Free ISP

A 'free' ISP is a company which will provide you with a dial-up connection, usually through a local-rate phone number (0845), without charging you any monthly costs or setup fees. Free ISPs became extremely popular because there was no financial or contractual commitment to the ISP. You log on to the internet, surf for as long as you like, and pay for a local phone call when your phone bill arrives. Many broadband and subscription users will still keep a free ISP number configured on their computer, should their main access to the internet fail temporarily.

How do Free ISPs recoup their costs? Many free ISPs will charge premium rates for telephone support (up to ¡ê1 per minute in some cases), and a lot will change your homepage to their member 'portal' page, which is usually packed with advertisements and pay-per-click links. There have been some reports of free ISPs aggressively enforcing this, by installing programs or scripts on your computer which will change your homepage back to their portal page if it detects you have changed it to something else. Some Free ISPs will provide you with webspace on their servers for you to mount your own pages, and will add their own banner ads or pop-up ads on the pages you upload.