If you're on AOL, images on the web may be corrupted.

You may not even know that the quality is diminished and that you are not seeing the artwork as intended by the web designers, who have spent a lot of time and effort creating their images.  The problem appears to be only with AOL and is easy to fix.
 

AOL subscribers are not directly wired to the Internet.  Access to the web is through a series of AOL servers that filter what you see.
When the AOL filter detects a graphic image, the artwork is automatically sent to an AOL compression computer before sending it to you. Although this saves you a few seconds, the result is the mutilation of the images.
If you see distortions, colour bands, black or grey blocks (mainly with JPG or JPEG pictures), this is because the graphics are being viewed with the AOL internal browser while the graphics compression is turned on.
If you see very wide images that look squashed width wise, it's because JPEG's wider than 640 pixels will be re-sized to a width of 640 pixels after being compressed by the AOL software.

The good news is that you can disable AOL graphics compression, after which you will have access to the same quality of art enjoyed by the non AOL world.
If after disabling AOL compression, you feel the wait for the images to load is now too long, you may re-enable AOL graphics compression at any time.
 

Here is the solution:

Note: Disabling the graphic compression feature on AOL will increase the time it takes to load art (the first time). In most cases, load time is increased by seconds, but if you have a very slow modem or connect to AOL during heavy traffic periods, you may find the wait period too long, in which case you can just repeat the steps below and re-enable compressed graphics.
 

AOL 3.0

  1. After you have logged onto AOL, go to the Task Bar at the top of the screen and find the icon button, which says "My AOL" and click on it.
  2. Click on the "Preferences Guide".
  3. Click on "The Web".
  4. Click on "Web Graphics" (Macintosh users skip!).
  5. Now un-click "Use Compressed Graphics" to disable the compression software that distorts art in the AOL browser.
  6. You must close AOL for the changes to take effect.  You may restart AOL normally and the images should now be crisp and clear.
AOL 4.0
  1. After you have logged onto AOL, go to the Task Bar at the top of the screen and find the icon button, which says "My AOL" (or "Members" in more recent versions of AOL) and click on it.
  2. Click on "Preferences".
  3. Click on "WWW".
  4. Click on "Web Graphics" (Macintosh users skip!).
  5. Now un-click "Use Compressed Graphics" to disable the compression software that distorts art in the AOL browser.
  6. You must close AOL for the changes to take effect.  You may restart AOL normally and the images should now be crisp and clear.
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Troubleshooting

If you followed all the instructions on this page, and your graphics still look distorted, don't panic.

The most common problem related to the AOL graphics compression lies inside the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. Like a virus, the AOL Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) get inside the Microsoft browser and hijacks the ".jpg" and ".jpeg" extensions, converting them to AOL ".x-jp" extensions, distorting the graphics viewed in the Microsoft browser, even if you are not connected to the web through the AOL browser. Fortunately, this does not occur in any of the Netscape browsers.

Here's the solution:

  1. Open the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser and at the top of the page click "View".
  2. Click "Options"
  3. Click "Advanced"
  4. Click "Temporary Internet Files" (your cache)
  5. Click "Settings"
  6. Click "Empty Folder", which deletes all the temporary Internet files in your cache, including the AOL files, which have hijacked your system.
  7. Click "View Files" and take a look around to see if there are any nasty AOL files still lurking in the browser.  They usually have the green of blue AOL pyramid icon.  If you spot any, delete them by hand.
  8. Close all these windows and that should fix the problem.

Macintosh users:

  1. Open Internet Explorer and at the top of the page click "Edit"
  2. Click "Preferences"
  3. Under "Web Browser" click "Advanced"
  4. Click "Empty Now" for deleting the files stored in the Explorer cache, including the AOL files which have hijacked your system.
  5. Click "OK" to return to the browser's main window and try again.  The problem should be fixed.
Ideal Monitor Settings:
(this site was updated and is best viewed with a resolution of 1440x900, but also considered is 1152x720)

You may be experiencing trouble with web graphics because you have an early model computer with low resolution or low colour setting. Most web pages today are optimized for 24 bit colour and 800x600 screen resolution.
On Windows 95, here's how to check:
Click the following sequence:
Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display
Once inside the Display window, click Settings and confirm or change the following settings:

  1. Color Palette = True Color (24 bit)
  2. Desktop Area = 800x600 pixel resolution
  3. Font Size = Large Fonts

    Note: After making adjustments to any of these settings, restart your computer to allow the changes to take effect.

Also, did you know you can use Netscape over your AOL connection? It shows the WWW the way it's meant to be seen.  Just establish the AOL connection, start Netscape, and surf to...


http://www.armin.freeuk.com/

(copy and paste the above address into Netscape)

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