

The guy who recorded "You've got mail" recently died. His name was Elwood Edwards.

[@beardsntools]

Lmao I just looked him up.. doesn't look nearly as attractive as that voice made him seem to be

[@LDRTHM]

​@@beardsntools I did not just witness you do my boy Eddie dirty like that.

[@Lampe2020]

I just looked him up… He died one day before his 75th birthday? His life ended one day before he became 3/4 of a century old? That's just mean.

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

​@@beardsntoolspoor lad getting his looks ripped on after his passing

[@tymonsadventure126]

Thanks for making this video depressing

[@drewnewby]

It's a scam on seniors. They forget, and still have it and the charge every month a decade later.

[@ArchLars]

Yep, and the fact that these for profit companies do this is despicable I will never support these companies like Microsoft or AOL that prey on the elderly

[@looneyburgmusic]

Lots of seniors still use AOL, so it's not a scam

[@ender2912]

yeah my grandma was still paying for it 😭

[@drewnewby]

@looneyburgermusic I've been in PC repair for 40 years, it's a scam for this product. I have countless near my age that do not know it has a fee until I "remind" them.

[@toddburgess5056]

Still use it for what? ​@@looneyburgmusic

[@ivanmaglica264]

Target audience is 100% old people that are on AOL probably since before 2000.

[@iamgermane]

I remember getting a beta of Windows 95 from some guy in 1994 on AOL. She just entered a chat room and asked who wanted it!

[@preciadoalex123]

I mean it's been like 15 years since this been relevant how many of these old people still alive

[@SamsonSilvo]

Some old people genuinely believe that you still need to have an AOL subscription to send email or even use the internet at all.

[@iamgermane]

@@SamsonSilvo And some go to any retail store with a computer trying to get free tech. help!

[@data_abort]

@@preciadoalex123 You underestimate how long old women live.

[@vwestlife]

"Mix toothpate with Vaseline and just watch" sounds like an idea for a future video.

[@Randi_MyMan]

👀

[@ethans166]

Do it

[@hectormiguelperezgomez6612]

Besides the Sonic petition, watching a vwestlife's comment on a Michael MJD video is quite weird for me. By the way, cool channels, being a follower of both since a couple of years ago.

[@Aeduo]

Then the webmail going immediately to ads for adult diapers.

[@mkoopman172]

Sounds like something Strong Bad would do if he was bored

[@ciach0_]

So, one sketchy thing about the AOL Shield browser is that at some point they forked it and advertised it as Netscape (which they have full rights to) just to make it an adware

[@cameronbosch1213]

I think some other channels covered it, like Brodie Robinson & Enderman.

[@LandonEmma]

Yep

[@arobloxguym]

and Netscape is just chrome.

[@Ikxi]

Netscape existed before Chrome​@arobloxguym

[@Minto107]

​@@cameronbosch1213 Michael did it too in the same video as AOL shield

[@CallumDixon22169]

I can imagine the dev team for this in 2025. Just two senior devs who hate each other yet have worked on only this for the past 20 years in a forgotten corner

[@santiagovillavicencio8073]

I think the people who develop this look like creed from the office. And yeah, maybe they just work silently in a corner and everyone just forgot what they do.

[@googleforcedhandle]

tbh it just sounds like junior training, they probably put them there a couple of months to get used to the company workflow and then get moved to do proper work

[@kjrehberg]

Perhaps, but the current AOL Desktop Gold client is an entirely new piece of software written using C# and has almost none of the original AOL Desktop client code except for icons, email stationery, graphics, and the email client.

[@FernandoDember-w7h]

Also, what bug fixing? At this point they are making up bugs to keep employment 😂

[@bookvee]

They sleep there and send trained rats through the airducts to obtain food.

[@Madblaster6]

Wait there's a monthly fee and you still get ads?

[@tgheretford]

Increasing numbers of "as a service" offerings are moving toward the subscription plus ads and data gathering model. Where satellite and cable TV headed was the canary in the coal mine.

[@dms12345]

Ads on a paid service make me angry.

[@TheGuillotineKing]

Most streaming services have ads and monthly subscriptions

[@kloroformd]

@@TheGuillotineKing When that started happening, some foreign data center became really interested in the shows and movies I like. Funny how that works.

[@masterkamen371]

I've gone full piracy for streamed media, buying only from small artists, also using offline media and FOSS wherever possible. Not missed the alternatives for a moment. Writing this from a modified KZbin app with no adverts, built in sponsor block and with a visible dislike count. If pirating gets me the better service in every possible way, then why would I pay?

[@yaziyo]

The fact that there are ads for "Depends" in the AOL mail says it all about the expected userbase. And the irony of people on the feedback forum complaining about too many updates on software that looks like it was once used by Cleopatra as beautiful.

[@NationX]

Which makes me question if that Sonic the Hedgehog post was just a troll or if there really are older people who use AOL and are that passionate about the Sonic franchise.

[@eeveeblazelol]

my great grandfather still pays for and uses AOL on his windows 7 computer, and he still loves it

[@richfan10]

Yeah absolutely. There’s obviously a big market for older people whose been using this for many years so they’re happy to stick to what they know

[@smnrave]

great grandfather? Jesus christ I feel old

[@eqprog]

@@smnrave imagine how his great grandfather feels!

[@ArinStitch]

wholesome!

[@graphicsgod]

🤦🤦

[@wolfarix]

My grandfather has been using AOL Gold for years and I’ve been trying to get him away from it. This service targets elderly people and anyone else who isn’t technical savvy into thinking they need this. I’ve even shown him he doesn’t have to give up his email but still thinks that he needs to use this program. It’s a complete scam.

[@ingamingpc1634]

At that point he is senile He's at risk of people screwing him over and stealing his money it's time to start getting him away from the computer maybe giving him a Chromebook something simple that doesn't allow junk like AOL to be installed onto it

[@Refue]

I work in a IT support company, and one of our clients CEO is very old and still uses this exact browser. It horrifies me anytime I have to troubleshoot it for him.

[@skinwalker69420]

put seamonkey on his computer, it does basically the same thing without being atrocious

[@SarafinaSummers]

I am so, so sorry. It must be an accessibility nightmare for the blind. AOL used to have their own command set for JAWS as did Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

[@IAmNotAFunguy]

RIP Elwood Edwards, the "You've got mail" voice from AOL. Passed away November 6, 2024 at age 74.

[@kpjVideo]

I worked at a computer store and tonnssss of elderly customers used this. The funny thing is, as long as you had the installer file, you could just install it and login to their AOL account without paying for anything.

[@arsvi123]

Fair enough I guess, why invest in anti-piracy measures when your average user barely knows how to turn on the PC.

[@johnsmith8981]

​@@arsvi123lol right and if they have somebody who is capable of explaining it to them and cares enough to help them out then that person would also tell them to stop using this. It's the same vibe as when scam emails have intentional misspellings so they can target the clueless people not just the greedy.

[@SockyNoob]

When I worked at Geek Squad, AOL was on a ton of old boomers' computers and told us to make sure it was still there. Same with Outlook or Bell South. This was literally 2 years ago.

[@Ikxi]

outlook is still used though i hate it, cause at work it's the sole reason tbe SSDs get full cause you open it once and BAM 300mb of temp data after several years the drive just had 0 bytes free and that computer couldn't even fucking print documents and we had to use it

[@PliskinYT]

A lot of corporate jobs and schools still use outlook

[@Mr.SharkTooth-zc8rm]

If you are talking about the oldest Boomers (late 70's into early 80's) that live in some small town, OK maybe I can buy that. I'm a 70 year old in Long Beach, CA. I don't know ANYONE in their 70's that use AOL. Come on man...

[@corinthian129]

I went in the AOL chat rooms in 2018 I think. People were still there... I think the "Dating 60+" and "Christian Singles" rooms were the most active (with like 10 people in them). There was, amazingly, still a community of people playing hand-run trivia games which dated back I think to the 1980s and Quantum Link, but tragically I think that just ended with AOL chat and they didn't make it to the web. So this AOL Desktop Gold did used to have the last vestiges of 2000s and even earlier AOL. It's a shame they turned it off... I liked having that relic of the truly old online world still around.

[@MajorOutage]

trivia games were alive and well on IRC through the 2000s.

[@corinthian129]

@@MajorOutage Well duh but I was talking about one specific community on AOL's chat rooms

[@AlexTenThousand]

Welp, what's more 2004 than sending an e-mail filled with a picture of Avril Lavigne and bad art of a flip-phone from your AOL client?

[@mchenrynick]

3 Doors Down saying "You've Got Mail" is in there, too =)

[@kingtom]

I hope the Sonic VAs suggestion gets the Michael MJD bump.

[@kaloyandonev6088]

8:06 This is so unmaintained, half of the time loading the search page was just redirects. Also, I love that they still have the classic "You've got mail" sound.

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

1:04 - I enjoy that the MSN Premium system requirements are "Windows 7 and above" - then the actual requirements are *FAR* less than Windows 7's actual requirements.

[@robotortoise]

I remember I transitioned my mom from AOL to Chrome a while back by saying it was "basically an updated version of AOL". It worked and she transitioned over, and I'm glad it did. I didn't know they still charged money for it!!

[@lexluthermiester]

You should have done that with Firefox instead. Your mother would have a much better, more secure experience.

[@Olm-]

@@lexluthermiesterbot

[@stevethepocket]

Congratulations, you convinced your mom to install spyware on her computer. You want a medal?

[@AnEternalEnigma]

I did this for my Mom and she tried but she was yelling for me to put AOL back on after two weeks. She just doesn't want to learn anything else.

[@naturedetectiveminecraft6362]

@@stevethepocket Why ya'll so mad? It's just a web browser. I don't use chrome, but it's easy for old people. I have my grandma on a Chromebook, and it's cheap and easy for her to use.

[@MegAmi24]

The thing that gets me the most about the Sonic request is that they completely ignore the games, they ONLY mention the movies and cartoons. Because of this, they didn't include Ryan Drummond in the list of Sonic voice actors despite him voicing Sonic in the early 2000s.

[@kaitlyn__L]

And of course, he's the only voice I'd recognise! It's kind of funny how short of a time that really was, in hindsight.

[@_macrophage]

Yahoo/AOL knows what they are doing with this garbage. Every boomer I've talked to about AOL Desktop Gold believes this is the sole means of accessing their email. A lot of them didn't know they were paying monthly for this either. If anyone is still using AOL, they are minimum 60+ years old.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I imagine for some that might even be functionally true. The AOL web mail looks so different (a modern, Windows 10 ish aesthetic, Gmail clone) than the one in here (which AFAICR is exactly was it was around 2001-2005) they might not know where anything is! Of course, the best solution is to teach them how to get around the other option(s). But I imagine some might be stubborn enough to continue paying just to use the familiar layout (albeit that's surely only a small fraction of their actual paying customers).

[@juances]

-> installs screen capture protection -> still able to screen capture and upload the video online

[@ciach0_]

He was doing it on a VM

[@kFY514]

To be fair, he's running it on a VM and capturing from the host system, there's no screen capture going on as far as the guest OS is concerned. Kind of like if a physical computer were connected to a capture card instead of a screen - no software can do anything about it.

[@masterkamen371]

​@@kFY514You'd think, but many capture cards are unusable for getting video off PlayStation or blu-ray for example. You have to get a crappy/shady capture card to capture this "DRM" video. The whole "copyright industry" that pure greed has spawned is both impressive and horrible.

[@kFY514]

@masterkamen371 Well yeah, the software could try enabling HDCP to prevent external capture. But that wouldn't work over, say, VGA or something.

[@Cenentury0941]

@masterkamen371 Haven't verified it myself, but read in a different comments section that using a HDMI splitter can also get you a DRM free stream.

[@andrew.nicholson]

Bizarrely, my partner and I were talking about the “You’ve got mail” voice last night. The guy whose voice it is, Elwood Edwards, passed away this past November after having a stroke.

[@tougesubaru420]

“Partner” 😂

[@konatahater69]

@@tougesubaru420 what does this even mean?

[@sinni800]

I remember once upon a time when you installed AOL and "signed into" their online service (opened the software), it would essentially open a VPN if you don't use their dial-up. Yes, it created a virtual network connection... As an European for me this meant that I'd have a free USA VPN (since AOLs IPs didn't come with a good GEOIP association, they just all came out to AOL, USA). This was helpful to play some online games which were geofenced to the US...

[@GetJesse]

Does that still work? The AOL VPN.

[@Marrianne415]

My grandpa passed away a few months ago, and recently I was cleaning his house (where I still live) and I found some AOL sample discs from the 90's and early 2000s and I installed one of them just to play around with and it looked just like this.... (sadly I was really limited in what I could do without an account/subscription)

[@Marrianne415]

He was still using earthlink as his primary email but sadly we didn't continue the supscription after he passed, so its gone now...

[@CheapSushi]

@@Marrianne415 I remember using Earthlink as a kid, made me feel like I was cooler than other people

[@golem-of-thoughts]

@@Marrianne415 I'm pretty sure you still can do it somehow? If there's any actual need to do so tho.

[@JessicaFEREM]

what scammers. imagine paying $7 a month and still getting spammed with ads in the interface like that. disgraceful.

[@elevatorcentral]

omg this has sooo much potential to be a good browser if it was not just one big ass bloatware package the fact the old aol from the 90s was pretty decent as far as usability with lots of useful things baked in but sadly this will never live up to what it could be

[@mchenrynick]

12:49 "Keylogging malware protection built into Windows", while M$ embeds Recall and Co-Pilot...😕

[@compaqdeskpro5770]

Just a year ago, I redid an old 7th gen laptop, upgraded with RAM and SSD, fresh Windows 11 install. Customer wants me install MSN for his email, I'm like just go to the website, he's insisting it's something specific that he pays for, I am at a loss. I eventually find MSN Explorer and install it for him, he logged inand was happy that everything looked the way he wanted. I still walked away going WTF just happened.

[@justinepaula-robilliard]

Trust me, when you get to a certain point in your technology journey, to you everything makes sense, you are comfortable with the way it works, and when the laptop stops working, and the tech re-installs a new version and this changes what you as the user know, it really gets frrustrating.. I understand the WTF.. But trust me, it makes sense.. Older users cannot process change as well as younger users..

[@freedustin]

@@justinepaula-robilliard These new versions are getting out of hand! My guitar tuner app got bought out and forced update. It used to launch instantly and go straight to tuning. Now it sits on a launch screen showing the name of the new owners for almost a minute! Then it starts trying to interview me about what kind of songs I like. I just want to tune my guitar...you don't need a psychological profile on me to listen to a note and say up or down do ya?

[@justinepaula-robilliard]

@freedustin I want to set my own custom shortcut keys in Final Cut Pro...but no Apple sets what is what.. I had having crap forced on me...

[@bluekewne]

I have a feeling this is marketed for an older generation that used AOL back in it's peak but never moved with the advancement in internet & computer technology (who's most likely still using a Jitterbug, or an Android phone in it's simplified layout) I grew up using AOL as a kid in the 90s & while I look back at it with nostalgia, this has **zero** appeal to me (especially at $7/month for what's essentially a glorified browser that doesn't include Internet access)

[@Damaniel3]

That's exactly what it is. Get recurring revenue from them to 'get on the internet' (even though they're already paying an ISP to 'get on the internet'), and then try to get more money by scaring them into monthly subscriptions to cover just about every 'protect yourself on the internet' product in existence. Quite disgusting, really.

[@dyter424]

Just what I thought. If you look at 16:28, the first suggested favorite is a listing for retirement homes.

[@colinstu]

I wonder who will last longer, AOL or Boomers.

[@SidewaysCytlan]

Small internet. Fun to see you watch Michael too!

[@7U57HTJRYGHG]

@@dyter424 dead giveaway when the first result is retirement stuff then it is aimed at old people

[@dancoroian1]

19:43 I think this is a case of your expertise getting in the way of identifying the simplest and most likely explanation -- I'd be willing to bet that this person is being duped by malicious pop-up ads with misleading messages about browser updates! The fact that they're posting feedback for an AOL browser in 2024, combined with the fact that "sites keep telling" them to update (rather than the browser itself) even though it is a recent enough version, makes me think so.

[@physalis17]

too bad they got rid of AIM and the chat rooms. I would be tempted to try out AOL Desktop if they brought those back.

[@kjrehberg]

AIM and Buddy Lists are gone, but the chat rooms are still there.

[@kjrehberg]

Correction: I've learned that the chat rooms were removed a couple years ago or so.

[@ahmetdenizsezgin]

You know time is passing when Michael uses Windows 11 in his Virtual Machines

[@kendalljenkins9938]

I know quite a few people that still use AOL because their email service for business has always been AOL and there's no reason to change it. Unless they changed it in the last few years, United Airlines requires all of their employees to use AOL, and United pays for the service.

[@Code7Unltd]

AOL subscriptions, when they were popular, was just access to their dialup server. Of course now, people are paying for broadband and those that need dialup for some reason (no CAT5 ethernet) can make their own server, which has been commonly done by Dreamcast gamers in the modern day (because of that broadband adapter being expensive and having *only 3 games support it* when it was relevant).

[@andrewdubose9968]

Regarding custom sounds: If I recall, I changed mine so that Mike Myers would say “welcome baby” in an Austin Powers voice when logging in, Adam Sandler saying “ding dong the mail’s here” in a Billy Madison voice, and Donald Trump would say “you’re fired” when logging off.

[@plushifoxed]

i remember having the russian cat from "cats and dogs" as my logoff sound, so he would say "kick your dog" in a fake russian accent when you logged out

[@SarafinaSummers]

Oh that last one aged like milk in the sun. /laughing

[@freedustin]

my favorite custom sound to play in chat rooms was {S C:\con\con bye bye windows users who have chat sounds enabled. see ya after you reboot!

[@Big_Tex]

I wonder if I can resurrect my old account and get caught up on 25 years of spam email?

[@SarafinaSummers]

Ow. I just felt a few hundred grey hairs sprout in. /jk

[@CheapSushi]

that Nigerian prince has been waiting a hella long time

[@squiddu]

While I'm here early, shoutouts to AOL for ditching the super boring logo in favor of something in a font way closer to the late 90s/00s stuff, still looks modern but way more unique!

[@majoryoshi]

My grandparents still have this. I genuinely thought it went free or something like that, but hearing people are still paying for it, begs the question if they’re paying for it because they wanna keep their ancient AOL email

[@Lampe2020]

5:59 The "You've got mail!" has become a meme but is still in its original use today XD

[@kubev]

I was actually thinking a while back that the A.I. push in search engines could very well increase the appeal of Web portals and make a product like AOL as a paid service viable again.

[@DaveAdams222]

LMAO! I have the "You've Got Mail" sound as my notification in Mac Mail. I didn't realize AOL was still around and kickin.

[@SarafinaSummers]

I have a customizable star trek LCARS theme for my computer, exceeeeept? The "You've got mail!" for my incoming mail.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@SarafinaSummers no Majel Barrett saying "incoming transmission"? :P

[@BillyMichalakis]

sad fact: the voice behind of " you got mail " Elwood edwards recently died back in november

[@PeteJohnson1471]

Sure it was a female voice here in the UK, think she used to say 'You have eMail'

[@Hans-gb4mv]

You do know about the new cover sheets for the TPS reports, right? I'll go ahead and make sure you'll get another copy of that memo. Damn, at least 1 dev at AOL has been ensuring job security. But charging $7/month and still filling this thing up wit ads? Who is crazy enough to pay for that?

[@ashtonmiller-z1n]

well 7$ a munth for usa standers is in fact pretey darn cheap even for mid to low class income standerds thats for shure. thats bacly like only like cost as much as bascly 90-100$ ish a year bacly. but you only need to pay it in monhty chunks indeta of a yealry bugget so is actaly much easyer to pay the yearly amonut wihout straing your monutly pay check that much.

[@SammyJ_Studios]

My dad exclusively used AOL Desktop until well into the 2010s and refused to use anything else. Luckily we weren't paying for it because we still had the Install DISK. Even I kept using it just because it was familiar until 2011 or so when the outdatedness of it was really starting to catch up. Back then it was certainly not Chromium based and didn't even have tabs yet. It's absolutely wild that they make you pay for it now, for what's essentially a bunch of embedded webpages and not even built into the client anymore. Not to mention the old "Ads on what you're already paying for". Embarrassed to admit I would actually enjoy a client laid out like this, if it actually was it's own thing and WORKED

[@iamgermane]

I remember getting a personal email from the AOL mail server admin with their name on it, telling users they are doing maintenance!?!? This was in 1994 when it was not that big.

[@whtiequillBj]

its sad to see how far the mighty have fallen. I remember how back in the 90s' AOL had its own alternate network using keywords that was separate from the WWW network. They had their own intranet you could access!

[@ritual_transvestism]

Ive actually seen this in the wild, I work as tech help at a library and an elderly woman came in with it installed on her ancient computer, every other time I opened it it crashed the computer, and I had to help her cancel the subscription.

[@kFY514]

I think the intended audience for this products is boomers who want to use their computer _exactly_ the same way as they did for 30 years. For 7 bucks a month. That being said, I'm not from the US, AOL was never a thing where I live so there is no nostalgia for me, unfortunately(?).

[@ArchLars]

Feels like they should make their own distro instead. They could fork some kiosk distro.

[@Noxedwin]

Rest in Peace to the "You got mail!" guy.

[@DonnieTinaka]

stop spreading rumors. it still works

[@Crispeywater]

@@DonnieTinakahe’s talking about Elwood Edwards, who recorded the “You Got Mail!” Sound effect, who passed away on November 4th, 2024.

[@DonnieTinaka]

​@Crispeywater Im 63and been using aol for decade and he still sounds fine. You don't know what your talking about. He gave me a notification this morning infact. Stop with the morbid lies for petes sake

[@Crispeywater]

@@DonnieTinaka Elwood Edwards is the guy who recorded the Sound Effect, the voice on AOL is still there, but the voice actor passed away, so you’ll still hear the “You Got Mail!” Sound Effect, but the voice actor behind it isn’t alive.

[@SarafinaSummers]

He also voiced the "hello" and "goodbye" snippets for the program, from the sound of the voice.

[@cameronbosch1213]

I actually knew this existed. A _certain business_ that I know of actually used AOL business Gold subscriptions for email accounts for a LOOOONG time. And yes, because my father worked there as an executive (the equivalent of a CEO), I too have an AOL email (though I almost exclusively use it for spam nowadays. No, he doesn't know much about computers; other people at the company managed this (don't get me started on the Windows 2000 to XP to 7 transitions there).

[@Ordlnary_Gamer]

@@JohnZombi88somebody’s dad left them, what, you mad because you never got to experience one?

[@dhl-96]

@@JohnZombi88what’s a nepo baby

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@dhl-96 Yeah really. Why is this idiot so offended by this!?

[@urielc918]

@JohnZombi88 you do NOT know what nepotism is 😭🙏

[@cameronbosch1213]

@urielc918 Good thing the original reply was deleted. It was quite rude.

[@timcat1004]

It took me a year and a half in 1997 to close my AOL account and stop them from charging my CC.

[@vinny-g6s]

Imagine working as the dev team behind this, what a nightmare it must be to support such old and broken program.

[@yesterdaysrose5446]

> "You've got mail, Michael" I'm frankly disappointed that wasn't in KITT's voice. Talk about a missed opportunity!

[@cyber_pirate]

it’s funny bc i do have an AOL email just because it’s kinda funny to still have and send to people but even when you don’t use their official client, they find ways to send you ads for their products through your inbox. you can turn them off, but every once in a while they’ll still find a way push their ads to your inbox

[@xXBlueSheepXx]

3:05 I love the advertisement for Depends, they know their audience 🤣

[@user-gj1lb6xp3t]

What happens when you mix toothpaste with vaseline?

[@justinepaula-robilliard]

Yes....Great question..dying to know...

[@worminstool]

Ya get Brylcreem.

[@Hans-gb4mv]

A big mess?

[@gamagama69]

you get thrown into adhell

[@nadussee]

Seems like an effective ad if youre thinking about it. But also stupid enough that id expect to see it on the fake internet in like gta 5.

[@TheBsmith97]

I work IT, many many people think they NEED this software to even get on the internet.

[@SetariM]

When I worked in IT, the amount of people who still used Outlook 2007/2010 was... gross. So many people...

[@skinwalker69420]

​@@SetariMoffice 2010 is the goat, don't slander it like that

[@yotoprules9361]

@@skinwalker69420 it was but it no longer gets security updates, which is the problem.

[@bankruptsee]

@@SetariM That's because you could pay once and not have a subscription. Everything these days is a scam that requires monthly payments.

[@techbaffle]

It's like a time capsule! You'd think paying for AOL Desktop Gold would get rid of adverts, but instead is packed with their own, plus heaps of software senior citizens may get scared to install. It's not surprising that Yahoo now owns AOL, as they have so much in common. Though it is nostalgic, it seems AOL won't remove it, but also don't have the funds to properly update it. Maybe it's one of the things that Yahoo just doesn't know what to do with.

[@SonicPower]

the fact you need to pay for it and they show you ads when downloading a file

[@YouareDEDnotbigSurprise]

Even the video ID says "WHY"

[@JayseBoiOfficial]

WHY

[@Kill3rT0fuuu]

$6.99 a month AKA forever since you can never cancel. Have people forgotten you can't cancel it?

[@Code7Unltd]

Hopefully that FTC bill forbidding various dark patterns (specifically the 'roach motel' model) forces AOL's hand on that.

[@jonglass]

I'm going to guess that the average subscriber is older than me, or my age, lives in a rural area, where dialup is all they can afford or access, or are willing to pay for (not the same as affording). Believe it or not, I paid for AOL (the dialup version) until 2005, when I finally decided I no longer needed it. I lived overseas in a country where my internet was unstable, and when I was in the US, I traveled a lot, and couldn't trust to have wifi (yes, in 2005) everywhere we were. When I left the US at the end of that stint, I finally turned it off. I still have my email address, though, and keep AOL mail in a pinned tab for some reason... more for the yucks than necessity. I don't give out my aol address, so if anybody still has it, they haven't seen me since the 90s or early 2000s ;-)

[@NationX]

The moment I found myself reacting the same way as him to hearing “Welcome” and “You’ve got mail!” I realized I’m officially getting old

[@codyrowlands6324]

2:08 Toothpaste and vaseline, what a lethal combination! That can kill people!

[@PeteJohnson1471]

Dafunk is that about?

[@gamagama69]

man idk how theae shitty ads still exsit

[@branhicks]

Now I have to know what happens!

[@Cenentury0941]

@@branhicks You'll end up with a mess. That's about it lol

[@els1f]

Hearing that "welcome", "you've got mail", and "goodbye" blew my MIND! 🤯😱 I haven't heard that since I was a little kid ffs, and it was almost unsettling hearing it lol

[@CaptainM792]

It would appear that the ability to create new emails with the MSN address through MSN Premium is lost for the time being. Hopefully Microsoft would fix this feature in the near future so that people can once again create new emails with the MSN address.

[@dylnDOT]

Holy shit the comments on some of the feedback section is fucking comical. Was really hoping that you'd find the one moaning about AOL "Going Woke"!

[@MintleafCakes]

its so fun to see that somehow, some way, things like these are still kicking in their little corners of the net

[@wolf1438]

Would you do followup video if they added Sonic the Hedgehog voice?

[@morph-the-cat]

Thanks for the video. I'm glad you don't condense everything down into a 10 min video like other creators do

[@VitorBarbosa]

2:05 the ad 🤣"Mix toothpaste with vaseline and just watch!" Well now i'm curious..

[@KZavi]

So what happens when you do it?

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

What would your guess be​@@KZavi🤔

[@amckinley]

25:30 Seeing the modern windows file manager threw me for a moment lol, I was so immersed in the 90s/early 2000s UI I forgot this was modern windows lol. I guess it must have enough subscribers they dont want to lose to make it worth maintaining it. Would be interesting to know how many people pay for it

[@walpoleandworcester]

That blast from the past that somehow refuses to die! Even Internet Explorer went the way of the dodo and made way for Microsoft Edge.

[@Lethaltail]

The absolute irony of modern AOL being a sub-brand of Yahoo! Inc. and the mail now just being rebadged Yahoo! Mail, the same old mail I've had for nearly 20 years.

[@a-ug9yk]

It's still in operation either for the dedicated boomers who've been using it since the 90s or for those who forgot to cancel their subscription and left their card being charged for all of these years

[@Leahi84]

I've got the "you've got mail" as my email notification sound on my Google pixel. It's fun seeing people's reaction when they hear it. So much nostalgia.

[@k29king1]

Cant tell you how much “You’ve got mail” used to haunt my dreams.

[@HondaFan1989]

My grandma just got rid of this like a year ago after having it for over 25 years lol. It was actually surprisingly difficult figuring out how to cancel it.

[@noxious_nights]

I bet they just have like 1 single programmer on staff, who maintains this stuff so AOL can keep raking in money from old subscriptions.

[@kaasplankje]

So you pay monthly to get ads?

[@AndreyCazakov]

0:08 - Legend AOL 9.0 Optimized, realised in 2004, even Windows 98/2000/Me was supported.

[@BastetFurry]

Seven bucks and then still advertisement? What the actual?

[@grishka212]

You pay **and** you still get ads? That's gross.

[@TheErrorExe]

sonic needs to voice youve got mail

[@BobWiersema]

This probably runs on a 30 year old server in a closet that one semi-retired guy administrates.

[@3DJapan]

But where are the IMs?

[@LavenderRebellin]

25:50 an ad in the *download manager* is insane

[@AlkoholOgerLeonElektronik67]

I remember suggesting this video several years ago, when the NetScape video was uploaded. I found AOL generally more nostalgic

[@SonnikuYT]

You should consider doing The Windows 7 Games. Them is where the real nostalgia is at.

[@HikariSaiyan]

Surprised that AOL is still going around, I thought it was just a email provider now but I was wrong, th desktop app exists too! Also sweet, another MJD vid!

[@CookyMonzta]

Well, that's a big surprise. I thought America Online would charge $25 a month by now. I remember when AOL started out as *_QuantumLink_* on the Commodore 64

[@MS-PAINT-2024]

Free *. We all love to see that *

[@neuronic85]

Free* without defining the asterisk. Not a great sign, I'd say, though it's tough to make myself believe the hollowed-out cadaver of AOL would do anything unethical. They were such a shining beacon of ethics in keeping factory line workers employed in the production of their eternally mass-mailed trash.

[@Grulaz]

god i hate that new AOL logo

[@RaysGamingChannel2003]

Same the original one from the 90’s is better

[@Grulaz]

@@RaysGamingChannel2003 it looks so corporate so generic and no yellow guy? why??

[@RaysGamingChannel2003]

@@Grulaz ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@resolvanlemmy]

​@Grulaz the yellow guy was in AOL Mail, he even shows up in one scene in the video.

[@NINAandEscargot]

We've got classic AOL 4.0, 5.0, and soon 6.0 working, as well as all versions of AIM ;-)

[@upgrade1373]

With that amount of ads it should be a free service...

[@Aeduo]

Do they have Bert and Bort but no Bart for the "say my name" sounds? It feels like everything goes back to Sonic the hedgehog. I wonder what even keywords even work nowadays. I'd assume it's all just hard-coded in to the application for some kind of sense of consistency but I dunno when they would've last had their own kind of pages/windows service, however that even worked..

[@DankRedditMemes]

Only 720 hours? What a rip-off, the free trial used to be at least 1000 hours!

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

10:15 - AOL Keywords significantly _predate_ public internet service! Companies would (rarely but occasionally) put their AOL Keyword on ads (especially in computer magazines) going back to the _'80s_.