AOL

Ben has a twelve-year-old Mac that runs Entourage for his email client with AOL. But it has stopped working. Then it started working again a month later on its own, then stopped receiving mail a month later. Leo suspects that AOL may be the culprit. But also, Entourage hasn't been updated in years because it was discontinued by Microsoft in favor of Outlook. But Leo doesn't like that option either because both store email in one giant file, forcing Ben to rebuild it when it gets corrupted. It's a terrible way to do email.

Dirk is now using the new Samsung A50 mobile phone, but he's having issues with his AOL mailing app now. Leo suspects that the settings are wrong in the app, and you need to google your AOL app settings so you can input the right ones. Here's how - https://www.e-mailsettings.com/android/aol-mail-setup or https://help.aol.com/articles/aol-mail-mobile-mail

Sue is on AOL and is having issues with "Guce." What is that? Leo says it's adware by AOL that seeks to bypass adblockers in her browser. Guce is owned by Verizon, which also owns AOL and they don't like users using ad blockers or reading emails without ads. So it will redirect her to Guce.advertising.com. But many consider it a browser hijack, which would turn it into malware.  Go into the browser settings under extensions and see if there's an adblocker installed. She can either turn off the ad blocker, white list Guce or better yet, GET OUT OF AOL! Leo recommends Gmail.

Karen's computer got taken over by a scammer who convinced her that he was from AOL when she was having trouble with her account. Leo says that gaining control of her computer remotely likely gave him that control and the only thing she can do is backup her data, format her hard drive, and reinstall windows from a known, good source. If one needs help from AOL, contact them directly here - https://help.aol.com/products/new-aol-desktop

Harry is with Verizon and he wants to get a Blackberry 9900 phone for AOL since it doesn't work on his 9930. Leo says it won't work. Verizon was a CDMA based network and the 9900 won't work on that. So it would be a waste of money to do so. Leo says he should just change his email so that he can use just about any other phone.

Pauline is concerned that with Verizon buying AOL, her Yahoo Mail will go away. How can she back it up? Leo says that using POP3 mail is essentially backing up her email to her hard drive because it downloads the email directly to her computer. So it's already backed up.

Bob has Verizon and they recently migrated his email from Yahoo to AOL and they didn't bring over any of the email or the data. And Yahoo won't let him reset his password. Leo says that it's apparently the case that his email had been disabled. The irony is that Verizon may buy Yahoo, and if they do, they'll probably move him back. Bob may also try going directly to Yahoo Mail and logging in that way. He could also try account.yahoo.com and see if he can log in that way.

Bonnie has lost her address book through Verizon. Leo says that's why everyone needs to backup their contacts and why Leo recommends having contacts saved through a Google account. Verizon has moved all users to AOL for email, and it could be that her contacts got lost in the transfer. Leo says that Verizon has to have a backup of the contacts. And since they are doing a pilot program of migrating this over, they are likely to be very receptive with helping her. She might also try logging into mail.yahoo.com with her Verizon account. Then back it up and move it to Google!

Bob has a Microsoft account that he created using an AOL email address. He was checking his email and inadvertently got into an Outlook.com environment. He's wondering if he can back out of that without affecting his One Drive, Skype, and other Microsoft apps associated with that account. Leo says that by default, anyone with a Microsoft account, even if it's tied to another email address, has an Outlook.com account. Leo says he can just ignore that. He doesn't think there's any harm in that.

Eric has been a long time AOL customer. AOL recommended SlimCleaner Plus and he trusted it. Leo says it was an ad that AOL sold and Eric got bit. He tried to remove it and now he's getting popups saying someone is trying to access the account. Leo says that's trying to prevent you to uninstall it and that's bad behavior. Look for an uninstaller. At worse, you can backup your data and reinstall Windows. But ignore the popup and uninstall it anyway. And don't trust ads. Just because they come from AOL doesn't mean it's a good thing to get.