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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."

10 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. PC World is pretty damn annoying too... by FatSean · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can they possibly cram any more ads and ugly navigation into that abortion of a website. Blech!

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    Blar.
  2. No reference to the Cue Cat? by EggMan2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No reference to the Cue Cat?

    That was one of the most annoying, dumbest, biggest debacles I can remember. For those that do not recall the Cue Cat was a bar cade reader in the form of a cat, that clever marketeers thought consumers would use by scanning barcodes on print ads in magazines and newspapers.

    Cue Cat was mailed to *all* Wired magazine subscribers.

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    what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
  3. Bah... by Mockylock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That list is all Jacked up. Considering the Zune has been out for what, 6 months and it's ranked higher than the Apple Pro Mouse? That thing was beyond annoying. Where are "Jazz" drives on this list? They crashed every month and were garbage. Tape drives aren't on there either! I'm guessing he and his buddies got together and made up the list. I don't argue with most of them, but a product that's been out for 6 months is rated up with Windows ME? I just don't consider some of those "ALL time" annoyances, rather than "recent and minor" annoyances. Just because they're happening now, doesn't mean they're worth being in the all time annoyances.

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    "Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
    1. Re:Bah... by Andy_R · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Apple Pro Mouse was the good one: optical sensing plus a beautiful design. The bad one was the previous Apple 'hockey puck' mouse, it's circular design meant you have to look away from the screen to see which way it was facing, and the mechanical ball rollers were a pain to clean. The majoy *annoyance* was however, not then mouse itself, but PC users crowing on about the 'one button' design, ignoring the fact that Mac Software was (surprisingly enough) designed for 1 button mice, and 103 more buttons were available on a nearby keyboard when required.

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      A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  4. A 7 page article full of adds and clutter? by kuwan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That'd be my number one annoyance these days. The actual content of the article only takes up about one-third of the page and then they break it into 7 pages so you are bombarded with annoying adds and clutter. The other two-thirds of each page is full of adds and cluttered up links to other parts of their site. Their site is just as annoying as any of the 20 products they profile.

    How about a nice clean layout that lets you actually read the article and not be distracted?

  5. Re:seems empty . . . by AJWM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But there's nothing more important than human life.

    If you're talking about "human life" in general -- get a grip, the species isn't going extinct just yet.

    If you're talking about a (or even several) human lifes -- get a grip, there are plenty of things more important (to some people) than individual human lives, sometimes including their own; if not, nobody would risk their own life for anything.

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    -- Alastair
  6. My vote goes to... by mvdw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Annoying pop-over ads. Like in the article. Irony, anyone?

  7. Re:seems empty . . . by McFadden · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    I couldn't agree more. Speaks volumes for the morality and compassion of the editors here.

    A couple of days ago, 62 people were killed in Iraq in a single day's "senseless mass killing".

    I doubt either of you even noticed.
  8. ok it's not a poll, but "missing option" by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    pop-up ads. Heck include pop-under ads too please. Why didn't they consider this? Given consideration, I bet it would beat out AOL hands-down. If you really want to go that route including things like antivirus software, why not just include a Viruses and a Spyware category? Maybe viruses wouldn't get a ton of votes but spyware? rock the charts.

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    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  9. Spam by Coolhand2120 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uh, hello? Spam? Anyone, Bueller? Spam is by far the most f*#cking annoying and should be high atop the list.