Free Internet Access UK - The Internet Blog

Helpful ISP Resource

2010-04-15T07:27:00.000-07:00

Finding the best information about Internet Service Providers, or even an ISP directly, can be a tough job. Due to this, it is always good to see people providing advice or helpful links that can aid people in there search.

The University of Sussex have recently added a page directing people to helpful ISP resources, which can be found at:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/its/help/guides/ISPs

Check it out and let us know your thoughts!

PS - You can also see their complete IT help guides at:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/its/help/guides/

Phase 1 Complete for Swindon's Free Internet Access

2010-02-22T03:27:00.000-08:00

The UK town of Swindon has just completed the first stage of the council's plan to offer free internet access, according to the LGC. The plan, which sees 3,500 homes served with the network, was initially delayed at the beginning of the year but has now been fully implemented.

The scheme for free internet access allows people to register for up to two hours of free and unlimited access, or they can chose to pay £9.99 for a 24/7 day pass.

Free access to the internet is becoming more and more of a talking point across the country, with several town's now planning to offer it to residents.

The Walkerburn Public Trust to Receive Free Wifi

2009-12-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we blogged about UK Communities to Receive Free Internet Access, and today The Walkerburn Public Trust has been revealed as one of the chosen communities.

Walkerburn is a small village on the Scottish borders, and will benefit from the free internet access for the next 3 years thanks to Freerunner. Peeblesshire News are reporting that the service will be installed in the village hall, allowing members of the public to bring their laptops along whenever they need internet access.

The Secretary of the Walkerburn Community Council is reported as saying:
"The free WiFi will help a whole host of people - from fledgling businesses and community groups to children working on school projects. It is exactly the shot in the arm that Walkerburn needs in these difficult economic times."

Read the full story at:
http://www.peeblesshirenews.com/news/roundup/articles/2009/12/18/395230-burn-to-benefit-from-free-wifi/

UK Communities to Receive Free Internet Access

2009-12-17T06:48:00.000-08:00

Free internet access is being provided by Freerunner to 46 communities across the UK following a competition launched in September 2009. The competition was held to find the most worthy communities to be granted free internet access, with the connection being paid for by a combination of advertisements and corporate sponsorship, according to the BBC.

"The Freerunner mission is to give everyone free access to fast wi-fi whether you are in a coffee shop in the West End of London or a community centre in the suburbs of Newcastle," - chief executive Owen Geddes was quoted as saying on the BBC website.

More information can be found on the Freerunner website at:
http://www.freerunr.com/community

McDonald's to Offer Free Internet Access

2009-12-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

The Chicago Tribune is today reporting that McDonald's will soon be offering free internet access across most of it's restaurants in the US. Previously costing $2.95 to surf, the web will now be available for free to customers in mid-January.

Read the full story of McDonald's free internet access at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-wed-mcdonalds-1216-dec16,0,1641922.story

McDonald's made the internet free in 2007 across it's UK restaurants, but it has surprisingly taken 3 years to offer free wifi in the US.

First coffee and now free internet - watch out Starbucks?

ISP Comparison - Find the Best Dial Up Providers

2009-12-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

A common misconception nowadays is that dial up internet is obsolete - but there is still a demand in instances where broadband may not be available.

Finding an ISP is a challenge in general, but finding the best dial up providers can prove to be particularly strenuous.

WHICH ISP is an ISP comparison website that helps users find the best internet providers, including a search tool for specifically dial up providers.

Having a trusted comparison website can make the difference when weighing up the options of dial up internet, so we strongly suggest you bookmark the WHICH ISP site.

http://www.whichisp.com/

Do you currently use dial up internet? What is your favourite provider?

Australia to Introduce Filtered Internet

2009-12-15T06:10:00.000-08:00

Australia soon plan to introduce internet filtering across the country to prevent users accessing criminal content online. The move, which is similar to China's content control system, will go soon go live after undergoing a 7 month test to try out the filtering.

According to the BBC, the filter laws will be introduced in August 2010, and will take roughly a year to implement

Read more about the controversial move here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8413377.stm

Do you live in Australia? What are your thoughts on filtered internet access?

The move is certainly causing quite a stir on Twitter, with users using the hashtag '#nocleanfeed'. Follow the Twitter reaction at:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=nocleanfeed

Wireless Free Internet Access Planned for England

2009-12-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

A new parliamentary campaign has today been announced to start providing the entire country with free wireless internet access. This suggestion for free internet has been made in an Early Day Motion tabled by Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle, and would look to follow Swindon's lead which is due to roll out free internet access in April 2010.

To read the full story visit:
http://www.lep.co.uk/news/Call-for-free-internet-for.5908540.jp

Free wireless internet would be fantastic to the residents of Lancashire (initially), and then the rest of the UK - but you can still benefit from dial up internet access services which provide free internet at the moment. 1-2 Free is one such service, providing free internet access through the use of a dial up number. The only charge incurred is the cost of dialing the number, which is added straight to your phone bill.

Read more at:
http://www.12free.co.uk/

What are your thoughts on a Britain where the Internet is free? Sounds pretty good to me!

International ISPs

2007-03-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you in the UK thinking of going abroad and looking for a dial up service whilst you're out there, Free UK ISP has been busy compiling a directory of recommended international ISPs. So if you are heading abroad and looking for a quality dial up ISP look no further!

Faster Mobile Internet, too

2007-02-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's tried knows that using your mobile or PDA for mobile internet access can be painfully slow, but Netfury will be offering a subscription service to speed this up too! The service is officially "coming soon", but those who register early will get a £5.00 discount.

Everything will just be getting faster in March 2007!

Netfury Speeds Into The UK

2007-01-25T02:20:00.000-08:00

The fastest and smartest internet compression tool for dial up internet will soon be arriving in the UK. Users of dialup know that the speed of their connection can be infuriating compared to broadband, however lots of people use dialup either because broadband is not available, or it doesn’t suit their circumstances. The arrival of Netfury means that you can have access at a speed comparable to broadband. And the best bit is you can keep your existing dialup ISP!

Netfury Accelerator delivers text and graphics more efficiently by using a variety of proprietary compression technologies that significantly reduce the size of Web pages and page elements sent to your browser. Compression is the main mechanism for accelerating first time page visits. Netfury also provides intelligent caching. This means that after you have visited a web page once, at subsequent visits it will load about five times faster than it would than if you were using dialup without Netfury.

Netfury also provides advanced protection against annoying pop-up windows and annoying 'in page' advertisements.

Netfury will be available for £25.00 per year and will be launching in the UK in March 2007. Watch this space for future updates!

Do Free ISP's protect you against viruses?

2006-11-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

Virus's can seriously damage your machine and spyware can slow it down and waste disk space (as well as being quite cheeky by spying on your online activity). However many people simply don't bother installing antivirus or antispy/adware programs, in fact I must admit to not doing this until about a year ago, and then pulling out my hair when malware kept re-adding itself to my registry. However, most people expect to have to pay to avoid viruses. Lots of subsciption ISP's place great emphasis on the antivirus and anti-SPAM services they offer, but is the same level of service provided by free ISP's?

Definately - yes. Many free ISP's will provide you with free anti-virus and anti spam protection, after all it is in their interests to protect their servers. Users still need to provide their own anti-virus software and any spy/adware protection software they want. This is the same for subscription ISP's, you are not getting any extra added anti-virus benefits for your own computer. Users need to be proactive and take steps to protect themselves. Many great products are freely availible on the internet for users to download. UK Internet Access has a complementary free Antivirus filter already enabled and offers a free SPAM blocker for it's POP3 email accounts. Many free ISP's charge for these services, so it is worth investigating when you are selecting an ISP. As for protecting your computer whilst using the internet Free Internet Access recommend AVG Free anti virus software. Personally I also use Spybot Search and Destroy, which is also totally free and will keep a check on malicious programs attempting to install themselves .

For more information about computer security check out the bbc website.

Email… the good, the bad, and the ugly

2006-09-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Everyone and their dog seems to have an email account nowadays, whether it's from your ISP, work or a web based account email is one of the most useful things to come out of the internet. The only trouble with it is... technology has moved faster than our ability to create rules for this new medium. Everyone who emails probably knows someone who’s got themselves into major trouble with it, particularly at work. My favourite story is of a girl who started at a new company, was told her email would be monitored for three months but still used her work account to sign up for an escort agency (complete with sexy photos), much to everyone’s amusement (except hers when she was sacked).

Still you don't have to be blatantly stupid to let email get you into hot water. As there is no universally accepted email "etiquette", what you write can often be misinterpreted or be unintentionally offensive. As there is no universally accepted email "etiquette", what you write can often be misinterpreted or be unintentionally offensive. If you want to make sure you don’t get it wrong, have a look at this email guide.

Before you start offending all and sundry, you need to get yourself an email account sorted out. There is an endless choice of email providers and you can get anything you want as an address with a bit of searching. After the age of thirteen, however, the option of having, 'iamthegreatestpokemonmasterintheword@somethingequallyridiculous.com' is not the main deciding factor when picking your email provider. You need something which is easy to access, you are able to pick up through MS Outlook or Pegasus or whatever email programme takes your fancy (a.k.a POP3 email), and gives you the option of having a few addresses for different purposes. Free UK ISP offers all this as part of it's free internet access service, which we think is pretty cool. Whichever provider you choose, just remember your email p and q's!

Getting you internet connection up to speed...

2006-09-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

Following on from my earlier post, it seems that many people are put off dial up as they think it’s synonymous with a slow connection, but having a dial up internet connection no longer means sacrificing speed. Netfury compression tools have developed a service which dramatically increases the speed of a broadband connection and 12Free ISP have teamed up with Netfury to provide what is probably the fasted dial up ISP in the UK, up to five times faster than ordinary dial up.

Physically changing the speed of your internet connection is impossible, and the sceptical amongst you are probably wondering how this works. Well…Netfury uses a technology called Content Sensitive Compression ('CSC') to individually compress each element of a web page or email content using various compression algorithms based on a nine Patent approved proprietary technology (please don’t ask me to explain that any further! Read more about Netfury.)

Interested? Check it out for yourself!

What is an ISP?

2006-09-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

Many people are unsure just what exactly an ISP is, or of the different ways in which they can obtain internet access. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a business or organisation that provides access to the internet. As well as providing access to the internet users rely on ISP’s for domain name registering, and email. At the dawn of the internet ISP's were ran by telephone companies, but now anyone who has the skills to do so can start their own ISP, which means much more choice (and perhaps confusion!) for the consumer.

ISP’s provide different ways of accessing the internet, from slower dial up services to faster broadband connections. Both have their merits although as online media more popular broadband is increasingly favoured. However dial up ISP are preferred by many loyal users and can be accessed from any landline in the world.

Generally an ISP charges a monthly fee to a customer, dependant upon the speed of the service, and other extras offered, although free ISP services are available. Check out Which ISP? for a list of free providers.

New Contributers

2006-09-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since this blog was updated so new contibuters Jamie Clouting and Emily Pattinson have been assigned to make sure new content is added, for all its readers.

Check back soon to see what we've been saying!!

A New ISP Purchase

2005-10-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, we've expanded. VirtuAffinity has bought a prime piece of Web real estate. An ISP Directory

A thorough and detailed list of Free ISPs worldwide. If it's not in there, get it added

Web Standards and Accessability

2005-06-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Just saw an article on the BBC website stating the reasonably belledding obvious but seeing as far too many UK businesses aren't aware of the bleeding obvious when it comes to operating online, I suppose it's a valuable piece.

More Stuff about us, ISPs, indexing and, y'know, stuff!

2005-06-02T02:25:00.000-07:00

You may gather that I use this blog as something of a toy. Our slightly more serious VirtuAffinity Blog is where our main "stuff" will be

Thoughts on Working the Room

2005-06-02T01:35:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been talking to a chap called Will Kintish. He helps people network. Not in the way that he introduces Mr A from such a company to Mr B from AN Other company, though he does do that, he trains people in the art of networking.

I've just persuaded him to start a blog. He has information and articles coming out of his ears. As part of our work with him. We looked at some niche terms for search engine optimisation. He suggested Working the Room was good one. I couldn't see it my self. It seemed too niche. However, we looked and there were quite a few searches for the term. It just shows that you can't pre judge how other people think or search.

Isn't Learndirect Great!!

2005-05-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

We are great fans of online learning and there isn't a lot better about than Learndirect. We tend to use a place called Manchester Business Consortium which is a great place for Learndirect Manchester

Google Loves Me

2005-04-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

I was tearing my hair out. I couldn't for the life of me understand why Google wouldn't index the forklift truck attachment site. MSN indexed it straight away but I figured that they're just keen. I don't see all that many people using MSN search. Obviously a lot of people will use them because of all the cash they spend on advertsing but hey, for now, it's Google I want. We'd done some gentle work on the site so that the spiders could traverse the site and emphasised the content so you knew you could get such as a Self Dumping Hopper from there, or a fork mounted scoop or so on and so on. I'm sure you see what I'm getting at. Anyway, last week I finally posted on a reputable SEO forum. Should have done it in the first place I suppose but who wants to admit defeat. Didn't make any diference anyway as Google spidered the entire site the next day. Beginning of the next week and traffic is double what it was and we're yet to start really tweaking. Did Google just want to see me Humble?

If anyone is into Harry Potter, I think perhaps more than a few, then Psychobel Jr, Tek Tek has started a blog. Let her know you exist

And talking of traffic, we decided that as we do ISP bits and bobs, we'd do some affiliate stuff. Just nice complementary products like Onspeed. Well were indexing fantastically for really great search terms and generating nice revenue without a lot of effort. I rather like that.

Did I mention that we're working on another of our Internet Access ISP s? We've got loads. Netfury is up and running and is fairly handy for domain registration and onspeed download and free email

And there's more...

We're also helping out Manchester based business networking guru, Will Kintish, with a bit of Web Marketing consultancy. That could be lots of fun. He's very good.

Getting a site indexed

2005-03-22T05:02:00.000-08:00

This stuff is mysterious. How do you get a search engine to pay attention to what you do? Is it regular change? Is it inbound links? How does MSN differ from Google? Is there anything hard and fast?

For instance, the previously mentioned Free ISP website gets indexed fantastically by Google. Lots of traffic but it gets almost nothing from MSN. However, we fiddled very slighty with a forklift truck attachments website and got indexed really well by MSN straight away but Google doesn't seem to know it's there. There are a few inbound links. The content has been changed over most of the site. Just a bit stumped.

Cheap ISP or Free ISP?

2005-02-09T01:13:00.000-08:00

Jeez, it's hard to please some people. Where did everyone get the idea that everything is free for ever more ? And that if the free stuff isn't free enough or slick enough then you get the chance to whine like a slapped....
Sure, the "free" concept was a great marketing idea but EVERYTHING COSTS SOMEBODY SOMETHING!!!. Even if you manage to scrounge every facility and piece of kit and service, it takes time to get that all together, and time is money.

So why am I rattling on? Well I work in the "Free ISP" field in the UK. It's a model that developed some few years ago by the Dixons group who started Freeserve (now Wannadoo) and some smaller players like ConnectFree (Now owned by Tiscali). The principle was so simple it was brilliant. Instead of charging £15 a month subscription fee , let your customers have everything for free but leverage a margin from the Telco who provided the dial up number. The dial up number was most likely an 0845 number which is classed as a local rate call wherever you are in the UK. The more minutes your subscribers were online, the greater margin you could leverage from the Telco. Great everyone is a winner. Telco makes money they never thought of. ISP makes money due to increased volume offsetrting the revenue foregone from subscription fees and the customer spends money only on thetime that they were online and they get free webspace, free email accounts, free webmail and so on. It's a nice and fair equation. It's the PAYG or Pay as You Go model.

But you wouldn't believe how much people grumble about anything. They moan because they can't just use webamail and not dial up so that we give them someting for absolutely nothing. They moan when they find out that the PC has been mysteriously accesssed late and night and there's now a porn dialler on the system. We ask whether they've by any chance got a teenage son and they just can't see the relevance. And so on

Anyhow thisis the sort of thing that we do:

Free ISP
Free UK ISP
Free Internet Access

Are you a whinging Customer? Then step up to the mark...