On Thu, 11 Jan 2018 07:54:55 -0500, wrote:



ever since they implemented HTTPS (secure sites), I can
not access most websites. It's a long and rather complicated process
involved, which I dont care to discuss in detail. I will only say that
due to my location, I have very limited access to the internet. The
newsgroups work, email works, but the web is extremely limited.
Something to the order of 1 out of 30 websites actually load properly.
And google does not work at all anymore, nor does Bing. (Yahoo search
still works though).


Yikes !
I thought that I was quite late going from dial-up to high-speed -
about 12 years ago - dial-up was becoming futile back then !
And because my first high speed was cellular - very expensive ! -
I still needed to carefully watch my usage.
One thing that helped greatly - I bought a used laptop and made use
of the high speed at the library and coffee shops. - once or twice a
week. I would save links and email a list to myself - used a
"download helper" to save humourous and music Utube videos
and other stuff like big pdf instruction manuals etc.
I didn't think that google was ever slow - but all the top hits that
the searches returned would be fancy paid-for sites - so I learned
to scroll down and look for edu or wiki or less commercial hits.
John T.

At my location, dialup is all there is. Max speed is around 36KPS. If
that's not bad enough. connecting with Windows XP limits connection to
about 10 minutes use, before connection fails to transfer data. But
connecting with Windows 98, works fairly good, but limits browsers to
Firefox 3.x. (which of course cant handle HTML5 or most HTTPS, and gives
constant script errors).

I cant even use a cellphone at my location, NO SERVICE. The only way I
could get fast internet would be to spend around $150 per month for a
satellite dish, which could require installing a tall pole to mount the
dish, at a cost of several thousand to install. I'm retired and on a
fixed income. The dish is NOT gonna happen.

Yea, I have an old laptop with XP, which I can use if I drive about 6
miles. I can use the library, a fast food restaurant, or a local bar to
get their WIFI. I can even use that from in my car if I park close to
the building. I too make a list of videos I want to download and save
from utube, and download large PDF manuals and other large files from
there. But I cant post to the newsgroups from them places. Being winter,
I cant sit in my car spending hours in freezing weather to connect to
many websites that are posted on the newsgroups, nor am I willing to
waste time typing inside a restaurant, and there is no way in heck that
I'll type from inside my car.

The bottom line is that I have very limited internet access. At home I
really only have my email and the newsgroups. So, when I ask "What is a
Cob light", I'm only looking for a sentence or two, cuz I want to learn.
That's how the newsgroups once worked, long before the web even existed.

One note of caution, Google is a dangerous as far as spying on people,
and Facebook is probably worse. I dont care to use FB, but I was using
google till they began asking me to prove Im a real person. Apparently
they were not able to track me to their satisfaction, because of my slow
connection and use of Win98. I just said "goodbye google"....