To FootThis remains very much unfinished, as you can see.
Note : I only have personal experience of using Demon.
Also note that this section is getting out of date, though the principles are still applicable.
For the home and small business (SOHO) dial-up connection market in the UK, there are Internet Service Providers (Demon, ...) and Online Service Providers (Compuserve, AOL, Cix, ...) and ...; with these one can get E-mail, newsgroups or discussion forums, file transfer, access to general Net-connected services, Web browsing, ...
Various forms of physical connection are available within the UK to the home or small business user, with various levels of performance and cost.
Different providers offet differing services :-
When joining, it is wise to make the correct choice among these classes.
Suppliers of interconnection services to the SOHO market within the UK include (in alphabetic order, with very many omissions) :-
- there are many others (see TV adverts, computer magazines, newspapers, uk.* newsgroups, The UK Internet List, Britain's first and most complete guide to all ISPs (founded by Craig Cockburn) - Link, a list of UK and Irish ISPs.
Most give national coverage at BT local phone rates, or less; some may not. Some offer full news/Web service, some offer filtered service. Most (?) now offer Web space.
When choosing an ISP, it is wise to consider where and how they recover their costs - your subscription, advertising to you, selling your E-address, expensive support calls, ... . Consider also who owns the ISP, and who actually provides the services - some "ISP"s are merely fronts for other businesses.
Remember that free, "throwaway" accounts are easy to abuse, and hence legitimate users may killfile the whole domain. You get no more than what you pay for, directly or indirectly.
For more information, see ???, ...
Depending on your supplier, when you start you may be given, or need to provide, a supply of well-chosen site- or mail- names, passwords, security phrases, secret numbers, etc. Be prepared, and record these prudently. Be sure that you will not later regret any unwise choice of user- or site- name when you realise that it has become publicly visible ...
If you feel that you may later want to change your connection-supplier, you might want to use, even ab initio, an E-mail redirection service (some via professional bodies, some supported by advertising, some requiring payment ?), so that you can make a fixed personal address available to the outside world. The following unchecked references have been given :-
Take care in setting up your addresses in your software. Note that E-mail names visible in News or on Web sites can be collected by abusers (who then send material which is always annoying and often offensive). To protect against this, some users choose not to give their real E-mail names en clair; any spurious name used should be syntactically valid and, to be kind to the system, (i) that of your own junk-file, or (ii) definitely incapable of delivery anywhere, or (iii) one you have been granted permission to use for that purpose. It must not have an invalid Top-Level Domain (my TLD is "uk") - and so (ii) may be unachievable. If your system permits, it may be wise to use, from the very beginning, distinguishable E-addresses for public (News) and private (Mail) matters.
It is unwise to publish full residential details.
See also the relevant parts of my Mainly About Using E-Mail, About News-Posting and On Reading Web Pages pages.
Consider the beginning of your usage as a trial; don't make anything too permanent, where it can be avoided. Modern Windows comes with MS Internet Explorer, and Mail and News facilities. MSIE is reasonably standard, though Netscape is often preferred. Consider, however, using alternative Mail & News software, such as Turnpike (which I use). Turnpike is inexpensive, and free for Demon Internet users (IIRC). Get a copy of WS_FTP LE, for FTP transfers.
A free ISP may be a useful backup to your preferred service. But be careful if loading connection software for a second or later ISP; I hear that it often upsets the prime connection, by overloading its preferences.
Many monthly charges vary around the £10-15 mark for unlimited connection, with a joining fee around £10-20; some suppliers charge in addition for connection time, though there are services which give limited connect-time for £7 or less per month; some have extra, chargeable, services. Then there is the effect on your telephone bill. Much can be achieved with two ten-minute cheap-rate connections per day, even a little Web browsing.
With added-value services, the financial consequences of a password breach (they will have your credit card number and there are a lot of very expensive search and retrieval systems) are practically unlimited.
If you take up a trial period with one of the less reputable suppliers and you give your credit-card number, you may find that you continue to be charged after ceasing to use the service at the end of the trial period. Beware!
When ceasing to use any such service, always arrange and ensure the termination of the contractual (including payment) arrangements before deleting the software and throwing away the glossy paperwork. I hear that the easiest way to terminate an XXX account is often to use the account itself, or to seek the method in the glossies.
Ensure, especially if dialling 0845 on a non-BT line, that your phone bill is correct - the "mobile" rate is sometimes charged.
Initial software may be free, and more can be loaded from the Net; but Turnpike (was £30, now £15+VAT from Demon; free to Demon users) works with many ISPs.
Be very careful not to give credit-card details unless convinced of the integrity of the actual (as opposed to alleged) recipient. One trick is for the sinful to detect users of new accounts, and E-mail as if from the accounts department of the account provider asking for a repeat of card details or passwords.
Except where indicated, this information is now old, though not necessarily invalid.
There was an official guide to Demon Email Addresses : Contacting Demon Internet :-
General enquiries: enquires@demon.net enquiries? Sales: sales@demon.net Corporate services: netsales@demon.net Web sales: www@demon.net Network sales: netsales@demon.net Demon Netherlands: sales@demon.nl General support: helpdesk@demon.net Auto responder: support@demon.net Commercial web support: www@demon.net Dispatches magazine: magazine@demon.net Account enquiries: accounts@demon.net Service abuse reports: abuse@demon.net Newsmaster: newsmaster@demon.net Postmaster: postmaster@demon.net Hostmaster: hostmaster@demon.net Press relations: pr@demon.net Personnel: personnel@demon.net
1998-09-30 : The WWW version of the Demon Newuser FAQ had a total overhaul in Spring, and now has another new home.
Demon users should FTP files from the Demon mirrors whenever possible. Replace ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/ by ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/mirrors/garbo/ which should give a quicker transfer; simtelnet and others. AIUI, simtel is mirrored as coast now.
2000-05-08: Configuring Services - by HTTP, FTP.
A general booklist provided (Dec 1996) by Wayne C. Wood :-