We all know AOL is crap, but now that it’s free crap, Mr. Pogue of the NYT has penned the requisite rundown of what’s good/bad/pointless about new FreeAOL.

Highlights include:

ONLINE BACKUP All free AOL account holders get five gigabytes of free online storage for backing up data, transferring big files to other people, and so on. Windows users even get a free backup program that automatically copies selected folders to this virtual hard drive (called Xdrive) on a schedule. The software is clean, easy to use and extremely convenient.

CUSTOM E-MAIL ADDRESS: AOL lets you choose an address ending in @aol.com or anything else you want, as long as it’s available — so you can be david@thepogues.com or david@poguefamily.com. Then you can set up other addresses with the same suffix for friends or family. (To enforce its “one custom address per person” policy, AOL requires that you sign up using a cellphone number. It insists that it does nothing else with this information.)

Right. We trust AOL with all of our personal information. Cute, but we’ll pass.—MEGHANN MARCO

Free AOL Stuff, Courtesy of Bubble 2.0 [New York Times]

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