America Online

America Online or AOL is an online software suite combining a web browser, email service, instant messaging client and integrated toolbar providing a complete online experience for users.

America Online began its life as an online games service for the Atari and Commodore under the project name of Control Video Corporation (CVC); the service allowed users to download games from a central hub. The developers changed the direction of their work and throughout the 80s worked in-conjunction with Apple to provide a dedicated online service called Quantum Link. This online service was later moved to IBM PCs and when Quantum Link and Apples partnership dissolved, the Quantum Link service was renamed to America Online.

The very first America Online version for Windows was for the DOS platform launched in February 1991 and had no GUI and took up no more than 2MB of hard disk space; it included email and instant messaging services. During the early 90s America Online was released for the Windows 3.x operating system and consisted of a colorful main menu with a selection of topics to choose from, including politics, sports and education; combined with the original email and IM clients, this saw the beginning of the online software suite which we have today. Later down the years performance and stability were the main areas of improvements for future releases, along with much needed advances to the user interface and addressing security issues.

For compatibility AOL 6.0 is the last version to support Windows 95/NT/98/2000. AOL 7.0 or later for Windows XP/Vista/7.

Pros: All-in-one Internet service.

Cons: Crashes when several programs are open at same time, long installation process, bloated. It's AOL.