Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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();
The decline of Norton is a sad story. I remember when Norton's Disk Doctor for DOS was cool, and when it was fun to watch Speedisk shuffle the clusters on your FAT filesystem all around. And it actually worked as advertised! :-)
What was the last good version? Norton Utilities for DOS 6.01?
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Storm
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
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
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.
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
We were on on offshore survey in the Gulf of Mexico when one of our computers died. No problem I thought, I threw in a spare laptop SATA and reinstalled Windows and the survey software. When it came time to download the printer drivers from HP they came in at a whopping 135 MB! For a damn driver! We were on a satellite linkup and downloading that one driver to print out the results cost over $100.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
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.
I just installed AVG free 8.0 and it immediatly told my I had a virus in an email and deleted my whole inbox.
Just an FYI
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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
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 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.
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.
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.
Leopard I hate you!
I have ubuntu at home, I have Vista at home, they make me use a MBP with Leopard at work. Vista, most likely due to it no having to connect to any sort of server, works beautifully. It runs on a many year old Dell 8300 Dimension, streams netflix to the TV, acts as a home office computer and I re-boot it once every 3 weeks, not because it needs to, but because I feel like I should. Ubuntu is on an old Dell 1100 Inspiron upstairs, it acts as my streaming jukebox from my network drive and on-site webbrowser, so we don't have to go downstairs to the mancave or open the work laptops. My work laptop, with Leopard, is the most unstable, constantly updating, out of control, mind-of-it's-own POS that I've ever worked with. Now don't get me wrong, I love the interface, Apple got this OSX thing right, but the machinations underneath the surface just ruin the experience. Most times I 'sleep' the computer I need to restart. Multiple monitors at work? I need to restart. Two days of intense document construction? "Out of memory" and I need to restart. After 2 days the cursor becomes jumpy, I need to restart and the list goes on and on and on. I would like the OSX inteface on a computer that lets me work, using simple productivity packages, day after day after day with no failures - is that too much to ask Apple?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
AND HOW! Nothing's more annoying that typing an email- or a slashdot comment, just to look up and realize nothing you typed made it to the textbox. Why? Because an update alert just popped up and stole your focus. Or even worse- Windows Automatic Update has alerted you that you have 30 seconds before it restarts your computer. Your only options: Restart now, or Restart Later. That's it.
If you're away from your desk for a minute or two to go to the bathroom, and you didn't save your documents- shame on you, Microsoft decided that their software updates are more important than the productivity of the person using the software, which is absolute crap. It restarts without prompting for saving. It forces a shutdown. Does this on Server2003 too- REAAAAL good for production environments (and yes, automatic updates is off... not even sure how it got started )
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Safari updates are obnoxious, regardless of the OS. On Windows they sneak them in through the back door, while on OS X Safari updates for some reason require you to reboot the computer.
Yes, I have to reboot a Unix box because I update a web browser. I don't know what came over Apple to make that decision; the only reason I can think of is that Safari hooks into the kernel - and quite seriously, a kext for a browser is a pretty bad design choice.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
not a kext, Webkit. When they update safari they also update webkit. Lots of system apps use the webkit engine. Dashboard is the one i think of right away. Mail renders HTML Email using webkit. In fact im sure the QuickLook Server uses webkit to preview web pages on disk. I think they make you restart because they are taking the easy way out instead of calling for a restart for all webkit apps.
How many computers are too many?
teatimer was using 5 to 10% of the processor on my Core2DUo laptop with XP sp3 and 2 gigs of ram. That's worse than even a pig like Norton, so I deleted it and run Windows defender which does behave. I hate giving M$ more support but alas teatimer is not the answer, at least for me.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
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.