 
By John Morris Executive editor, CNET Reviews (11/11/02) For many experienced users, choosing between the just-released versions of AOL and MSN is a little like choosing between spinach and brussels sprouts. Do we have to? The buzz on message boards about AOL 8.0 and MSN 8.0 echoes that sentiment. One post, mocking Microsoft's new "It's better with the Butterfly" slogan, suggested a more apt motto would be: "It's better than a stick in the eye."
On the other hand, neither service offers any less than do major ISPs such as EarthLink. Based on my anecdotal testing over the years, they both seem to be just as reliable as competing ISPs. And they cost about the same; AOL is $23.90 per month, and MSN is $21.95 per month for dial-up access. (If you want to bring your own cable or DSL ISP, AOL is $14.95 per month, and MSN costs $9.95 per month.) Yet they pull it all together--content, services, and tools such as parental controls and spam blockers--in a way that no single Web site or competing service can match. All of which suggests that AOL and MSN get a bad rap. If you don't want to use either service, no problem--plenty of other options are out there. But for those who would benefit from an online service, the question remains which one to choose. Previously it was a toss-up, but with the release of these new versions, there is finally a clear winner. In nearly every key area of focus in these new versions--personalization, parental controls and spam mail blockers, and e-mail--MSN 8.0 beats AOL 8.0, thanks largely to more powerful software. One service doesn't fit all On paper, both AOL and MSN feature customizable home pages. But on AOL, this involves little more than six canned welcome screens with slightly different content, none of it personalized. On MSN, you can ditch the MSN home page altogether in favor of My MSN, which is completely customizable: you pick the layout, colors, and personalized content and services. (AOL offers a similar MyAOL feature, but it's hard to find and more limited; additionally, it can't be set as the default welcome screen. The company also says it has plans to personalize the welcome screens.)
Homeland security It's a sad commentary that some of the most prominent new features in the 8.0 versions are meant to protect users from the Internet and e-mail, rather than take best advantage of them. Both services include expanded parental controls starting with simple, age-based controls, but Microsoft has given a little more thought to how these controls will actually work for busy families. For example, you can bar specific sites or e-mail addresses (both services let you block downloads) and get a regular report of your children's online activities. AOL and MSN attempt to block junk e-mail before it hits your in-box, but I've found MSN to be more effective. After a couple of days, my AOL in-box is crammed with as many as 50 spam messages with offers I can't print in a family column; on MSN, the handful I receive are all automatically shifted to a Junk Mail folder. Speaking of e-mail, it's a mystery to me why AOL has stuck with a crude e-mail client for so long when most users have become accustomed to much more powerful e-mail features. MSN's e-mail client, by contrast, works the way e-mail should. You can preview messages without opening them, drag and drop them into folders, and read and write e-mail even while offline. Online extras The final edge for MSN 8.0 is the incorporation of online versions of Microsoft's reference and productivity software, including Encarta Encyclopedia, Money, and Picture It--features available only to subscribers. Microsoft even throws in a utility for transferring your settings from AOL to MSN, notifying your friends of your new address, and canceling your AOL account--how thoughtful. All of this hardly ensures that MSN 8.0 will be more successful than AOL 8.0. This is one fight where Microsoft is decidedly the underdog. More than 5 million users downloaded AOL 8.0 during the two weeks before the company even announced its availability. That's more than half the total subscribers to MSN. (AOL easily dwarfs MSN, with 35 million total subscribers.) By virtue of its much larger audience, AOL's community features are still superior and keep getting better with new features in AOL 8.0 such as MatchChat, which locates members with similar interests. Finally, AOL promises to slip in many of MSN 8.0's features, such as parental reports, in coming months. But for now, if you're looking for a new ISP and want the added features of an online service, MSN 8.0 is the clear choice.
John Morris is an executive editor for hardware and software coverage at CNET. Have a question for him? Let us know!
 
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