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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.'"
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'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.
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!
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 Linux, Agreed. But when is Evince going to work in Windows ? Oh. Never ?? So what choice does a person using windows have ?
Apple iTunes - Using open source music program "Amarok". Result? Software does not annoy (and works much better than iTunes as well).For Linux, Agreed. But when is Amarok going to work in Windows or with people's iPods? Oh. Never ?? So what alternateive choice does a person using windows have ?
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.No repeated system restarts, but none ? What about when your kernel is updated ? What about VMWare needing to be recompiled once you HAVE rebooted ?
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.See above comments for Amarok.
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. True. 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. You are kidding right ? What do you do when you have a company that USES Yahoo for its "approved" IM provider ? Norton Antivirus - Using upgraded OS "Linux" so that viruses are not a problem. Result? Viruses? I don't have no stinking viruses!True. However if you do filesharing with Windows, you should consider something like Avast which has a free Windows AND Linux version.
UPS Sucks
You should try to remove Norton virus checker. It has pieces of itself everywhere, and it over writes Windows system files with its own.
So you get a brand new machine, and during the first login, the Norton installer runs. You have NO choice in this. Some deal was reached between the machine distributor and Norton, and that is just the way it is.
If you make a mistake, the entire Windows system goes sideways. We alway do an image FIRST, then try to remove it. That way if something blows up you have a fallback. Then we make an image for the rest of the same type of machine, and we re-image every new one that comes in the door.
Hey Norton: go stuff it!
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
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.
"Stop using Windows" isn't a bugfix.
Yeah, and the Safari "update". If I wanted yet *another* browser, I'd have installed it myself. Don't include it as a quicktime update. WTF? Seriously apple, WTF?
You'll have that sometimes...
Why should I change my usage? They're the ones that suck.
(unless you want to click through about 10 pages)
I hope I'm not the only one struck by the irony of this article formatting given that this it is criticizing bad UI design...
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
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.
No, but why would you want to? It defaults to Magnatune, which has a much nicer business model than iTunes. No DRM, more formats including patent-free Ogg Vorbis, artists gets half of what you pay instead of only 10% or less, you pay whatever you think is reasonable, and you're allowed, nay, encouraged to share. I think you can also get other music stores like Jamendo for Amarok, but I personally use Gnome's Rhythmbox, which has plugins by default for both of these stores. Sure, you won't find Britney Spears selling her stuff in Magnatune, but the quality of the music is not bad at all, even if it's not what's currently playinig in MTV.
Personally, iTunes was the biggest reason why I installed Debian etch on my mom's laptop. She doesn't know her own root password, of course; I'm the one adminning it for her. A bit of a hassle for me to set up at first, but now it works fine, and it has the rock solid stability of Debian. She loves it, and in her own words, "a lot less bullshitty than that other thing." She doesn't know the other thing is called Sony Vaio's default Windows XP install with all that crapware it comes with out of the box.
Because you're doing it wrong??
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Then download norton removal tool and run it to make sure it's gone.
What irritates me is why the hell do they have an uninstaller if it, you know, doesn't uninstall the damn thing? I suppose if they're going to put removal tools for viruses on their site they may as well include one for their own "products".
The only people who write worse (un)installers than Symantec is Adobe. I truly think they have nothing but brain-dead chimps on their install team.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Simple?! Two reboots, a non-disclosed password (as far as I know), and an additional removal tool just to uninstall a piece of software?
Oh, I really really hate this. When will printer manufacturers learn that I don't want to install your stupid little utilities?!
Give me plain, unadulterated drivers, not software installs. Give me a PPD/INF/whatever that I can point my OS to and use all of the built-in OS printing functions. That's all I want.
Same with cameras, scanners, and pretty much any other hardware out there. Give me the driver and leave me alone.
The program doesn't know that.
People were used to dragging files on and off a 1.4 MiB floppy disk. As the floppy began to disappear around the time of Windows 98 and the iMac, floppy formats from Iomega and Imation with nearly a hundred times the capacity enjoyed some limited success because the file manager treated them just like floppies. Some CD mastering apps tried to emulate floppy use cases by loading the existing sessions off a CD, mapping a temporary folder that imported the previous sessions, and writing the changes to a .iso and then to the CD once the user started to eject the CD.
But in the ISO 9660 format, the starting sector number of each file depends on the number of sectors in previous sessions, so building an image can't happen until the mastering program knows how large the previous sessions are. And because the mastering application doesn't know that your CDs are straight from the shrinkwrap until it reads the disc, it doesn't build the image until then. Sure, they could have put in a checkbox to turn multisession recording on and off, but that would not have increased hardware sales or software license revenue compared to the increased support costs from inexperienced users who mistakenly uncheck that box and try to add a session.
I've wondered this for awhile, what advantage does quicktime provide that causes people to continue to use it? I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious.
(For that matter, why were people using Realplayer?)
NOT in order of annoyingness:
Quicktime - It's both a terrible media player and it is insanely unwilling to be removed. Apple's central design concept seems to be preventing the user from doing what he wants. If I delete qttask.exe, it means I don't want that file anymore, not that I want it to be resurrected. If I disable it in msconfig, it doesn't mean that the next time Quicktime runs I want it to get a new startup entry.
iTunes - ituneshelper.exe is about the same as qttask, and iTunes is even worse at playing music than Quicktime is at playing movies. It's the single most bloated piece of software I've ever used. The iTunes store is another reason to avoid it, not to use it. It also crashes way too much on a new MacBook Pro, and since I don't know what Apple compatible software is a good replacement for it, I can't just replace it for my friend as I would if he had Windows.
Apple Updater - Everyone I know just installed Safari. They didn't mean to.
Flash - Thank you, Flashblock, for making the internet useable again. Thank you, bad web designers, for sticking retarded flash "intro pages" on your sites so I can see that they've been blocked and then avoid your company on principal.
HP Printer Philosophy - Thanks to you, too, HP, for making a printer that needs an IP to be set via a web interface in order to access that same web interface. Thanks to my neighbor for having a parallel cable sitting around so I could access it in a more traditional way.
Windows Desktop - Why do you lose my icon placement every time your resolution changes? Luckily, there are countless little freeware apps to save icon positions.
Real Player - You basically invented the Apple "if you uninstall me but I will grow more powerful than you can possibly imagine" routine, so you get extra evil points for originality.
Logitech Mouse Drivers - My mouse drivers are now 100 megs. Finally they fixed the two year problem of needing to run them manually after booting (running on startup caused them to fail), but they still involve two separate taskbar icons and take up a ton of RAM.
Word - I know how to make you do what I want, but it took years to learn how to both stop your autoformatting and then put in the formatting I want. I hate the way you place images. I hate the way you resize my stuff after I've already locked it down.
Verizon Phone UI - My phone had a great UI and lots of nice capabilities when it was made. You removed bluetooth file transfers so I'd have to pay you to get photos off my phone, and you made the interface ugly. You removed the ability to vibrate and ring at the same time. I'm glad my phone was so easily hackable.
Flash (again, but bear with me) movie players - The only reason you exist is to keep me from saving video to my hard disk. Guess what. I can still do it. Meanwhile, you're slow, often not resizable without using a magnifying tool to manually zoom onto your little box, and you require me to enable flash.
I know how to fix or replace all of you, but you kill me every time I have to use a new PC and wade through your bloated code again.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
The non-self-important-dipshit course of action would be to talk to your IT person. There's a reason (corporate policy) why your computer is set so.
Besides, the damned thing isn't your property. It's your employer's, so it's not yours to fuck with.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I disagree. Most people won't have a friend with a Mac that they look closely at enough to see how Quicktime works. What they will see is that the thing causing problems on their machine is an Apple product - which will make them doubt the "But, but, Apple just works" claims so often made of Apple's products.
I remember recently here someone telling me how Apple just works, and insisting that my PC would always distract me, or be "noisy" (I'm not quite sure what he meant), giving examples such as watching a DVD. Needless to say, he didn't believe me when I told him my PC just worked too (and does more than simply working).
But funnily enough, the next day I did have distractions when trying to view a video - because it was a quicktime movie, and I couldn't get it to do basic functionality, such as full screen mode. So I have to concede he was right after all - my computer doesn't just work, when it's running Apple software at least.