[Wolfeymole]

Hi All
I don't know whether this has been seen before but anyway.........
This is mainly for the british boys and girls who live on here.
I was sniffing round the net the other day when I came across this.
This is a site where you can text all UK networks for free from your pc.
Texts are not guaranteed to get to "on the back of" networks like Virgin or Tesco etc but I managed and me and the wife are both on Virgin.
So what's the catch I hear you say.
Looking at the T&C you have to allow pop ups and disable the firewall.
At the mention of that last bit I said no way and left it on, I carried on and sent the text without problem.
Now you might think some money may have been deducted from the wife's credit but no as I checked her balance before doing it.
Have a look and see what you think.

[Blackmirror]

Bit risky diasbling the firewall dont you think ???

[Wolfeymole]

This is what they say regarding that in the FAQ's Black.

"In order for CBFSMS.com to work properly, it has to set a "cookie" on your computer. This small, harmless piece of information allows us to process your message. Some programs, like Norton Internet Security, are set by default to disallow cookies. You can also block cookies in your Internet Options. This is because some websites use cookies to get statistics on how often you visit them - which infringes your privacy. However, CBFSMS.com does not do this. Our cookies are entirely safe and each cookie is only used once. So, if you have Norton Internet Security (or similar), or block cookies, please disable this when using our site. If you know how, you could set your computer to trust all cookies from CBFSMS.com - see your web browser help files if you need more information."

This is the script regarding the Firewall aspect
"CBFSMS Security

Certain firewall products interfere with how your web browser operates.

CBFSMS.com requires that your web browser pass it the "referrer". This means that when you click a button on our site, your web browser tells us what page you were on before. By doing this, we check that you are on our official CBFSMS.com website and not a fake or illegal copy!

However, CBFSMS.com will NOT check what website you were using previously under normal circumstances. Therefore, you can be assured that it is absolutely safe to disable "privacy protecting" software when using our site, described below.

Firewalls like the popular Norton Internet Security and ZoneAlarm Pro sometimes disable the "referrer" automatically. You must turn off this privacy feature OR DISABLE THE FIREWALL when using CBFSMS.com

If you do not allow your browser to send the referrer to us, you will get the "Illegal Calling Method Detected" error and will not be able to use our site."

As I say I didn't turn mine off and I don't use Norton anyway and it worked perfectly well.

[Blackmirror]

Sorry got the wrong end of the proverbial stick ...
Any problems with using it .. I was looking the other week for similar programs but found a lot of them had catches .. like charging your mobile phone bill a monthly amount .. buried in the small print

[Wolfeymole]

Problems?

Well none the first time I used it, in fact I sent 2 texts to the wife, they went fine.
The next time I looked at System Status it was unavailable and I had to wait 9 minutes before it would be available.
However if you pay for the VIP package, which even that is not bad, you get preferential treatment.

[myfriendogri]

I did a lot of tests on free SMS texting sites prior to setting up my own site here .

Most of them seemed to be useless.., very unreliable. However, when I found CBFSMS they were completely different. Their service occasionally gets overwhelmed by weight of numbers. However, when that is the case you know about it right away. My experience of it, in lots of tests, is that my messages were received as quickly as paid for text services.

The popups? Something has to subsidise a free service.

If you're interested..... Long ago in internet terms, 6 years, there was a guy whose name I can't remember, who believed that no one should have to pay money to communicate.

He latched on to a little known fact, that telephone networks had spare 'channels', I think they were used by engineers to test the networks. The guy set up a site MTNSMS to give worldwide free SMS texting. It became hugely popular, for a few years. It was a great site, and also looked very good aesthetically.

Eventually the global corps decided that enough was enough of people using their networks for free, and started charging. Which was more or less the end for MTN.

The site closed, and eventually the domain lapsed. The domain got bought up by what became CBFSMS who realised that to survive they had to have a business model which included bringing some money in. Hence the popups.

If you're interested and type in MTNSMS in Google websearch or image search, you'll find traces of what MTNSMS once looked like.

Andrew

[theriddler]

try www.internetcalls.com

the program there lets you send both free calls and free text messages, the only problem is that it doesnt work with mobiles