Get AOL email address

I'm torn between Yahoo and AOL email. My son has the former while the latter is used by many of my friends. Which email service would you recommend? Will AOL work for a 70 year old retired grandpa who's just started dabbling in computers?
Derek George

It's never easy to choose between two of the best email services. At the time of writing, both Yahoo and AOL offer the same amount of storage space (unlimited), attachment size limit and have intuitive easy-to-use webmail interfaces. Having said that, you should probably get an AOL email address. In case of problems and difficulties, you can always take advice and help from friends who use this email service.

Also, with POP3 and IMAP you can download AOL email to your computer. Since the messages now reside on the local hard disk they would be available even without a live internet connection. Yahoo charges $20 annually for this feature.

Get a free email at AOL

To get a free AOL email address all you need is a computer with a web browser program and an internet connection... not necessarily one provided by AOL. Below are step by step instructions with screenshots - please refer these when in doubt.

• Open a web browser program and go to the AOL home page - AOL home page
• If it doesn't look something like slide 1, no worries... simply locate the "Get Free Mail" button / link.
• Click on "Get Free Mail" [Slide 2].
• You'll now come to the sign up form [Slide 3]. By the way, if you see someone's AOL email account instead of the registration form, you need sign out first (the link is located below the AOL logo) and reload the page. If the form still doesn't show up delete the cache and the stored passwords or use a different browser program.
• Assuming you got to the form, enter your first and last names in the appropriate fields [Slide 4].
• The email address you'll get from AOL has the format USERNAME@aol.com. Since the part after the '@' sign doesn't change, the username is the only thing in the address that you can choose [Slide 5]
• Though the username can be anything you want, I suggest reading tips on how to get a nice username. Please understand that the AOL email service has millions of subscribers and you can only get a username when it's not in use by someone else. Once you enter your choice, AOL will check if it's available [Slide 6] and also offer suggestions which, in my opinion, are quite useless [Slide 7]. Spend some time with this and don't be disheartened if all your choices are unavailable [Slide 8]. Note, AOL username can be up to 16 characters long.
• You'll eventually get a AOL email username that fits the bill - [Slide 9]. Hurray!
• Each email account needs to be secured with a password; you wouldn't like sharing personal messages and information, right? The password is like a security key of your account and, hence, should not be something others can guess in a few tries. Read how to make a strong password.
  When you type the password, the characters will be replaced by dots or asterisks. Ensure that the password is entered correctly in the two fields [Slide 10].

I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping your AOL email inbox safe and secure. Each day I get tons of messages from desperate users who cannot access their accounts because they have either forgotten the password or are unable to recover/reset this information. The next few fields of the AOL sign up form are very important and should not be taken lightly. They can help you regain access to your account in case of loss of password. Continue reading how to make a free AOL email.