Was it all too good to be true? Unlimited internet access, free email accounts, no more monthly bills, a banner ad on the bottom of your screen; it's all coming to an end now. 1stUp, the telecommunications provider for AltaVisa, Excite, and Lycos among others, is going out of business. Some of these providers are scrambling for new structure agreements, while others are just outright calling it quits.

This is leaving a huge dearth of Free Internet Access for us Mac users. Sure, we still have Bluelight, but since my initial review of them, they have gone down hill in a big way. Disconnects, slowdowns, unstable software, busy signals, etc. all make for a lousy service. Plus, after the first of the year, Bluelight will be reevaluating to see if Free Internet Access is really worth it. My guess: bye bye Bluelight.

That will leave two final providers of Free Internet Access, Juno and NetZero. Juno has a large subscriber base, so it has something to back up its free Internet venture. However, NetZero is like all the other free provides. They put a banner bar on your computer, and you get free service. This didn't work out for dozens of other Free ISPs, so why should it work for them? The only reason it could work would be if it had a huge influx of subscribers, do to the recent happenings.

However, neither NetZero or Juno support the Mac platform. Juno outright states that it has no intention of supporting the Mac, ever. NetZero on the other hand, has been promising a Mac version for over two months, with no sign of progress. That means if/when Bluelight drops out of this race, Mac users will have no place to get free access. This really sucks. Not only do PC users get everything faster, in higher quantities, and many times cheaper, but now they get for free what we have to pay $20 per month for, what a crock!

Hopefully, you are thinking to yourself, "what can I do to help Mac users who cannot afford Internet access, and relied on free access?" Well, As for Juno, I would say don't even bother. I wrote to them once, and they just shoved me off because I'm a Mac user. There's no point in arguing with them. On the other hand, NetZero has set up a specific email address so we Mac users can let them know how much we want them to support the Mac platform. I have written them twice (over the span of a month) with no response. Nevertheless, if even half of the Mac community writes them, voicing our concerns, we may light a fire under their butts so they can get moving.

Still, I'm not too optimistic about the Free Internet thing. Every provider is going out of business, and those that aren't seem to be soon. The real new millennium will bring us back to the era of $20 per month Internet Access. There may not be such a thing as a free permanent lunch, but it was fun while it lasted. Heck, by using the free providers for a while, it saved me approximately $180! While I'd like to continue saving that money, I'm just glad I had the opportunity to do so. R.I.P. Free Internet Providers.