Teresa
So you want the whole story! I started with BT broadband, using their 'free' USB modem, a SpeedTouch USB model, made by Thomson. I guess I must have had a better experience than many, as I happily jogged along with the USB drivers from Thomson; they got updated from time to time, but often there was a significant time lag after the upgrade to the Apple system - from OSX to Jaguar to Panther and finally to Tiger. The last version was several months in coming, and I was obliged to stick with 10.3.9 to keep online.
If you are a frequent visitor to these pages you can hardly have missed the opinions of Tim Haigh, who regularly inveighs against the terrible troublesome USB modems - unreliable at best, and downright awful. While I don't go so far as that, I must say that I finally dipped my toe in the router pool, but with extreme caution, having watched from the poolside my daughter's tribulations with a wireless router on her PC. I have formed the opinion that wireless is not best suited to use in older houses with very solid internal walls; maybe it will work fine one day?
So, I went for a very simple wired router from BT - it cost me £25, and I have had no problems with it. My only annoyance was in having bought it when I did, because not long after I fell for the BT Fusion system, which allows you to use your mobile at landline rates when you are at home - that, incidentally does use a wireless router, but it doubles for an ethernet computer connection, and I merely had to change over the wires. The old BT Voyager 205 is now happily working with my daughter's PC. If anyone wants a Thomson SpeedTouch USB modem (a very stylish blue/green creation that looks a bit like a Manta ray) he is welcome to it!
On the subject of browsers, I use Safari and Firefox - and, very reluctantly, IE. Sometimes you find websites (I bought some rail tickets online last week) where you seem unable to complete a transaction with Safari, unless you go into your Preferences and mess around with the Java settings. Mostly, there is no difficulty using Safari, and, as others who have replied to you confirm, BT 'helpline' folk go into a cold sweat when Apple is mentioned. Ignore them, and enjoy your broadband!
Walter
G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)
