PC World's 20 Most Annoying Tech Products

Craig Sender writes to tell us that PC World has compiled a list of the 20 most annoying tech products of all time. Topping the list was AOL's ubiquitous free trial CD's. "This list hardly covers every annoying tech product ever made. But where did this list of 20 come from? [PC World Readers] picked the worst ones by voting in our Annoyances Poll, and you'll see your Top 10 most annoying products flagged with icons. Just for fun, we've added 10 more products that didn't get enough votes from you in our poll but that we found particularly irksome."

Comments

Re:seems empty . . .

[grub]

Going from 31 dead people in a senseless mass killing to yet another top 20 list from a worthless site.

Worthless? Dude, you got first post!

Again?

[pclminion]

I've got a better idea for an article: "Slashdot's 20 most annoying duplicate articles."

aol cds

[mastershake_phd]

#1 AOL CDs. I used to work at the post office, they some people decorated entire walls with undeliverable AOL CDs.

The little dog in Windows Search

[gurps_npc]

is the MOST annoying thing I have ever seen.

The thing that really gets me, is that when you click the "Kill the dog" option, instead of instantly vanishing, like any reasonably annoyance, they have this obnoxious beast do a little animation.

Look, you clueless fools, if I like the dog, I would not be getting rid of him. You KNOW I don't want him, but you senselessly subject me to the EXACT kind of animation that I told you I disliked.

What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[Tx]

What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?

For the love of god, stop putting ideas in their heads!

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[MrNiceguy_KS]

AMEN!! Preach it, Brother!

I recently discovered another reason to hate the dog. I had recently started a new job, and hadn't gotten around to all the standard tweaks required to make a new Windows install usable. I had done a search and had kept the search box open behind some other windows while working on other things. For the next couple of days I was trying to figure out why my hard drive or CDROM was making two short but loud seeks every once in awhile.

Eventually I realized that the freaking dog was scratching himself. Drove me crazy for several days trying to figure out what the noise was, and it turns out to be Microsoft trying to be cute.

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[tomhudson]

Eventually I realized that the freaking dog was scratching himself. Drove me crazy for several days trying to figure out what the noise was, and it turns out to be Microsoft trying to be cute.

Ahh ... the dog had fleas. Proof that Microsoft software is infested with bugs.

CD Burners and Zip disks

[L. VeGas]

In terms of pure annoyance, not just bad or lousy tech, I would rate CD burners before they were reliable and "click-of-death" zip disks as some of the most exasperating things that I have had to deal with.

I must have wasted dozens of hours with 1x and 2x CD burners before they became mature. I can still remember staring at the little progress bar.

95% completed -- 96% completed -- 97% completed -- 98% completed -- FAILURE BUFFER UNDERRUN.

AAAAAAAGH!

Backup disks

[Harmonious Botch]

Before CDs, AOL used to send floppies. I liked that. It was the backup-disk-of-the-month-club for me. I didn't have to remember, I didn't have to buy a floppy; it just arrived every month so I could backup.

Desktop Cleanup Wizard

[shawn443]

I could have one icon on the desktop that I click 50 times a day and that so called wizard will still tell me I have unused desktop icons. Even better, when Sally Secretary actually runs this fantastically annoying tool, she calls me ten minutes later to tell me Excel is gone.

my very favorite part . . .

[rev_sanchez]

So if you buy a WMA file from a service that uses Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM (most notably Napster), it won't work with the Zune (which uses Microsoft's Zune DRM).

A thing called PlaysForSure which will not play on something produced by the company that produces both things sounds like what Douglas Adams would write about DRM if he were still around.

Re:seems empty . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I was shot and killed today, you insensitive clod!

#21

[wbren]

#21: Those annoying PC World ads that pop up whenever you visit their articles.