Mark Weeks has finished his fifth and final article comparing and
contrasting online play sites:
http://chess.about.com/library/weekly/aa04a24.htm
I found his assessment fairly balanced, although the services were often
judged on the basis of the java clients - eg FICS was judged overly harshly
on the basis of JavaBoard, whereas if Weeks had downloaded and tried a
graphical interface perhaps he would be more positive about FICS.

The index of all five articles can be found he
http://chess.about.com/library/ble29wto.htm

Interestingly he gives the highest rating to http://www.chess21.com - the
World Chess21 Network. I'm not familiar with it personally, but Weeks give
it very high marks. How does it compare to ICC, FICS or USCL?
--
Gregory Topov
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"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan