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The Most Annoying Software Out There
superglaze writes "ZDNet UK has a very entertaining round-up of the most annoying software out there, and everything from RealPlayer and Adobe Reader to Java and Norton Antivirus gets a kicking. 'The internet has brought us many joys. It's rewritten the rules of business and pleasure. And pain. For it allows what may have seemed like bright ideas at the time ('let's use it to make sure our customers have the latest software', for example) to turn into a stinking pit of misery — usually, but by no means always, after marketing gets its fangs in.'"
And I agree with most of these, particularly Apple. I recently spent several hours trying to remove Quicktime from my system and replace it with Quicktime alternative. I had to go in and hand edit the registry. The damn program was incidious about wriggling it's way back into my system tray and running processes if every single reference to it wasn't removed from the registry. That will be the last piece of Apple software I ever install on my system.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The worst has to be the Norton XXXX products. I installed Norton 360 v2 on my laptop as an "upgrade" to Norton AntiVirus 2007, and I think that intentionally installing a few viruses and malware would have resulted in better overall system performance.
Symantec tech support was, of course, useless:
"Sir, you have a virus or malware."
"Yes, I know: the malware is called Norton 360 since my problems didn't appear until I installed your product. What I want to know is how to stop Norton 360 from using 100% of both cores and incessently accessing the DVD drive for no apparent reason."
"Sir, you need to run a scan for virus and malware."
At least I got the damn thing uninstalled and got a refund. Never again...
I've noticed recently it's wanted to update itself about once every two weeks, which would be fine if it was a FireFox type update - nice and clean, restart app & done, but instead the update mechanism is something like the following:
Click on "omg! Update me!" big window.
Browse through newly openeded browser window.
No, just the free one, no shitty MP3's thanks.
Download. Click install.
No ffs, don't take control over all my media types.
No, keep your shitty ad-ware.
Die Winamp agent; if you're not the default for everything it's for a reason.
Yeah, same settings as last time (it's an update ffs).
Oh right, you changed a bunch of setting anyway, thanks.
There's just a tonne of questions that are so unnecessary for a minor update, which seem to come thick & fast these days. Thanks a bunch AOL; you've created the least smooth updating process i've seen in a while.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Apparently, they didn't try out TimeMaker.
Adobe Reader - Using open source PDF reader "Evince Document Viewer" instead. Result? Software does not annoy.
Apple iTunes - Using open source music program "Amarok". Result? Software does not annoy (and works much better than iTunes as well).
Windows Update - Using Genuine Linux Distro "Ubuntu". Result? No licensing restrictions, no DRM, no repeated system restarts, no service packs to fix the previous service pack, that fixed the previous service pack, that fixed months old critical bugs.
RealPlayer - Avoiding RealPlayer like the plague it is (using "Amarok" for the same functionality, if not the same file format). Result? No privacy leaks, no ads, no reporting back to Real on what I listen to or where I visit on the web.
Java - Using Sun's Java without the Yahoo toolbar. Result? Java is reasonably well behaved. Looking forward to truly open-sourced Java in the near future.
Yahoo - Use Yahoo's maps to check up on Google results. Use Yahoo throw-away email when I need to be a little bit stealthy. Otherwise avoid Yahoo.com like the plague it is. Result? Happy camper.
Norton Antivirus - Using upgraded OS "Linux" so that viruses are not a problem. Result? Viruses? I don't have no stinking viruses!
Preinstalled software bundles - Using upgraded OS "Linux" so that preinstalled software bundles are not a problem. Result? Preinstalled software bundles? I don't have no stinking preinstalled software bundles!
Outlook/Exchange - Using "Evolution". The jury is still out on whether "Evolution" is worth using verses online calendar and scheduling web sites.
Flash - Using...nothing. Avoiding flash based websites like the plague they are. Results? Fast web page loading, no privacy issues, no vector for malware installation, only see web pages that actually provide links to relevant content.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I found the layout and navigation of that gallery pretty annoying.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Sounds like user error to me. I've been using Firefox on Linux for years with no issues beyond the hacks it takes to get 32-bit Flash to work in 64-bit Firefox. What exactly are you problems?
Storm
They hit the nail on the head with that memory hog.
I think they could have just said VISTA... Done! Though seriously this app misses, a few apps. Mainly... GOOGLE BAR? Dear god, does every application on the planet now try to install google bar? Completely removing it requires a virgin, 2 brillo pads, a priest, plus 6 gallons of goats blood.
No Microsoft Bob?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I'm almost to the point where I want to remove Quicktime from all of my machines, because I'm so tired of being asked to "upgrade" to Safari and iTunes.
According to Microsoft, Vista actually was designed to be annoying. That is one design goal in which Microsoft seems to have succeeded.
Since they were including companies as well as just software I hereby nominate ZDNet for most annoying website. Why can't they stick the 11 short paragraphs making up the article on ONE PAGE!
We have one of those all-in-one HP printers at my office, where we're all on Macs. When we first got the printer I installed the disk with the Mac drivers. It also installed a bunch of utilities. Playing around with these utilities I found a tedious maze of buttons and windows. I couldn't even find the most obvious features, like where to see a scanned document.
But I also noticed my computer was running slower, even when no HP utilities were being used. So I looked at the Activity Monitor and found the HP background applications were permanently taking up 10% CPU, even if nothing was ever printed or scanned. So I removed all of the HP utilities and drivers and found a driver built into OS X which was for almost the same model number. I have no problems at all printing and my CPU is back to normal utilization.
Not only do these HP utilities suck, but they're annoying when you're not even using them.
Developers: We can use your help.
Update apps are a pain in the backside, but they are a symptom of the way windows and osx are designed...
There's no question that your system should be aware of what software is installed, and what the latest version is, and make the user aware too and give them the option to install the updates.
On linux you rarely, if ever, get problems like this because the updates are handled centrally.
The problem with windows and osx, is that there is no central way for third party apps to register to the automatic update mechanism, the supplied update functions are only for the original vendor's apps, not third parties, meaning every third party has their own update service wasting memory and informing/annoying you in different ways.
The linux approach is orders of magnitude better, centralised package repositories, a centralised method of informing the user, you can choose how to be informed of updates, and you won't be hassle any other way. To further help matters, the package manager knows of packages you don't have installed too, giving you single click access to the latest versions of a whole host of additional applications.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
How could they have forgotten Lotus Note?
"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane" -PKD
iTunes is the worst, IMO. It seems no matter how many times I patch it, just days later there's another patch. Every patch is a full download and reinstall, and every patch re-installs the damn Quicktime thingy in my taskbar. And now it sends me Safari too. Ugh!
The Exchange/Outlook comment? I mean come on. The author, in order to prove how bad outlook is, pimps Online Free email services? Who the hell is this guy and why is he writing articles on the topic if he's never worked(obviously) in a corporate environment? His best quip is that Outlook doesn't have threaded views? Is he for real?
Regards,
Website Hosting
Actually I found some problems with fonts. As Windows fonts are not available on Linux , some of webpages are falling apart. Not so much apart as some of text goes over some lines, sometimes it wraps so checkboxes are not where they should be, etc, etc...
It's hard to blame Firefox for sloppy web programming, but that's how it just works.
There's no unified, trustable source for software updates on windows? That's hilarious.
When I see this stuff, I think "World of Warcraft must be really great to keep people on Windows!"
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Why do I have to stick my CD in the drive before it starts to convert (copy)files? What is the DEAL? Why doesn't it start doing that, and if I don't insert a CD by the time it's done ask if I still want to burn! Or make it a switch? UGGHHH
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
The computer magazines whose job it is to educate the consumers and judge software are compromised by the conflict of interest. They depend on the ads from the very same software companies to survive.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Personally, I'm so completely tired of having Apple force it's way on to my PC. Why is QuickTime so intrusive and difficult to disable or uninstall? Doesn't Steve realize just how many people his company has alienated with their abusive marketing campaign, which is poorly posing as a media player. I wonder if anyone else finds QuickTime as annoying as I have?
The most annoying thing for me? The stupid little bubble that pops up to inform me that wireless networks are in range, even when I am running through a wired connection. The only way I've found to really get rid of this is to disable the connection, a hassle for whenever I try and go anywhere. Of course, this particular annoyance only really hits me nowadays when I need to boot into my small windows partition. Ubuntu FTW.
09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0
For the vortex of suck, get stuck with an antivirus package set up to scan everything at launch ( no exceptions... thanks, corporate ), then fire up some Java. Bonus points for utilizing a .jar file.
A Human Right
Welcome elrous0, to the 'what were they thinking? anti-software fan club'
Here we will help you commiserate as you belch out the pains brought to you by software that is premised on the thought that ALL users would surely want this software until the day they die.
With the mentality (and social skills) of clippy, these coders work double time to ensure that your experience with their software will be never ending. What could possibly be worse than malware you might ask. How about software that has an uninstall feature but won't do so?
I'm wagging my finger at you AOL, Apple, MS... you, antivirus guy in the back snickering, you can STFU too.
We're glad to have you as a member, and look forward to your votes in the awards ceremonies next year. Note that Internet infamy is your for the taking if your right up for nominees is both exacting and excoriating.
I'm still investigating, but the OOo quickstart on XP may get a nomination. HP printer driver division has a place on my list too.
Anyway, mill around, meet the other members, enjoy....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
While I agree with most (exclude Java), I find it rather ironic that they bitch about flash-sites, yet spread their list over 11 pages.
I've appreciated that Adobe has provided Reader for Linux for quite some time now. Until I tried their latest a number of months ago (version 8? or 9?).
It insisted upon putting a bunch of worthless crap in my ~/.kde and ~/.local directories, overriding my MIME types and replacing KDE's PDF icons (which looked consistent with all the other KDE icons) with its own icons, which clearly were out of place.
Of course, it also decided to set itself as the preferred reader for PDFs, contrary to my preference. It would have been annoying, but bearable, had it asked me about this before it made invasive changes, but simply running the program was enough to wreak havoc.
So fuck you Adobe, I'll continue to use kpdf, which doesn't feel the need to take over my desktop. As an added bonus, kpdf doesn't have a million worthless plugins that slow down application startup, either.
Seriously for serious? Seriously? Are you totally serious?
If Firefox had widespread problems like this, it wouldn't be installed by default on so many distros. Either you broke something or you're a troll.
Let's take 19 years of ingrained, if not intuitive human to document interface... and change EVERYTHING!
I used PageMaker in Version 1.0 on Run-Time Windows. I adapted to additions and some minor rethinking of menus. N/P. I knew every keyboard shortcut (that I needed) and made the claim "I may not be good, but i'm FAST!"
Exit Pagemaker, Enter InDesign. End of Story.
What about "top ten slideshows" on big media websites that present their "top ten" on eleven or twelve separate pages, each filled with more ads and other distractions than the actual "content" you've been directed to via Slashdot?
Yeah, I know they're not "applications" but, the annoyance factor is right up there.
Seriously? One of the most annoying? I beg to differ.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Too many websites lean on Flash too heavily. You'll have a lot of trouble getting by without it on a lot of websites. Its obnoxious, and what's more, there's more and more Flash-based advertising appearing on various websites (yes, I'm glaring at you too, Slashdot). But there is a way to make Flash be a little more well-behaved: http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
Best Firefox extension EVER. Works on Seamonkey, too, which is what I use at home.
In the case of Java, you can use GCJ (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/) to compile Java to bytecode / native code, and, and, ... "Because that's what programming languages are there to do, right?" (from TFA).
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Sometimes it's the exclusive distribution method or the update method that truly irks.
Google's Sketch-up Pro is available only by download. Not a problem in the US, but on a remote US base in Afghanistan? A CD/DVD option would have been most helpful.
As already pointed out above, updaters can be a significant issue even if the software itself is acceptable. The status quo should be maintained for settings, file associations and preferences, TYVM.
Advertise on the web and through the quality of your product, not via the update process.
Invenio via vel creo
...Weatherbug :(
Use Foxit. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php Less of a hassle.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
He's super serial.
Look at the top of your window:
"The Most Annoying Software Out There - Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5"
I didn't say it - the browser did!
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Whilst I was trying to read the page on why Flash is so annoying, a doubleclick ad keeps popping up on zdnet.co.uk asking me if my data centers are secure...and crashing my browser every 60 seconds due to a memory violation in the flash code for the ad. Seriously. I'll take flashing animated GIF ads over playing russian roulette with randomly selected buggy flash ads any day...and before you ask my flash plugin & mozilla are fine, thanks.
It's not irony, it's amusing coincidence.
Java(tm) 5 update 6
Java(tm) 5 update 11
Java(tm) 6 update 1
Java(tm) 6 update 3
Java(tm) 6 update 4
Java(tm) 6 update 6
True story. If you listen to the "Big Classic Rock" channel long enough (~3 hours), it runs out of songs or the db gets AFU, and starts plays hip-hop, big band, anything except big classic rock. This happens to me quite often and is easily repeatable.
Another annoying 'feature' is the process (DRM check I'd assume) called "synchronizing your library" at login. If, in fact, its not DRM, then its still annoyingly slow to reconcile the 6 whole songs I've purchased from them. Combined with the appearance that RP wants to own the songs/media I did not buy from them.
Yeah, our marketing people want us to implement a pop-up "reminder" for those users who have not bought product... I groaned when I saw that in the task list. Yes, we are in business to sell, but no, we do NOT want to annoy our potential customers! I think the Golden Rule works well here.
And will not be re-visiting the ad-laden abomination that is ZDNet UK ever again.
They should have included themselves on the bloody list.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
While this will probably earn me fire and a n00b tag, how the fuck does one remove the 'browser integration' that QuickTime does? Now everytime I go looking for sound effects and they come in MP3 format, it wants to play them in QT right off the webpage! I looked but I don't see anywhere to remove this POS feature.
Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but this is bar none one of the more annoying aspects of QuickTime. Gimme back my damned browser!
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Would consider the relentless popup windows for upgrades to be the biggest pain. Upgrade from 2.0.0.5 to 2.0.0.6 anyone? For security reasons, you better keep clicking away if you want your movie to stay in front of these popups.
Unfortunately, I'm the IT Manager for the ad agency of one of the most annoying programs mentioned in that article (I won't mention which one). So I'm in the unhappy position of having to install our client's software on all of our computers. Would I use that software if the company weren't our client? NO FUCKING WAY! If there is a hell for IT support people, I'm in it. I not only have to support this crapware, but I have to pretend that it's the greatest thing since oral sex.
Nuff said
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
They could have had a single tile component, clicking could enlarge. Oh yes, and if they coded their app right, it could work with the back button and provide accessibility functions.
Some of these are justified - Adobe Reader sucks, there's no excuse why it takes a minute to load while a tap on the spacebar on OS X brings up a preview of the same PDF instantly, and many other PDF readers load in a tenth that time.
Apple Update - I don't have a beef with that.
Windos Update - is a study on how not to do it. It'll pop up even if you're running a fullscreen application at that time, some of which don't handle that gracefully. It'll tell you every few minutes that it wants to reboot, no matter how often you tell it to go stand in the corner. Really annoying freak.
Norton - yeah, if you've not already replaced it with any of the free and better alternatives, then you deserve the pain.
Sony crap - oh yes. They even forgot to mention that nothing in the docs tells you what does what, so you're left guessing as to which of these might be, you know, important driver packages, and which are just crap they added because someone in marketing thought it's a nifty idea.
Outlook - YES, FINALLY! Outlook is one of those things where I'm all for the death penalty. Outlook is the worst disaster for corporate productivity this side of the galactic core. It's also the worst e-mail client I've ever used, and that's a fairly long list. Outlook is enterprise messaging gone horribly wrong, in more ways than you thought possible. I'm SOO glad they put it on the list.
Flash - I find that one a bit unfair. Flash can be a cool tool, but it's often abused in ways that would be illegal if it were a human being. I'm not sure Adobe alone is to blame for that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How about web articles that are split across a dozen pages, for no good reason other than to interrupt your reading a dozen times so that you can twiddle your thumbs while one measly paragraph of text downloads, framed by dozens of bloated, intrusive animated ads for ZDNet?
I find those pretty annoying.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/
This is what opensource. Obviously the reverse path usually does not work.
Also, there is a plain-GTK Evince version (no Gnome stuff) which I guess it may be compiled in windows.
McAfee Antivirus...
Whose parent company website was formerly one giant mass of ads, including multiple pop-ups.
Who makes online support as kludgy and difficult as possible, and requires you to create a user account to even manually download AV updates (so we can spam you with e-mail about our products.
Whose software continually says it cannot uninstall because there are "files in use" as a smokescreen to prevent users from changing products, when far better programmers could just write the uninstall routine to stop all running McAfee services, which would fix the problem, and who uses scare tactics that insinuate you'll be completely unprotected (and likely to be molested).
Only one product I know of out-sucks Norton AV for home users --and it is McAfee.
Never look down your nose at others. Someday, someone is bound to see your boogers.
slashdot with the big round-corner buttons?
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Usually I disagree with these rather non-technical whiners, but I found this to be right on the money this time. Besides, there's some wonderful British humor there:
Acrobat Reader"a reputation for being as welcome as a flatulent camel in the kitchen"
Windows Update
We've been kind and not talked about Vista.
RealPlayer
"If this software turned up at your door, you'd call the police."
"... we were given software to install. 'Disable your firewall', it commanded. 'Drop dead', we replied."
Java
"Programming languages are like sewage plants: if the average user becomes aware of them, something's gone wrong."
Yahoo
"And yes, when I ask to exit the software, that's because I really want to, not because I'm having a crisis of doubt."
Flash
"There's nothing wrong with Flash, provided you don't use it to construct web sites where people want to find information..."
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Well, you can just install those fonts if you get them. I'm sure you can google for them, and they are in the repositories if you are using Ubuntu.
I use Winamp precisely because it's one of the few that *doesn't* alter the master volume (which doesn't do anything on my machine because I use SPDIF output).
Check your configuration.
No sig today...
I like this quote from the article, about Apple QuickTime: "... what is this, Make Microsoft Look Good day?"
Or apt-get install msttcorefonts for debian/ubuntu users.
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Anyone remember Comet Cursor? It came with Nutscrape Napivator, if I remember correctly. Hay, isn't that what Firfox is made from?
I tried to get an HP A3 inkjet going the other day, using an old P4 box as the print server.
I do not consider 100% CPU utilisation while trying to print a PDF to be acceptable, nor do I consider that having to reboot to clear a stuck job is a good idea. And this from a driver of nearly 100MBytes.
There are several other recent HP gripes that are causing me nowadays no longer to recommend HP printers. I guess it will take many years to recover from Fiorina.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You haven't seen some of the alternatives, then.
;)
Some years ago, for example, sick and tired of Norton, I went and bought McAffee's anti-virus. In fact, I figured I'd go for the full monte, including firewall, "privacy" stuff, you name it. I can't be arsed to dig up the CD and find out which year it was, and I wouldn't know if it got any better in the meantime. (Though I would be surprised.)
The first funny impression was when trying to update it. As is the craze in the last decade, it couldn't just have either a URL to their download page, or a neat little downloader program. It just had to launch an ActiveX control in a browser to do the actual download and install. It launched whatever browser you had configured as default. E.g., for me it was Mozilla. It only actually worked in IE.
But wait, the patcher was more stupid than that.
I didn't have too much space left on C:, but I had vast amounts of space on my slower D: drive. So I refuse to install it to the default location, and install it to D:.
Then I run the updater. It installs the updates to the default location on C:. Literally, it was too fucking stupid to either ask, or figure out where its own installer had put those programs.
It gets funnier. Presumably because it couldn't figure out where they were, it didn't uninstall or at least disable the origina, unpatched version on D:. It just let it run too.
If you think one anti-virus is a resource and CPU hog, now picture twice that. It felt like I had downgraded back to my trusty old 486.
Now I don't know how good their virus protection was, I didn't actually have a virus. Their privacy stuff, though, now that made most sites that required a login, no longer work. And it made some schizophrenic: they thought I was simultaneously logged in _and_ not logged in. It was giving me some insight into what Schroedinger's cat must have felt
To cut a long story short, and skip over a few more faults, after a few days I uninstalled it.
The uninstaller, though, only got rid of the new patched copy from C:. It left the one on D: as it was, and loading itself in memory anyway. Trying the uninstaller from D: didn't seem to work either. I had to manually mess with the registry to get rid of it.
On the whole, it left me the impression that it makes malware look good by comparison. Ok, so you have to mess with the registry in safe mode too, to get rid of it, so it's a tie there. Most viruses don't use as many resources or interfere with your daily use of the computer half as much, though.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'm really glad they mentioned Flash. It's become a horrible malware vector, which is largely Adobe's fault. But worse yet is how some web designers use Flash.
Flash is too often used for creating website navigation widgets, or worse yet, for encapsulating entire websites. And even worse than that are the horribly annoying Flash version-checker scripts, which demand that you will install or upgrade Flash before viewing this site, because "I spent fifteen minutes on those fancy Flash-based site nav buttons, and you damn well better look at them" even though virtually all of the site's actual content is in plain HTML.
What's more, I don't need or want a Flash widget to view a series of JPEGs. Just show me the damn images - I'm perfectly capable of clicking by myself to move on to the next one, thanks.
For example: Quickbooks. Why does it have to have (IIRC) three services running EVEN IF QUICKBOOKS ITSELF IS NOT RUNNING!? One of them is for updates. The other two I have no idea, but all three sure bogged my system down. I uninstalled Quickbooks and it took Registry Mechanic to get rid of everything. I tell you with this and other problems I've had with Intuit, if I see that company's name on something , I refuse to buy it.
Back in my day, when we had to program in the snow, uphill both ways, we would check for updates upon startup AND allow the user to turn it off.
Folks, just because there is a feature for programs or cool way of doing something, does not mean it's a good design.
Now about Windows registry and the fact that it only grows.....Never mind. I need a drink.
Any version of IE from 4.0 onwards never ever touches any PC I care about. It was single-handedly one of the main reasons I stuck with Windows 95 and NT 4.0 for so long (and still do on most of my PCs.)
That was until 98lite came out, which later became litePC. That suddenly made Windows 98 and 2000 usable. There isn't much that can make XP or Vista usable, though, as they're already useless out of the box.
Mmmm. Cereal.
"Little is much when little you need."
Yes. Yes it does. It's un-fucking-believably bad.
It's had a long, long while to get good - and it still has the donkey ball sucking issues.
I know it is sometimes useful to have automatic updates. One never knows when a security flaw might be discovered and patched. On the other hand, I'm quite capable of checking for that on my own schedule, and, no, I don't need the "Adobe Update" program continuously running in the background on the off chance an update might be available. It sucks up memory and network resources.
The first time the thing popped up I set it to "Never update", and yet it still nags me from time to time that it has updates it previously downloaded without my permission. There's no obvious option in Reader to turn it off. One time I had it pop up in the middle of a presentation -- thanks a lot, Adobe.
These background programs need to be explained at install-time and the user given the option to opt-out of them. And I mean *REALLY* opt-out, as in not running them at all, rather than lurking in the background doing almost nothing but still hogging resources.
Now, please resume your smug Linux trolling.
Well, it didn't say it was about unsolvable problems of modern computing, but rather about annoying programs. That alternatives exist, I think for at least one of them, even ZD mentions one. I guess, if anything, the existance of those alternatives, just drives home the point about how needlessly annoying those programs are. You know, the "what the hell were they _thinking_" factor.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Microsoft Word.
I really dread using this software. It never works the way I want it to. The changes it makes on its own or wont let me make are enough to drive me into a Tourette style profanity fueled rant.
All my coworkers know instantly when I am using Word....
I know the history of it intimately. Because it wasn't well though through, it's a miserable user interface. Yes, it seems flexible, and it's nice that the W3 specs are there, but they're not well thought-through, either. Whether it's Java, php, or another language, the pallette called the 'browser' is the biggest, most anarchistic piece of junk I've ever seen. Plug-ins are great.... there are many good things. But the screen real estate, and the number of ways that it can be buggered are just insane. As a GUI, the browser totally sucks. If you don't believe what I'm saying, try to remember "The Frames Era".
A good UI shouldn't have to have users embedding markup language manually. It shouldn't have to trouble you about fonts, re-sizing your window widths. It shouldn't have ways that browser makers can bugger up wysiwyg information in so many ingenious ways.
Mark me as flamebait if you want, but the browser is a disaster, years after its invention, and constant reinvention.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Possibly the most annoying software ever made was that which was created to send spam. If the spammers had to spam the keys to produce the spam, they might be tempted to spam us less. A close second would be the code used to create /. since every time my boss walks in I am reading this instead of working.
Linux zealot.
Where is M$ Word and all of its clones. There is nothing more annoying then spending 15 minutes finding its hidden formating options
For some incomprehensible reason our company (a prominent, publicly traded technology company) posts the videos of its all hands meetings in Real. W.T.F. I wouldn't install Real on any machine, mine or someone else's, not even if you paid me to.
The software you get when you install an HP AIO is mindbogglingly irritating, and has been buggy (the same bugs) for years. Not only does the user interface suck donkey sphincter, but it the "suite" spawns zillions of little processes, which hang and die. Again, W.T.F.
And the lame standard Quicktime. Why does Apple think anyone would pay for the ability to play in full screen? Are you kidding me? Annoyware all the way.
But, you know, that's really just scratching the surface.
Meanwhile, Flash, properly used, is great. I'm not sure why people continue hating on Flash. I do use FlashBlock to shut those irritating ads the hell up though.
Where the hell is Outlook? Certainly it is among the most annoying, dangerous and crappy software programs ever unleashed on users ...
I can only blame the web designers so much for that practice.
I ditched my last professional web design job. It was for a paintball site. I presented samples of effective navigation from other sites (some related, some not) and had a discussion about directing visitor traffic and what needs to be emphasized.
Then he starts showing me this flash app that resembles the Windows XP start menu, where all the options are buried. Whenever you click on one, it would just load a different HTML page...in a new window.
I must have tried to reason with him for an hour. I tried to explain to him how I (in a professional capacity) did not feel it was beneficial and would turn visitors away. He eventually told me I didn't know what I was talking about, and started showing me even more "better-looking" sites, all contaminated with flash menus that didn't even work together.
I had the chance to walk away from that job. Not all web designers do. If your project manager wants flash, either you can do it, or his nephew can.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I found this http://grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com/2008/04/taming-avg-free-version-8.html useful to get AVG8 Free to not always signal a red exclamation mark when noting was wrong.
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
hi twitter
Norton may be the worst, but 2 days ago I had to spend approximately 90 minutes disabling McAfee's enterprise AntiVirus system on my company computer. The thing wanted to do a scan of every file on my computer any time it was accessed (read or write access). And thus my quest began.
I started by attempting to reconfigure the software to scan on write, but some dickhead in corporate IT had decided to disable all user-configuration. Next I searched the internet for helpful advice on how to change the permissions on the admin console. I found instructions on McAfees tech support site, and followed the instructions. I quickly found that the enterprise version of their product let me change the permissions, but then ignored any changes that I made. Next I had a look at the registry. I thought I might be able to tweak the settings by hand; but of course, the software went out of its way to obscure the registry settings. An internet search on specific registry keys yielded a handful of hits, but they were all in Chinese, so no luck there.
OK, so now I'm to the point where I've given up reconfiguring the software, and I just want to disable it. Easy enough, right? Well, not quite. I attempted to disable all the start-up processes, and this was partially successful, but I couldn't figure out how to stop the main scan process from starting. OK, no problem, I'll just kill the process. Well, what do you know, windows task manager doesn't allow me to kill the process. So I hit google again, and I find a third party kill application. This app advertises 16 different methods for killing a process. I boot up the app, and start firing, the first 5 kill methods fail, but number 6 does the trick. Yeah, it's dead. Rename the executable on the filesystem, and I'm done.
Thing is, I would have been happy to run the software if the settings were sane. But since the software sees me as the enemy, I now find myself not running the software at all. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
At the SketchUp Pro retail single seat price of $495, I'm rather certain they could handle a one-off CD/DVD distribution system. Don't you think?
Invenio via vel creo
I think all of the MP3 downloads from Amazon are now DRM-free.
Link to current header:
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/digital/music/mp3-storefront-logo-0108a._V16570869_.jpg
I could be wrong but I believe the reason the software is installed this way is due to the fact that each version of Java appears to be an entirely separate executable.
I don't know why Sun would go this route. *shrug*
I don't see any 'enterprise software' in there. For example: SAP. I've been working 2 years in the software development for business customers at a big German Telco and I had to work with SAP and Java on a daily base - I had to WORK with it, not look at it's "nice" results (which we could have cheaper and quicker otherwise, another story). The SAP suite is built around big interconnected databases with a nice and shiny gui. That's the nice part. For the bad side: Max of 7 windows (regardless of system specs). Slow. Error messages are non-descriptive, the detailed messages a repetition of the error message itself. Sometimes produces non-deteministic (as documented) output. Uses a COBOL like programming language for anything that can't be done by drag & drop, called ABAP. VERY expensive. Needs consultants for maintenance (often because programmers CANNOT guess how to do it right from the docs). Makes dependant (easy to import data, but no way out). In the place I worked, we had SAP for about anything: bills, salaries, configuration of ports/switches/isdn/dsl. My favorite error: In december I was 6 days ill, returned the 7th day. My salary report said: 28 days ill and I got a very reduced salary (Hint: there's no 28 days work in December) My favorite documentation: For OOP there was a section that read like: Abstract Classes and Methods work completely orthogonal. Or very similar. SAP is being sold to big companies, by seducing managers with lies like it would be complete, needs near to no maintenance, ... They do this very tricky so managers don't ever back off until they depend on the software and it's too late. A very successfull concept actually.
Managers, ask your employees before deploying this BS in your company. Will save you big bucks. REALLY big bucks. Or at least make sure you have a contract that lets you back off from it if it doesn't fulfill your requirements. Don't be fools: shiny BS still is BS.
I live in a corporate Exchange environment, too. I would like to point out one good thing about it - Exchange supports IMAP and POP, so my Eudora client works very nicely.
Now if I could only get all my clueless co-workers to stop sending HTML formatted email.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I can strongly recommend the freeware Revo Uninstaller. It does a very good job removing all the nasty stuff which was often left after uninstalling some crappy software. I've never run into problems so far and it comes with some handy tools too (e.g. unrecoverable eraser, autostart manager...).
It helped a lot keeping my Windows partition ad- and nagware-free! So you might just want to check out their website for further information.
Honestly, they should have turned it around and asked what software is bug-free, intuitive and a pleasure to use. The list would have been a lot shorter.
Although at this point I can't think of a single application that achieves the above.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Your point precisely?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
I have too many complaints/irritations with the thing to list here, but their "pay $200/year for tax tables" formula is a scam. I found all I needed to know online @ the IRS and set up a tax liabilities calculator in a OOo Calc spreadsheet just so I didn't have to boot to windows.
OK, one more ... As we all know, WinXP, and all other flavors of Win, melt down occasionally requiring a reinstall. A recent reinstall of XP and QB, then requests to register it with home base. This time it could not do the registration without a phone call to customer support. I got Lam in Pakistan. His english was poor. Rather than whupping out validation code to unlock the program, I got 50 questions. Then the guy started a sales pitch to sell me some crap I didn't want or need.
QB has given more irritation than anything positive.
My solution to this is to give GnuCash another go. So far it's looking very promising. Me thinks I'll start contributing to the GnuCash project to enable employee tracking and payroll, and anything else it needs to meet the needs of SOHO.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Has Acrobat made such a bad name of itself that they won't call it Acrobat anymore?
- the icons don't look red enough to be pdf.
- It insists in changing the register value for
.fdf
every time it launches. So if you like to create a new folder by
Right-Click N F it no longer works.
Anyone know how to banish shellNew permanently from the Reg? Temporary solution is (last line sets the icon back to adobe's)REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.fdf\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FoxitReader.Document\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Acrobat 7.0\\Reader\\AcroRd32.exe,1"
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
Everytime Avast AV tries to update a stupid box pops up that won't go away unless you click on it. Goldmine Premium Edition is VERY buggy. Every time I call support they give me the "Yeah, we've never seen this issue before, we'll have to research it" response. Then the patch that comes out once a year never fixes the prominent issues. I'm talking about notes being randomly deleted from our database when working with the service tab. VERY annoying, and a useless feature when you can't rely on it.
What's the software that spreads an short article across a dozen, ad laden pages like the site in this story. I vote for that.
Removing Norton is simple, it just takes few steps.
Just ... uninstall it... Reboot... password ... uninstall ... reboot... download... run
Yep. Simple.On my system it automajically offers to upgrade from beta 5 to RC1. Get with the progrom.
-
Amarok will be working on Windows soon, and since when does Amarok not support iPods?
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
Seriously. If they renamed it "Lenovo toss every chunk of shit ever deployed onto your laptop and prey, fucking prey that you still have networking after that Update" it would be closer to the truth.
Mine just threw up 525MB worth of updates and I wound up backing most of it off because Access Connections is a piece of shit that breaks everything. And most of the other junk you just don't need like menus that run in the background popup and tell you to call customer support. Wow I really need an app to do that for me. And that task automater that defrags in the background. Yeah that's great.
I want to physically hurt people who abuse Flash. Using a Flash
widget instead of multiple buttons "because it's easier" can be
blamed on inexperience with CSS and other layout, but the worst
offenders are those who use a Flash button instead of a single,
graphical button. Without rollovers. I saw that recently on a site,
and couldn't believe it.
Not only is it a huge waste to replace a static button like that,
but my way of browsing is suddenly forbidden. I go to a site, find
some interesting links and middle-click every one of them. This shold
open the link in a new tab without losing focus of the current tab.
With Flash buttons, there's no rhyme or reason. Some simply don't
accept the middle-click, others open the link like you clicked left.
A special place in Hell is reserved for those who use that opportunity
to open the link IN A NEW WINDOW! Fuckers. Die.
The most annoying software ever? Sitepal. There's nothing more annoying than surfing to a site where one of those "avatars" has been embedded and suddenly the damn thing loads and screams at you to type stuff into a box. I'd enjoy my internet experience better if I weren't rolling around on the floor clutching at my blown ear drums. Anybody agree? Tell them! http://www.sitepal.com/contact_sales
I've hated Acrobat for quite a while. They make it a difficult and cumbersome experience to view PDFs. But Acrobat 8 is actually very nice, minimal interface, fast, and works well. I suggest upgrading if you haven't. I've also kept Acrobat 8 from constantly nagging me about updates.
It's beyond me why they're so worried about updates. If I open a PDF that doesn't render properly, THEN I'll update.
Accountants are by nature highly organized and detail-oriented individuals.
They have to be. The important work which they do, often crucial to the success
of an enterprise, necessitates a high degree of order and accuracy.
To facilitate this organization, accountants have agreed on a universal set
of standard methods that are to be faithfully practiced. An accountant is
trained to think in terms of these methods, known as GAAP, and after a time
they become entirely second nature. This is proper. This is good. This
is how it should be.
Then along comes the QuickBooks software package which has become very
popular among businesses both large and small. But QuickBooks does not adhere
to standard accounting methods. It violates the sacred principle of double entry.
There are no visible debits and credits. There are no centralized disbursement
and receipt journals that all accountants know and love. QuickBooks does things
in its own peculiar way supposedly to facilitate bookkeeping but at best it is a
travesty of professional accounting methods.
QuickBooks is arguably the most popular accounting package, but to the
skilled accountant it can only be garbage. I wish that it would just
go away.
Article complaining about javascript requires javascript. Film at 11.
-
Do you think these companies really give a damn? C'mon... Unless there is a well thought-out and organized way to protest against this sort of abuse we'll only see more of it. One way is of course through articles in mainstream publications. Anyone with other ideas? Like an independent rating organization which gives printers a badge that says "Contains no crap/malware drivers?" "This scanner will scan rather than install other malware and try to sell you stuff?"
By Maplesoft.
Nothing else comes close in the combination of brilliant and awful software development.
The underlying engine is great (it does symbolic algebra). The GUI is awful. It was awful in version 9. Then they revised it in version 10 (or 11, or something) and it's still awful, just in new ways. Backspace arbitrarily stops working. Mouse-select highlights random areas of the worksheet that bear no relation to where you clicked the mouse. The fancy new formatted maths in version 10 doesn't have a linear key-stroke model behind it, so backspace never works. Every new version seems to break both forwards and backwards compatibility.
Yes, I know that I should be using SAGE.
...because "The Most Annoying Software Out There" is a poor title. What is the difference between
?
Advice: on VPS providers
Sites like that drove me to write a plugin that would parse SWF files for any internal strings and then present them in a context menu when you click on the space that would normally be occupied by the Flash widget. If any of the strings happen to be a URL, I can select the option from the context menu to navigate there.
:(
Of course, they've released three more versions of Flash since then, so my plugin rarely picks up text anymore. I guess in the interim, I decided that such sites were rarely worth navigating in the first place, so I didn't bother updating my plugin.
Yahoo.com: "... shrill, desperate, needy software company..."
And Yahoo is worth how many billions of dollars to Steve Ballmer?
At work we have really old machines that use USB 1.0. Basically, every time I plug in my thumb stick Windows pops up and tells me:
"This device coudl run faster if plugged into a USB 2.0 port, click here for a list of available ports"
Clicking leads to a dialog that says I don't have any USB 2.0 ports. Basically, everytime I plug in a USB device Windows taunts me and reminds me how much my work machin sucks.
Microsoft thanks for reminding me I code on a Pentium 3 with 512mb RAM, a 13 inch monitor, a battery that lasts 5 minutes and 1 USB 1.0 port. That really brightens my day every time you remind me...
here's a gem from the article:
Wow, I thought these "photo gallery" articles were all fluff to attract link propagation sites like Digg and Slashdot (speaking of annoying things out there).
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
They forgot Second Life.
That's an article in itself though. Between headcases that "play" the damn thing, the obvious scam and the requirement to use quicktime (the linux version supposedly uses gstreamer, however, the linux version is neglected and very unstable)
Demands a high-end system, a system that could run 3 copies of Vista without lag, to run just decently, with plenty of frame skipping (20 fps anyone?) with 3D graphics from 1999. Uses up 700-800 mb easily, crashes often, forces you to upgrade to buggier versions, etc.
Though thankfully, it only does this if you actually bother yourself with trying it.
I did, I dont want to go back to the dark scary place ever again.
In a classic bit of irony all this criticism hosted on a site where every paragraph is a separate page and every page is 90% advertisements...
You're right, of course. If this is for personal use, perhaps you could convince a stateside buddy to send it to you, at least as a stopgap solution.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
DOORs...This government approved monstrosity is almost beyond belief.
/lib files with symlinks to THEIR libs.
And we use only a tip of it, alot like Lotus Notes is used for email.
I suppose its the config, but here only ONE engineer can EDIT the DATABASE at a time.
WTF, are database tools supposed to be able to handle concurrency???
PVCS...yup they are still around, and still crappy as ever.
Pessimistic File Locking poster child.
I finally DID get a linux command line version installed, but the idiots overwite all your
iTunes...I have never understood WHY they have to reinvent the file browser, I mean, I guess most people DON'T oganize their files in folders with logical names, oh like Band/Album. Why do they insist on relisting all the files? Seems easier to let me grab files and drop them on the player? Oh that works, but it never remembers them. And people NEVER put their music on REMOVEABLE DISKS, like usb harddrives either...
Yahoo...not for this guys laments, but the fact that stuff like Fantasy Football ONLY runs on IE???
Ubuntu/Fedora Core Updates...How come we can't DESELECT a update, and FORGET it? I think this is the guys beef about Java, you can't NOT install it, as it is in the Update List FOREVER, and it will PESTER you until you install it. Please someone FIX THAT SOON.
They Live, We Sleep
...but they are working on it.
I'm running Leopard on an older system - a Powerbook G4 from 2004 or so. On my machine, entering and recovering from "sleep" beats the pants off any Windows laptop I've ever had. I get very few updates, and the few that I do get are about the only times I ever NEED to restart. Also, I've never had the "out of memory" error, ever. I wonder if your hardware is defective?
Some of these software companies seem to believe that it's okay, or even necessary, to add feature on top of feature which to us is just bloat. I refuse to believe that it's inevitable for the pinnacle of software development to be bloated, ineffectual versions of what was originally a reasonable, unobtrusive application or utility.
They've been covered above already... McAfee and Norton, even more worthless than has been described above. RealPlayer, a major attack vector and super annoying installer. Apple apps -- amazing resource hogs on the PC. So very hard to believe that iTunes can be so slow. It was much worse on my (vastly faster) PC compared to my G4 mini.
However, I actually find Acrobat 8 to be an improvement over 7, which was a vast improvement over 6. The installer is hugely annoying, but once past that the application actually works pretty well in both Windows and Linux.
Anyway, I think the big antivirus packages are by far and away the worst examples of the bloat in a type of software that we all need to run under Windows.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Imagine if you put a team of novice VB programmers in a room with an SQL server and never explained the relational model to them. You'd end up with something BETTER than ACT Premium. In the end, the novice programmers would probably accidentally discover relational tables in the help files, unlike the programmers who built ACT.
Want to backup your SQL database? Too bad. Feel like you should own your own data? Get over it, you're not authorized!
They reset the SA password, and delete any accounts that have SA privileges from the SQL server every time the program is run!
There is a utility which will get the SA password for you, if you promise not to actually change the database... for a mere US$1800.
You can't imagine how bad this thing is... and I hope you don't have to!.
Oh.. and ACT 2007 only works with Outlook 2003, not Outlook 2000, or Outlook 2007. If you use Outlook 2007, you have to upgrade to ACT 2008.
--Mike--
Sun Java and Adobe Reader are my all time "favorites" for annoying software.
Java:
1. Installing new version DOES NOT uninstall previous one. So we have to write scripts that specifically does this as we deploy to client computers.
2. Auto-update service jusched.exe is a resource hog and damn annoying one.
3. JRE is slow to start even on dual-core systems.
Reader:
1. Auto-update breaks easily and fixing requires a technician.
2. Reader is so bloated that it doesn't start in reasonable time
3. Forced EULA and downtown without custom install parameters, just see this how nasty it is to do it correctly.
Linux for retards.
in b4 modded down
Honestly, why pay good money for music with DRM and/or recorded in a lossy format? I want a pristine perfect original in my hand that I can rip to whatever format/device I require. I refuse to pay for crap!
Now, if I could only buy that music UN-mastered, the way it was originally recorded (and not mangled for radio play), I'd be a happy camper. Not gonna hold my breath for that, understand, but I *would* be happy.
Added bonus: most artists get a bigger cut from CD sales than they do from the same songs purchased digitally.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Linux users are left out of experiencing most of these great softwares.
factor 966971: 966971
small ZD-net picture gallery article that makes the pictures so small you cant really see them very well so it hurts your eyes.
I'm having a hard time deciding if its funny or just pathetic that the article it self falls into its own rant.
Less than a quarter of my screen space was the actual article the rest was adds and link for shit I didn't want and wasn't interested in, and the article that should have been a three page scroll down affair was an 11 page click through to boost the idiots ad views.
God, how could I forget.
Nero, oh how you have fallen from grace. Nero 3 was tight, efficient, and not cluttered.
I tried Nero 5 or 6 (the latest) only a few weeks ago. It installed all sorts of shit (why does every fucking program have the audacity to associate ITSELF with every media type on the planet, regardless of it's original function in the first place?).
I got rid of it ASAP when I realised it was trying to become my new media centre too, and was indexing every file on the disc spiking the CPU around 80% on average. The cheek.
It's claws go deep, deep into your system; it comes with tens of utterly useless other bloated apps, all because you just want to burn CD's now & then.
Such a shame; it used to be the tool to use for burning CDs
throw new NoSignatureException();
The company which procured the seat for me implied that the website didn't support a downloadable image, just a direct installation. I haven't had the opportunity to check because...
The network is run by the Army. Three months later, they're still waiting for approval to operate the software. Boots and bullets they understand, software is a different story.
Invenio via vel creo
We've already discussed it before, and Bonzi Buddy, is the most annoying piece of code, ever written!
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
My GOD what a dog! I have worked for IBM and several companies that use Lotus Notes and there has never been a worse interface or a worse resource hog. You're writing an email and you'd like to attach a document. Is there an attach icon? Nope. Why would you need that? You want to print a document. Is there a print icon? Nope. Please look through the navigation menu to find commands you might use on a daily basis. The ones you never use like replicate or fornicate or whatever the hell the icons are supposed to represent, sure those are all over the place. We used to get chewed out in the office because we didn't respond immediately to those useless To: ALL messages while we were testing in the lab because the software we were testing would fail if Lotus Notes was running because it hogged all the resources, even when it wasn't doing anything. So they came out with Notes Buddy or some other lame tool that would tell you you've got mail so you don't have to run the entire Lotus Notes friggin OS just to be notified. Why does my email software have to be a swiss army knife and also be a scheduler, a spreadsheet, a project planner, a defect tracking system, a document archiver, a hair cream and a floor cleaner? I just want it to do email.
Any software that doesn't use sane version numbering that anyone could tell what the newest version is easily. Norton and Microsoft I'm looking at you.
Software that wants to update when it is started or seemingly randomly while I'm working. I'm not in maintenance mode, so I'm not updating software. Shut up and go away. Or if you're already set to auto update, don't tell me, don't interrupt my work and don't freaking reboot my computer!
Software that steals focus. This is just about everything. My favorite X11 window manager ever is Window Maker and it has an option to never allow new windows to take focus. I want that option on Vista, since I need to use Windows for work.
What are you talking about exactly? I'm a developer using Microsoft tools all day long. The only time I've ever had a problem with FireFox is when trying to do Windows Updates. Those appear to require ActiveX controls from Microsoft. I suppose other sites may require ActiveX controls also but not any I go to. The Bookmarks are much easier to manage than IE's Favorites, and Firefox was way ahead in tabbed browsing. I can even use Firefox for MSDN downloads now.
What? He was using Firefox to browse a mapped drive and it corrupted a file or something? What work are they doing in their browsers, going to an intranet application you've written internally? I have a hard time seeing how using Firefox as intended (as a browser) would cause a "project" to become corrupted...
I worked in the computer repair business for a long time, and even now I do it about half the day, and spend the other half with web development. In the last 8 years or so I have had a long, trying time with Norton and its anti-virus software. One of the biggest problems is the fact that it makes people pay for updates, which in turn makes people believe they have a quality product. For example, people come into my store, and say they have some kind of problem and I check it out, and its a virus or a lot of spyware. If they have Norton, they usually say "Well, I have Norton, so I shouldn't have any viruses". I typically respond "Yes, that would be the best thing, but in reality, if Norton actually worked, I would only get about half the business I do now." And, that's the truth, most of the computers I fix virus and other malware problems on nearly always have Norton installed, and to date I have seen less than 10 with AVG, Spybot S&D installed. Perhaps its also the users, but Norton surely has something to do with it. Typically, I just recommend a format and Windows reinstall over uninstalling Norton and removing the viruses, because after all the biggest virus of them all is Norton and many of its affects on windows are irreversible.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
How many other companies have software specifically designed to remove their *own* product? See SymNRT. Link to Symantec site is at the bottom.
Andy
...a Dell Inspiron 3800 dinosaur of a laptop with XP(!) on it. First thing I've done with it is take the memory to 512MB and zapped the HDD. Now it's running SuSE 10.3. Bloody quick it is now, unlike that drive hog POS that is the most slothsome of platforms ever that was on it.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
AioKits is referring to this famous comedy line:
Welcome to All Things Scottish. if it's not Scottish, it's crap!
Google it.
Joe Dougherty, Florida, USA
The words I thought I brought, I left behind. So, never mind.
They're not public, but I'd bet that almost every custom business app wallowing in offices all over the place would very well qualify for "Most Annoying Software Out There".
Should probably have been iTunes and QuickTime on that list since Apple isn't exactly "software"...
vi.
I can't believe that no-one's mentioned Excel yet, especially on importing and exporting.
.Net here) tears their hair out trying to cope with the last 10%.
It's annoying feature is that it will try to guess what format the data is in and the annoying part is that it will get it right about 90% of the time, which is just good enough that the user thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread, but anyone who tries to write data handling import routines from Excel (I'm using
IIRC some Genetic engineers were entering strings like "10FEB" or whatever which were all converted to dates.
I just want a prominent checkbox somewhere which says "don't fuck with my data", but so far they haven't put one in.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
That has got to be one of the greatest console dumps I've ever seen.
It redirected me to the 'right' URL for one of the files a dozen times, then finally failed to provide even a redirect. I may need to frame this.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
An article that could fit on one page, but instead spread over a dozen, is far more annoying than any software mentioned in said article.
Try reading that on a blackberry!
The article is decent, but the irony far over shadows any point the author intended to make, imho.
Companies that seem to think that you bought your computer for the sole purpose of using their software. That's OK for specialized software, not for basic services like anti-virus or printer drivers.
But it's the specialized software that doesn't interfere too much with your system (any 'uninstallable' IDE's? 3D designer apps?) and the basic services that hog your system and annoy the hell out of you while they should be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible.
Why?
Yes. I know the answer. Marketing. But still, WHY? Like anybody buys the software if the free version is driving them nuts!
There is plenty of proprietary in-house stuff that is not part of this discussion. In other words, stuff that is not "out there."
I second that... I'm running 10.5 on a 2004 iBook G4, and while resuming from sleep would crap out about every 10th or so time in Tiger, it hasn't failed me yet in Leopard. I don't doubt that the grandparent poster is having legitimate issues with the system, but from what I've seen (and this being a college town, a lot of people around me use Macs as their main computers), his experience is the exception rather than the rule.
Leopard definitely have its share of bugs, such as the known unreliability of the new 802.1X configuration mechanism (why did you kill Internet Connect, Apple? It worked beautifully!) But I've never seen the operating system crash, let alone give me weird "out of memory" errors...
Why does no one make a critique of the inherent architecture of the system one is trying to remove these programs from? One of the biggest faults of Windows is the inexcusably stupid registry concept. Having a single point of failure in something so often changed as one's configuration settings is just idiotic. That it's cryptic and inaccessible (to the average Joe Brown) just makes it worse.
That Windows' start up items hook into so many places in the OS makes it even further difficult to remove these so-called annoying programs. I remember seeing the complexity involved in manually removing Norton's or McAfee's products. Windows manual uninstalls are a nightmare. Which of course just magnifies the frustration.
I blame a lot of the annoyance these programs cause on the poor architectural design of Windows itself.
Not a perfect solution, particularly when there are security holes which need patching, but oldversion.com has earlier version - I use Adobe Acrobat Reader v5, which covers pretty much everything I ever get sent.
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
It's the one tech that "just works". Small, lightweight, no automatic updates.
Now, becuase companies misuse it is somehow Flash's fault?
The idiots that force you to access their website via Flash will just as likely abuse any other tech at their disposal
Anyone actually *like* Office 2007?
Microsoft was once the company who preached a common interface. You can find no end of old articles of Bill Gates describing the future where all applications will look the same and will react the same so users will be familiar with an application they have never seen before.
Well screw that future, Microsoft now has decided that was all a bunch of bullshit and have developed their top 3 applications with radically different interfaces (Office, Outlook, and Internet Explorer) to confuse all of us, and they put it on a OS (Vista) with several different types of interfaces depending on what your doing with it. (dialogs look and act different all over Vista.)
Hea Steve, how about a new motto: "Guidelines? We don't need no stinkin' UI guidelines.. we are Microsoft, you'll love it."
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
I think we could distill the kinds of annoyance exhibited by your list and those of others here into a fairly concise list of "bad behaviours":
In other words, software that can't just do its job and leave everything else well alone.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
On the other hand, standby/wakeup worked most of the time ok on my 2004-ish Sempron desktop with XP SP2. Now, I've installed SP3 and it won't enter standby because of the NIC driver - obviously the same one which was ok in SP2.
"The device driver for the 'Intel(R) PRO/100B PCI Adapter (TX)' device is preventing the machine from entering standby. Please close all applications and try again. If the problem persists, you may need to update this driver."
So now I have to disable the NIC before standby. Go figure.
Never mind, I'll switch my desktop to opensuse 11 as soon as it's out, and boot XP only when I have no other choice. So I won't have problems with standby, because it simply won't work in Linux. Which is mostly because of nvidia's driver in my case, it seems to manage to standby/wakeup without it...
.sig: No such file or directory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUWin_II
Zinf Is Not FreeA*p!
http://www.zinf.org/
it used to be good, don't know now ( haven't been forced to use MS Windows for ages, thank god )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_media_players
for more^more choices
( damn, I wish they'd put that page in OO.o spreadsheet format, so one could sort + delete the items of non-interest, making the finding of what IS of interest to be usefully efficient! )
This is software that, although MARKETED, SOLD and primarily USED as an email client, actually DEFENDS its deservedly crappy reputation by saying "it's so much MORE than an email client!".
To be MORE THAN AN EMAIL client, you have to actually *BE* AN EMAIL CLIENT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I hereby nominate Lotus Notes as the most Annoying Software OF ALL TIME.
repeat after me...
;o)
Linux.
Linux
Linux
LINUX!
hee hee
Interesting how it's all Windows software. Come to think of it, shouldn't Windows itself be on the list?
I am surprised that CCleaner has not been mentioned so far, to clean the crap off your computer. It even removes all the trialware that the PCs typically come with - including Norton.
I'm stuck with it since I refuse to throw away money on AV programs since I only use Windows for gaming, everything else i use Linux. But stupid McAfee constantly nags me. Download this, updates aviable, update subscription, bla bla bla. And guess what? It HAPPENS DURING GAMES! The stupid option in the Control Panel to not pop up during gaming does NOT work, so whenever McAfee feels like pestering me, Counter Strike lags
1. Splash screen sits in the middle of your screen for 2 minutes or more, like a big, wet fart.
2. Tells you all your cookies are virii.
3. Charges your credit card for license renewal without your permission.
zdnet
Ah! I was sooo pissed off at the freaking thing that I wanted it off and so did my brother in law. He's not technical, but he knew somehow that it was the problem.
I don't want to exit the installation. I want to decline your %^&* "license agreement."
How do you change your mind _with_ hassle?
What, no rickroll.exe?
Most people don't get why the integral of "e to the x" is so funny. Most math majors don't have a sense of humor.
I got just about everyone I know hooked on AVG then after having a few issues with performance (can be a dog) and undetected viruses (!!) I got hooked on Avast.
I'd stop a little short of *praising* their interface (two taskbar icons by default?) but the price is right (free, for home use) and it works like you'd hope for something defending your desktop.
Quack, quack.
"I see you are looking for annoying software. Would you like some help?"
Redundant by now, I'm sure.
Have gnu, will travel.
I hate that damn purple gorilla.... Oh wait were we talking about regular applications and not spyware????
The article is about Windows, so all the applications have installers. Organized package tool systems like 'ports' on BSD and 'ebuilds' on Gentoo are not graphical interfaces, so anything along those lines is very acceptable. I take exception in the few cases where they try to think for you and make assumptions. That is the rule with graphical installers. Even in FOSS it can be unbearable but one can usually work around them on the command line. Some command-line installs are so simple that you think you have failed because it 'simply worked'.
As for the Windows applications, along with Windows itself, the most annoying are Flash and Acroread both by Adobe. Honorable mention must go to Realplayer. By bypassing 'their installer', you can spare allot of grief. I know better concerning Acroread. The commonly cited example, "Evince is vastly superior". is absolutely true. I like my FreeBSD with multiple amd64 cores and as a result it isn't any problem to run Linux or Windows. (Some people say I have too much time, but anybody can have my system software for free.) My only use for Windows is to run Flash on BBC and some other sites where it is not trivial to bypass. Of course I need to run Firefox to use the Flash-9. plug-in. I test some applications friends write for Windows out of marketing reality too, generally ports of programs developed on Unix. My conclusion on Windows is that it is nothing more than a collection of browsers and second-rate "multimedia". There are other reasons to emulate Windows but that is not on topic. Once tamed, Windows is OK as a beginner OS and with experience it can be installed quickly and ran somewhat safely.
Flash is therefore the worst because it has no place. The web can be hell because of it if you don't use an 'external' ad blocker. (in the Unix part of the machine) As some correctly stated, its very dangerous and can hose your (virtual) Windows. It could, in theory, discover if you were running under emulation and possibly take aim for the Unix 'root'. Fortunately online criminals are far below "power users" and we still can laugh a bit to this day. Flash is not light, it takes far too long to load compared to other components and adds absolutely no enjoyment to the browsing experience. If I want to see a video, let me see it on my terms. Mplayer (or possibly VLC) offer greater flexibility and rather amazing quality on both video and audio over Flash.
Realplayer, (Helixplay) outside of Windows, is not a bad performer. Its not yet fully integrated into mplayer, but its not a bad experience to install non-graphically. Its only recently I've realized that both Realplay and Windows media player are extraordinarily poor when used with Windows. (Verified by testing on a native i386 Windows XP system.) This simply gives Flash a default position in the "multimedia" world and Adobe must do everything in their power to see that it stays that way. This is "marketing reality" -- fully dependent on people having their heads in the sand.
Personally I don't bother with commercial games. That may be a valid reason to use Windows and put up with the hell it can bring. This situation appears to be changing fast and if you count game consoles, Linux could already be in position to become the market leader. Oh, game noises are as annoying as they are unnecessary.
So Flash is the biggest annoyance, you should know better about Acroread and look at your videos on a properly implemented system before passing judgment on various formats. As for audio -- Forget Windows.
One last point. Has anybody ever put one of those America Online CDs that used to fill your snail box in a Windows computer? Somehow I just know that stuff was evil. At the hacker congresses is called "Assholes online" and somehow that paints a certain picture of extreme annoyance.......
The grandparent is an ancient Cut&Paste troll
Adobe Reader
:D
... but until then, I sleep well at night and I am productive during the day. No crap background processes running sucking up resources. If you are still using Windows for some reason, might I suggest AVG.
Preview in OS X loads very fast, and is more then a PDF viewer. No reason to install Adobe reader.
Apple iTunes
Runs way better on OS X. Not a system hog, don't need to worry about bundled Safari since the OS already has it
Windows Update
Apple did this right, I don't get random popups saying my computer is being rebooted. Updates are common enough to fix the issues, but not enough to make my life hell.
RealPlayer
Wow, these guys are still around ? Last time I used this was like what, 1999 ?
Java
Eh, its the nature of the beast. I hate Java anyway, so this doesn't affect me. When searching for applications, I will skip over those written in Java for something native. Cry all you want about Java's more recent performance boosts, I really don't care. Its crap.
Yahoo
Uh, why would you install this in the first place ? I have never installed any "tool bars" and I have no plans to do so in the future.
Norton Antivirus
This is a Windows problem. Sure, one day OS X might need this
Preinstalled software bundles
Preinstaled applications with a Mac are all useful.
Outlook/Exchange
Mail.app is light years past Outlook. The _only_ reason I could see using this crap is if I was forced to at a job.
Flash
Eh, it comes preinstalled with most OS's. Updates are infrequent. Flash is here to stay, get used to it. Yes, I run flash block on most sites because I am sick and tired of advertisments that make noise in the background. Those few sites spoiled it for advertisers everywhere.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
is to rename qttast.exe to qttast.exe.disabled, remove the shortcut to quicktime from start menu and create your own that links directly to quicktime.exe
The original one will recreate qttast.exe if you run it.
That way the qttast.exe will not be re-created and it will not be running on startup. Of course you can remove it from HKLM/Software/Microsft/Window/CurrentVersion/Run
as well, since there won't be such executable any more. (There may be other references to it in registry).
Also, you can remove the apple services that got installed.
sc delete "Service Name"
does the trick.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
And they didn't mention the "upgraded" Slashdot comment system?
1. RealPlayer - they pioneered innovation in annoyance software. I think they wanted to be the innovators of an audio standard, and buffered out.
2. Adobe Reader - I just want to read PDF documents in less than 20 minutes. If it could print preview them in less than 3 days, that would be great too.
3. Any software that has tooltips that you can't get rid of. Basically, all of them. Try viewing images & such in FireFox, and often the tooltip will be late to the party, and cover up part of the image you are viewing.
4. Any software that has a splash window that covers EVERYTHING. I even submitted a bug report for one app, for several versions, and they didn't fix it.
5. Anything that steals focus. I'm lookin' at you, Windows Explorer
called lsbom (look up the man page) that let's you list all the files that will be installed by an application, that you can either inspect prior to installation or post installation. OS X keeps the receipts for installed apps in /Library/Receipts
/Library/Receipts/GarageBand.pkg/Contents
:D.
so for example if you navigate to
and execute
lsbom Archive.bom
you will get a list of all files that got installed as part of Garage Band application installation.
Then you can manually remove those files, if you want to. Also, you can manually remove user data.
But, I agree that it's not exactly user friendly form an OS that pretends to be user friendly, easy and that "just works" tm.
But if you are a UNIX geek than you prefer to do these things from the terminal manually anyway
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
It's not "Norton", it's "Symantec". They bought Peter Norton's useful, well-known products, converted them to unproductive bloatware (while removing the good parts--their version of the "Norton Utilities" lacks the tool named in the title!), then further sullied whatever goodwill was left to Norton's name by attaching it to a worst-in-class "anti-virus" product. A sad end for a once-proud brand name!
Anything pop things up is annoying...
Windows update that popup a message asking you to reboot when you are doing a presentation
Tons of 'auto-update' popups when windows starts
Windows and Linux desktops show a BIG window when you insert a CD or a USB thumb
IE popup ads like crazy
Anyone who has ever worked anything other than the sales floor at any Best Buy in the country knows the software I'm about to talk about. It has caused numerous headaches to those who are subjected to it. The software, you ask? It goes by the name of "STAR".
What is this abomination? It's some horrible bastardization of Clear Logistics' eFrontOffice package tailored specifically to Best Buy for keeping track of all their service and repair work. The fact that it is slow (more on that in a bit) is only the beginning. The entire application seems designed to inflict maximum frustration.
My entry for consumer level software? Samsung Media Studio. I purchased a 4gb P2 recently, and discovered that the included software was buggy and unintuitive. What I DIDN'T discover until a bit later, however, was the i
Hmm. I bought a Samsung laser printer recently, and I was pleasantly surprised that they had non-intrusive drivers. No system tray icons, no bullshit. Just shut up and do your job drivers. It was like 1990s all over again...
--Coder
As an Evil Penguin Shagging Communist (TM), I can honestly say I've never had problems with this software.
For viewing PDFs, I have KPDF.
For surfing the web, I have konqueror; for playing music I have mpg321 and for organising my collection I have mysql.
For updating my system, I have # apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. And then only because I insist to run Sid.
I don't have realplayer. I tried the open-source Helix player once. Didn't like it. Went back to vlc.
Java didn't do anything like that to me.
For talking on Yahoo messenger, I have Pidgin.
I don't need Norton anything. My OS of choice has a well-thought-out privilege separation system implemented correctly, guaranteeing some measure of security; and a full suite of userland tools, including scripting languages capable of dealing with binary files if it becomes necessary to create something nobody else already thought of.
Not got a Vaio.
I use various mail clients including KMail, Evolution and Alpine. They aren't in the least bit annoying.
The lack of a 64-bit Flash player was never such a great hardship for me. I've got youtube-dl to download YouTube videos, iplayer-dl to download BBC iPlayer videos and vlc for watching them. The Free flash clients such as GNASH can be expected to improve now Adobe have dropped their illegal and/or unenforcible restrictions on the use of the Flash format specification.
Sometimes Windows users remind me of someone who chooses to sit under a leaking pipe and moan about getting wet, as opposed to just moving somewhere else. Get a clue: You don't have to put up with this shit!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Anytime a software vendor releases a "360" version of a previous products, you can be sure that it will be 360x more painful to use. Yahoo 360, Norton 360, xbox 360, do you see the trend here? When Windows 360 comes out, I'm going to shoot myself.
The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
Where the hell did you get that idea? I've had Winamp on 5 different PCs and it never did that. And regarding AOL's stake in Winamp; it's only a matter of time before anything good is tainted by one of the coporations we all love to hate. I personally hate Microsoft less than AOL. But at least Winamp works well.
I find Avast a good product, although I doubt it is effective, because every now and then I have to manually clean a computer infected by Amvo [a rootkit that disables 'show hidden files', copies itself in the root of each detected volume, creates autorun.inf files there].
My dad has Windows XP on his machine, and apparently, the source of the infection are the removable flash drives he connects to his PC.
I configured Avast to silently cancel i/o operations with infected files; yet in spite of that, Amvo manages to get through.
I disabled "autoplay", set all of Avast's settings to their reasonable values - nothing. After a while it detects an infected executable in the root of C: and even if I press "delete" it is still there. I know that the file is locked and it cannot be deleted; but if I schedule a full-scan at reboot - it sort of fixes it, but once I'm back to Windows I get the warning again - same file, same path.
- Is there a magic switch I must toggle?
- Am I missing some other detail (ex: another Windows setting)
- Or is the inability to deal with such cases a design decsion for the free version
The saddest poem
Lotus Notes
I purchased a new HP Compaq subnotebook. No chance to get it without Vista. Ok, giv'em a try: after 3 Hours installing Vista after turning it on the first time a new Vista desktop looked at me. Not too bad, but it has had pre installed Norton Antivirus. I already spend hours to deinstall Norton before.
To make a long story short. I finally installed Ubuntu into to whole disk.
I don't know if you ever used the site back in the day (they've changed it now), but I really like county paintball's javascript 'folder' layout in the left pane of the window. It was a hierarchy of 'folders', windows style, that you could expand by hitting a '+' icon next to the folder icon, and you could load the contents of any folder level by clicking on the folder itself. If you were done with a section, just collapse the top parent folder and everything was collapsed back in to the parent. The only page loads were if you wanted to see the gear in a folder. It was subtle, elegant, and didn't require loading a new window or refreshing the entire thing every time you clicked a link. It didn't require a plugin, either.
Paintball gear sites are especially difficult, because almost every section has to be broken up by gun manufacturer; a bad design is unbearable. If I want a barrel, bolt, and CO2 tank, I have to navigate to the barrel section, then the barrel manufacturer, then the version of that barrel for my gun. Then trace back and do the same for my bolt, and finally trace back and go to a generic section for tanks. I've left paintball sites before because the navigation was bad. IMHO, the correct navigation for a paintball site is a generic category for each item, broken down by part manufacturer, and a drop down list for gun manufacturer when ordering, with a second drop down for color or other attributes like barrel length, etc. If I want a black, 14" J&J ceramic barrel for a Spyder or Piranha (they have the same threading), I should only have to navigate to a J&J ceramic section under barrels. And that should require, at most, exactly one page reload. If its any consolation, I won't be spending my money at a paintball site that makes browsing a chore, so your former employer isn't seeing my cash.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
| Re:My vote: The Browser
IN 1989, BEFORE HTML EXISTED, A PRE-BROWSER REMOTE UI WAS PROPOSED: jWindows.
But it was botched, and never implemented -- good ideas are a dime a dozen.
HTML came, and it ended up trying to shove a UI through a browser window,
and now we're stuck with it.
here's a look back at a windowing extension of the ASCII command set,
just another good idea that was not to be...
--| jWindows spec, v1.0.2 |---
Modem Windowing and E-Mail Retrieval Standard
JWindows and JScript Version 1.02 - July 9, 1989
By J.PENNER (GEnie)
One paragraph on JWindows Background: I am proposing a new standard for telecomunications. It is called JWindows, and JScript. JWindows will allow the average programmer to add window and graphic capabilities to his/her bbs program with minimal effort. It provides an alternative to the limited ANSI control codes for cursor positioning, and color, and is much easier to implement then a huge, complex spec like X-Windows. JWindows is maybe not the most comprehensive set of windowing features, but one of it's main advantages is it's relative simplicity, and it strives for portability among machines, so that an IBM user can phone up a Macintosh, and receive JWindows properly, and an Amiga equiped with a JWindows type terminal program, can receive Window commands from a VAX. JScript attempts to standardize the accessing of some pretty standard features on BBS's: Entering in your name and password, Reading Mail Addressed to You, and Up/Downloading a File. So, enough talk, let's get to the proposal...
This proposal comes in two parts:
1. This first part is the Windowing standard called JWindows, it allows Macintoshes, and PC's the ability to send Windows, Buttons, Menus, and Some Graphics over the phone to any other Mac or PC which has a terminal program supporting this simple protocol.
2. The Second part of this proposal deals with a standard form for computer scripts to automatically access a BBS, or information service to do such basic operations like: Logging On, Logging Off, Retrieving Mail Sent to You, Reading New Bulletins, and Up/Downloading a File.
Part I - Windowing Standard for Telecommunications Programs
There are two ends to this, the terminal that recieves the commands (typically Joe User Phoning up a service like GEnie, or his favorite BBS) will be called the Host, and the BBS Program, or Information Service (like GEnie, or CompuServe hint hint) will be called the Sender. Now this Standard aims to be fairly straightforward in it's approach, When the Sender sends a String (under the Heading "String") the Host will respond by doing the appropriate action on the screen. If none of these special escape sequences are sent, then text sent to the host will appear at the current cursor position just as text has always appeared in terminal programs. All coordinates are given in pixels, and start at 0,0 in the top left corner of the screen, for a rectangle, the coordinates will be given as: a,b,c,d So, a will be the left side of the rectangle (sometimes called X1), and b will be the Top of the Rectangle (sometimes called Y1), and c will be the right side of the rectangle (sometimes called X2), and d will be the bottom of the rectangle (sometimes called Y2). Keep in mind, a lot of these commands could be VERY easily implemented by someone writing a simple terminal program in Microsoft QuickBasic. Now for the commands:
Command String
_______ __________________________
WINDOW 27,01,id,X,Y,Z,a,b,c,d
Makes a window
- id, is of course the id number of the window the Sender wishes to create.
- If X=1 then create a window if the window already is open, then ignore the command.
- If X=0 then close the window, If Y=1 then Select the window, if Y=0 then Deselect the window.
- Z is the Window type with valid numbers being 1,2,3,4 which corespond to the 4 macintosh wi
I used to love WinAmp. I paid for it. But every 5.x version wanted to install the "Winamp Agent" to "Improve your experience". Which I declined.
Well, about 2 releases ago (or so), none of the file associations would work. I set them, and then would immediately disappear.
I checked on their support site, and the answer was... we changed WinAmp so it requires the agent because that's what actually does the associations (I suggested this was a bad idea, and a bunch of accounts accused me of "not understanding Windows"). Anyway, thinking I was clever, I installed the agent, let it set the associations, then deleted the agent.
And once I removed the agent and rebooted, you guessed it, the associations were gone. So it appeared to me that in true AOL fashion, they wanted to monitor my listening habits so I could use the software I paid for. Justin Frankel's influence is long gone from this product.
I tried the 2.x and 3.x versions, but both lack the ability to play/record flac and other non-proprietary formats. And I realized, much like the Adobe Reader, it was now so big and bloated that it took 10 seconds to start playing music when I clicked on it.
I decided Foobar2000 was actually pretty good, reasonably lightweight, and was unlikely to become spyware as I think WinAmp has become.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
That was very insightful, and glad you got modded so!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.