Prices on PCs are dropping like stones. A good home system is available for as low as $350, largely made possible by the use of high-performance, low-cost chipsets from AMD and Via/Cyrix, with prices predicted to sag as low as $299 by the time you read this. You can even sign up for a free PC and Internet service through a plethora of providers, if you're willing to give someone scads of personal information about yourself, to be inundated with ads constantly plastered over your computer screen, to spend at least 10 hours a month at the computer, and to have your surfing habits tracked and documented in order for you to be more accurately "profiled" for junk mail and spam purposes. Several ISPs are giving away free PCs in return for two or three years of prepaid service, and other companies, including supermarkets and shopping networks, are mulling over PC giveaways as part of their marketing strategies. A company called ZapMe! is giving schools free PCs (larded with advertisements -- shades of Channel One). And there's NetZero, discussed elsewhere, an ISP who gives away free Internet access in return for demographic info and monitored Web surfing (check out their offer at www.netzero.com, and be aware that NetZero is planning a merger with Juno). Other "free PC" offers are available at www.microworkz.com (currently being sued for failure to deliver customer orders), www.gobi.com, www.myfreepc.com, www.peoplepc.com (rated the best of a dubious lot by PC World, www.myfavoritepc.com, www.intersquid.com, and www.directweb.com. These providers come and go, so if you go hunting for one that doesn't exist anymore, don't be surprised. Just remember, there ain't no such thing as a free PC -- for example, Intersquid's "free" offer costs $30/month in Internet access fees (contracted for 30 months), $60 for shipping and handling, and $40 for a credit check, while MyFreePC requires $529 in setup and 19 months of Internet access to be paid up front. In a recent test, most of the "giveaway" PCs were no-name products, slow and stripped-down, and at least one company's offering, Intersquid, was shoddy, flimsy, and easily damaged. As for free ISPs, several providers have followed NetZero's lead, including WebCombo (www.webcombo.net), which requires a one-time $150 investment in software. Other free ISPs are found at www.bluelight.com (K-Mart's entry, in partnership with Yahoo, and larded with personal info gathering and persevering ad displays), www.freedsl.com, www.1stup.com, and www.juno.com, the venerable e-mail provider. Don't forget: free ISPs are almost always advertiser-supported, and you know who's going to be flooded with ads. Europe has plenty of free ISP players, including AOL and Microsoft. It's just a matter of time before free Internet access becomes common in the States. Note: one expert says that the freeware Linux OS will make brand-name $200 PCs a reality, since Microsoft will never sell any flavor of Windows for as cheap as a manufacturer can license Linux for installation on their supercheap machines. We'll see. Another note: the FTC, the Better Business Bureau, and various state attorneys general are warning consumers to be wary of "free PC" offers. Too many of them are scams. Check 'em out on the Better Business Bureau's Web site at www.bbb.org, on online forums such as those at Google Groups (groups.google.com), and other watchdog organizations. New kid on the block: Surfree (www.surfree.com). This one has you sign up with them, download their free Surfbar (a browser plug-in that rides atop your browser at all times and constantly displays ad links). You choose whether or not to click on the ads the Surfbar displays, but the more you click, the lower your monthly bill is. Surfree uses Brightware technology to kill spam before it hits your mailbox. All in all, an interesting twist on the idea. (Note: a London reader informs me that a lot of the "free ISP" offerings in Europe are bug-ridden, glitch-filled offerings that, in his initimable phrasing, "go in and bugger up your system and all your settings, leaving their rancid odour and legacy with an infuriating 'Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by X Company Whose Disk Trashed Your System' on the title bar." Be warned.) Latest note: some of the newer free ISP providers, such as Freewwweb and Worldspy, seem to provide less intrusive Net connections. Keep up with the free and low-cost ISPs out there at www.freedomlist.com.

Update: Free Net connection services seem to be running into serious problems. NetZero, Juno, and Freenet are all pumping so many ads over their connections that users are complaining of system lockups. Juno is shortening the "time-out" period for forced disconnects to half an hour, and is bombarding its free-service users with ads to switch to their "premium" pay service (which, of course, is billed as being ad-free, but Premium users still complain about the number of ads on their connection). Dotnow, another freebie, is now using pop-up ads that are "locked" above other windows and are requiring users to either go to the advertiser's site or be disconnected. Bluelight, K-Mart's free ISP, has limited free use of its service to 25 hours a month, and NetZero is limiting use of its free connections to 40 hours a month unless you pay $10/month. Humbug, I say. An even bigger humbug goes to Juno for a new rule that I find extremely unsettling: Juno is requiring all users to join Juno's "P2P" network, in essence requiring that when Juno users are offline, their computers must be hooked into the Juno network to provide Juno with the computer's computational resources. SETI has long done something similar on a voluntary basis, as is Google, but Juno is going over a line by making it a requirement. Worse, they refuse to accept any liability for damage done to users' machines by their network's usage. Beyond humbug. Find out more at www.byte.com/column/BYT20010222S0004. Maybe this has something to do with the Netzero/Juno merger...?