Free ISP for NetLink Guide

[grolt]

Okay, so I wasted the better half of a day trying to get my NetLink online for free, and finally, after several painful hours, it works. Here's the short guide for those wanting to connect quickly.

Step 1: Sign-up for a free internet account witn NetZero. You only get 10 hours a month under this subscription, but for those wanting to use the net simply as a testing ground, this will work fine. It is tough to find on their page, so click here to begin the process:

http://account.netzero.net/s/landing?ac ... e&cf=wwwb1

It requires no credit card information or anything personal at all. There is however, one very important stipulation: your username must be only three letters. Anything else will be too long for the NetLink interface to handle!

Step 2: After you finish signing up, download, install and run the small little NetZero program. Normally, you need to have this running to connect to the internet, but using the following steps below, we'll circumvent that step. This of course violates the user agreement, but I'm sure they won't notice.

Step 3: Once the program is started, enter in all your login information and such. At one point it will ask you to pick the number you will connect to. Do not pick the ones in your area code, as they probably will no longer be available for free subscribers. If you want to check if your area code offers a free connection option, use this link below:

http://my.juno.com/s/numbers

The number you entered displays results in the Numbers for Free and Platinum Members section, then you are in luck. Don't even try if you are Canadian, there are no options, not even in the big cities.

If you still need a free number and long distance is not an option, use this one:

(408) 429-1700

It is out of California, and I've tested it - it works. To add it to your NetZero account, instead of clicking a local number option, there should be an area code scroll bar in the middle right, click it and drag it to 408, and the above option should work. You are now all ready to dial out. But don't yet.

Step 4: Go here and download Dialguard 1.0:

http://www.stormloader.com/dialguard/dialgrd.zip

You'll need this to sniff out your actual login and password (the ones you used to signup are just foils). Unzip the file to your desktop, and then run it. Now you are ready to dial in using the NetZero interface on your computer.

Step 5: Attempt to connect (using the NetZero interface on your PC) to the ISP number you determined in Step 3. Before you connect, Dialguard will do its thing and warn you about the outgoing call. If you look at the pop-up box, it should give you some very important information. Copy down the login and password carefully, these will be your login and password settings you will enter in for the NetLink. Accept the connection, let NetZero dial out and connect, and then if it connects successfully (it should), then you have one more step before you bust out your NetLink.

Step 6: After you connect through NetZero on your PC, go into your Start Menu, then click Run, then type in 'CMD'. It should run a small DOS window, wherein you enter the words 'ipconfig /all'. After doing so, it should tell you your PPP information for your NetZero account. Copy down two similar DNS addresses, you will also need this for your NetLink information.

Once you have that information, you can disconnect, uninstall NetZero and trash Dialguard...that's the last time you ever need to use your PC to dial-up.

Step 7: Run the browser on your NetLink, go into Options, then Network Preferences and input the phone number to dial, the DNS addresses and any other special information that will help you dial out.

Go into the Personal area and input the login and password you just wrote down. Notice how you have no more room to enter your login after you enter the final character? That's why we made the account only three letters long. And now the final step...

Step 8: Connect!


Every site I made it to was full of broken images and undisplayable information (even this site, sadly), and the connection was painfully slow. But it was certainly a potent piece of nostalgia.

I'd love to hear of an easier way to connect online, but until then, this should keep all you folks happy!

[Zandengoff]

Has anyone gotten this method working in any of the dreamcast browsers? It worked on saturn and i have heard reports that this works for dreamcast, but on planetweb 2.0 it cuts off my typing at the last .net part of the user name. Has anyone tried this and if it worked what browser were you using?

[KronixKid22]

Cool, thanks for the info! Stupid spam above me though

[Rogue]

I thought it wasn't that hard to connect usign a free ISP.

I've registered in Yahoo! Free Access but couldn't find the telephone number cause I don't have a modem on my computer and the Yahoo Dialer don't show any information and options due to this...

So I've tryed the iG, another free ISP, and it worked very well!
Just get the phone on the site of the ISP, registered an email, got my actual DNS numbers (I'm on ADSL right now) (I didn't tryed leaving this blank, but I think this is not necessary...) and everything works fine!

I did not have problems with the lenght of the login, mine is seven lettters and worked very well.. are you sure there's a problem with that?

Well, I thought it was pretty easy, but I couldn't access this site... I don't know why... =(
Which's your browser version grolt?

[Zandengoff]

iG is Brazil only. i would love to use it, but i am sure the long distance on that would be through the roof. All of the free isps left in america are ad based or very regional. The ad based isps do not allow you to connect unless you use the actual username that is computed by the free isps dialer when you connect. Most of them tend to be quite long. This works on saturn because the user names are withen the max characters allowed by planetweb. On the dreamcast, the settings are stored in the consoles firmware and the logins for free isps are much longer than the avaliable space to store them, preventing you from logging in. An example user name is 27oC0HnU9:8.NQ4:qoi@netzero.net. They are computed based on a hash every time you login. Sadly the dreamcast username space is 3-4 letters short, otherwise it would work.

[grolt]

I thought it wasn't that hard to connect usign a free ISP.

I've registered in Yahoo! Free Access but couldn't find the telephone number cause I don't have a modem on my computer and the Yahoo Dialer don't show any information and options due to this...

So I've tryed the iG, another free ISP, and it worked very well!
Just get the phone on the site of the ISP, registered an email, got my actual DNS numbers (I'm on ADSL right now) (I didn't tryed leaving this blank, but I think this is not necessary...) and everything works fine!

I did not have problems with the lenght of the login, mine is seven lettters and worked very well.. are you sure there's a problem with that?

Well, I thought it was pretty easy, but I couldn't access this site... I don't know why... =(
Which's your browser version grolt?

As Zandengoff said, the three letters aren't all it takes, but once you factor in the array of numbers the free ISP's add on to confuse potential hackers, then the login name gets up to 15-25 characters.

[Rogue]

Hi!
hmm... so that's the problem... I see...
Well, if you can connect it's ok, I think... =)
Maybe you find another free ISP less complicated.
Luckylly for me, here in Brazil there's a lot of free ISPs. Mostly of them allow the connection just with an email account.

Hey! I'm on the NetLink right now! ^^
It's very cool browsing here, I've wasted half of my Saturday and almost all of Sunday experimenting the PlanetWeb's features.

^^/

[Reps911]

I use Juno, and on both my saturn and my dreamcast and all i put in is my login @juno.com and my password and everything works perfectly. And for some reason when it doesn't let me login I just change my login to login @netzero.net and use the same password and bam back online.

I remember I had to do what grolt did on my black dreamcast. but when I hooked up my white one I just tried the user name only to see what happens and it worked. the only thing I did different was not changing the DNS numbers, I just left whatever showed up there. Same goes for the netlink...

[lisalover1]

Can anybody re-upload the Dialguard program? The link is broken, and I can't find the 1.0 version of the program. Or, at least can someone post the username and password for the Dial-Up number posted in the first post?