This information is provided for our visitors who use AOL software as their primary Internet browser. ALL those who follow the instructions we give here, do so at their own risk. If you have any doubts about changing your browser settings, you may contact AOL technical support, 24/7, via the toll-free phone number they provide in the "Help" section of their software.

Those of you who use America Online's browser will find AOL has some settings automatically enabled, which can reduce the quality of the Internet experience for its users. These settings are originally enabled to allow for faster Internet viewing, especially when AOL's traffic is heavy. Some of you may have found while using the AOL browser, many pictures, graphics and backgrounds appear blurred, mottled, and/or have black lines through them. This is due to AOL's "Compress Web Graphics" setting being enabled.

It is possible to run another browser, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer, while dialed-in with the AOL connection, and we're told it looks fine in most cases. But in other cases, the same results will occur, and the use of AOL for viewing web content can be unpredictable at times.

Below is a set of instructions we have provided to help prevent this from happening to you. While the instructions are for AOL version 4.0 and 7.0, the methods are similar to those used for versions 5.0 and 6.0.