Free dial-up number?

[KathyG]

Good morning,

Does anyone know if there's a number I can use in France for dial-up access? At the moment I use a number from UK2 which is a free number but it means I'm dialling the UK to get online which is costing a fortune. In the past I've loaded a Wanadoo disc onto my laptop to get internet access which takes it over completely so I can't do that again. Any ideas?

Kathy

[enid]

Before we came here full time we signed up to a wanadoo pay as you go account and used that when we were here.

[Hells Bells]

Kathy, to use wanadoo without it taking over you PC, you just need to add the telephone numbers and settings manually in the internet connection wizard. I think you can get these from the website. If you need to add anything from the disc, don't let it autorun, but use the explore facility.

[KathyG]

Brilliant Helen, didn't think of that! I'll check their website as the Wanadoo disc went in the bin a long time ago!

Thank you,

kathy

[KathyG]

Sorry Enid, thank you for your message too, somehow Helen's came up before yours the first time I checked it. I'll look into a pay as you go account as well!

Kathy

[Stu]

Kathy,

I use AOL here in France, the UK version. It's dial-up here too but I use a freephone number in France to access my Internet accounts. It's only for AOL users though. If you can get hold of a disc from friends/rellies in the UK, it's an easy set-up and the numbers present themselves as options for dialling in preference. It's saved me a small fortune I can tell you.

Hope that helps.

[Hells Bells]

Stu and Syb,that sounds interesting. My only problem with AOL is it's awful.

[KathyG]

............and like Wanadoo, it takes over your computer I've heard?

Thank you though!

Kathy

[Hells Bells]

it was worse than Wanadoo. I never had a problem with that, but couldn't get round the AOL settings. I think it used to install it;s own browser. I suppose the answer is to set up Firefox browser, and add the AOL number and account details manually. It shouldn't be too hard.

[greenfrog]

Try free.fr - it offers free dialup and unlimited email accounts as well as a website (i think...).

I used to use free for dialup before I got broadband at home. I've just upgraded to the full package with them - broadband, phone, tv - for my rental apartment.

And yes, as with most of these things in France, don't let the cd-rom autorun - i like my computer to remain largely english and find it annoying when iexplorer turns bilingual on me!

Elaine

[KathyG]

Thanks Elaine,

Free.fr looks like it's exactly what I'm looking for!!

Kathy

[Martha]

Thanks laineyfr!

Nice that free.fr give you the option of not using the CD and just sending you the details. I just ordered mine - hopefully we'll be online next time we're there!

AOL are also a nightmare to get rid of - I used to have it on one computer as you can dialup from almost anywhere on it, which was really handy, but now that wireless is so ubiquitous, I decided to cancel it which took literally months. I heard that they've since been done by the office of fair trading in both the UK and the US equivalent for this....