People who have a computer with a modem, but have not yet surfed the Internet, have now officially run out of excuses. It is genuinely simple to load the Ocean program on to the computer, and connect to the World Wide Web - and now, that connection is free.

With the new service, the telephone call is not free, of course, and the amount of time you spend online is charged as if you were chatting on the telephone rather than surfing in cyberspace. But the Internet service, and an unlimited number of e-mail addresses, will cost you nothing.

Here is what a newcomer can expect when he or she puts the Ocean CD into the computer: the computer will know automatically there is a CD in the drive, and start to run the setup program. If it does not, it is just a matter of clicking open the CD drive on the screen, and then clicking on the Oceanfree icon.

From here, one need just follow the instructions on the screen: anyone unsure of themselves can accept the choice the machine makes - the default - each time. At a certain point, users will be asked for their telephone area code (eg 01 for Dublin, 021 for Cork, 091 for Galway); this is to allow a local telephone call to connect to the Internet.

This process installs Microsoft's Internet Explorer Internet browser on the computer, including software for e-mail, and the correct local phone number for dialling into the service. It will also ask users if they would like to be connected straight away, and if one answers yes, it will connect, and continue installing the rest of the program.

Those who already have another Internet Service Provider (ISP) should be aware that while installation of the Ocean free software will not wipe out their previous settings, it will place itself as the default. To use their old ISP, users would then have to change their settings.

Ocean says it is possible to access the service without installing the CD, but would prefer if people did not do this. Those who insist will need the local number, the login, and the password.

While some users had difficulty connecting to the service yesterday, test runs carried out at this newspaper were flawless.

Once online, however, the browser automatically goes to the Oceanfree website, which had significant problems yesterday. Links - text underlines that when clicked on send your browser to another page - often didn't work, and the free e-mail proved impossible to obtain. Help files are equally hard to reach. Presumably these are merely first-day teething problems.

Remember, Ocean does not offer the "1891 low-call" rate that keeps down the price of calls to other ISPs. This means surfing for long periods during the day will cost more than it should.