make sure Outlook Express is installed (if you have Internet Explorer version 6, it's a component) or, if you have it, Outlook.  The other option is to use the Mozilla brand Thunderbird email client.

Get your mom a Gmail email address.

In the user settings, tell it to allow a POP3 download for your gmail.  This means it will send your online gmail to your home email client, automatically, on demand (when you click the send-receive button).

The settings are found by clicking the 'settings' link at the top right, next to your email address on the home page of your gmail account.

Next, click the 'forwarding and POP/IMAP' link, and look for the section labeled 'POP Download'.  It walks you through the configuration for your email client.

Then you set up your Outlook Express, Outlook or Thunderbird with your gmail account settings (tools, options, email accounts for any of these programs).

Now, send an email from your mom's AOL account to her new Gmail account, include in it her entire AOL email address book list.  Then import that list into her email client when it is downloaded from gmail.

Now, let her start SENDING all email from her new gmail address (by sending them out of her desktop email client).

She will still read all mail on her AOL service, but tell her to ONLY SEND from her new gmail.

All of her friends and family will catch on quickly that she's using a new email address and start sending to that right away.  Everything else is probably junk or spam anyway.

After six months, she can quit AOL and move to a  local or regional (and probably much cheaper) ISP for her service, and never have to put up with that sucky AOL-brand browser again.

I did this years ago, and I can't say I miss hearing, "you've got mail" from my computer, not one tiny bit.