Orlando Web Solutions

Orlando Web Solutions was wants to assist you in your services especially when it comes to companies not conforming to the Internet Standards of most companies. AOL on many occasions has shown it refuses to inform the public of browser issues such as blurriness, distorted webpages and disabling other ISP's on your computer. The following will help you correct these problems on your service with AOL. I recommend that you find another more competent ISP that will conform to Internet Standards and not hide such problems. I have done these changes with many clients and companies who were unaware of the issues and can testify to the dramatically improved changes in image quality. Consequently, all of them have since canceled their services with AOL upon discovering these problems.

The AOL web browser is a version of MSIE. It is a version that has been modified in ways, and one of the ways is that it "compresses" graphics to an .ART format so that they will load marginally faster. The problem is that this compression happens by default. You can turn it off but people seldom do because they see no reason not to, or they don't even know about it! When you save images off web pages while using the AOL browser, they STAY IN THE .ART FORMAT - even if they are named with .gif or .jpg extensions. There is no paint program that I know of that will convert graphics FROM .ART format back into .gif or .jpg.

AOL users DO NOT EVEN KNOW these graphics are in the wrong format though, because when they put them up on their pages, their OWN AOL BROWSERS see them correctly. However, they show up broken to the ENTIRE REST OF THE INTERNET!

I think it's of great importance to get this information out, so that AOL users who intend to save images off of the internet for ANY USE AT ALL, will be able to turn off compression of graphics so that the images will be in the correct format.

Since first putting up that information, I've learned from others (see graphic below) how to turn it off:

For AOL3 for Windows 3.1, go to the AOL menu bar, click on: Members - Preferences - WWW - uncheck the "image compression" option and click OK.
For AOL 3 + up for Windows 95, go to the AOL menu bar, click on: Members - Preferences - WWW (or Internet Properties) - Web Graphics tab -
uncheck the "use compressed graphics" option and click OK. Then, you must clear your cache! or your browser will show you the website's pages from memory, not a fresh copy of the page.

For AOL 4, it is similar. Go to "My AOL", then to preferences, click on the "WWW" button, then from the box that comes up, choose the "Web Graphics" tab. Click on to UNCHECK the box for "use compressed graphics". Then, you must clear your cache! or your browser will show you the website's pages from memory, not a fresh copy of the page.
Clearing your cache (memory) files from the AOL browser version 4: Go to the 'MyAOL' icon, preferences, advanced, purge cache.
For AOL 5 is bad news, 6 is even worse! If it is working for you, that's amazing. Everyone I know have had to un-install version 5 and 6 and go back to version 4. Some even had to reformat their harddrive to wipe all parts of version 5 or 6 out of their system because un-installing didn't get rid of all of it. These versions caused more problems than I can possibly list here. Considering there is a class-action lawsuit against AOL regarding their version 5 browser ... that ought to tell you something! To find out more about the lawsuit, go to any search engine, type in "class action AOL" and you will find news articles, websites, etc. with information.

You should be able to save graphics in their proper format - and not compress them. If you want to view graphics properly (see graphic comparisons below) you must set your preferences, otherwise the browser is already at default setting that will really compress the graphics to the point that they look washed out or blurry. Most people don't know to automatically do this. [complain to AOL that they don't tell you about this.]

DO note, that any graphics you collected while your browser was set to "view compressed graphics" -- you will now need to GO and RE-GET those graphics from the places on the Internet, save them to your harddrive and upload them to your web server! Trash all the graphics you viewed/saved with graphic compression turned on.

Also ... because the AOL browser is NOT a full-version browser, AOL customers often "have trouble" viewing pages [or getting to certain sites, or be able to use a lot of forms/forums/features] out on the Internet. UNTIL version 4. That one is a LOT better, and most people have far fewer problems out on the internet with that one. If you are an AOL customer (or know someone that is), either get AOL's version 4, or get a full version browser and install it, please!! You can download Netscape or Microsoft's Internet Explorer [MSIE] from their website - free! When you're going to cruise the Internet, minimize (Just iconize AOL, hit the "-" button in the upper right corner) the AOL browser, open up your full-version browser and cruise away. When you're ready to return to within AOL, close your full-version browser, and "bring up" the AOL browser. This is the ONLY WAY that AOL customers with version prior to version 4 will have trouble free Internet browsing!! I promise you, you will see a BIG difference in the pages you view with a full version browser instead of the AOL browser!

If you are using the AOL built-in browser, you may see a difference in the graphics below. It will depend on how you have your preferences set. These are an example of how the wrong preferences can make graphics look terrible.


The graphic on the left is the equivalent of having compression turned on.	The graphic on the right is how it should look. And WILL look, when compression is off.

Please note: If both images look the same, then you have your
preferences set wrong for viewing this, and most other sites.

Note: the AOL browser will NOT reload the graphic once you have viewed it with compression turned on. You will always see it this way until you clear your cache (preferences - advanced - purge cache).