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.'"

Comments

Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[elrous0]

Print Version (unless you want to click through about 10 pages)

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.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Worse than that, actually. If you try to delete qttray.exe, the quicklauncher app that sits in the task tray and eats up memory for no other reason than giving QT a minor boost on startup, the quicktime application will detect this on system reboot (because it is registered as a startup application) and recreate the qttray.exe executable file from a stored version somewhere in its own bowels.

That's right. If you delete qttray, Quicktime opens its maw and barfs up a new version of it. Then it turns it on and puts it back in the task tray.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[RetroGeek]

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.

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!

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Ollabelle]

So don't delete it. Just run msconfig.exe and disable it.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[tha_mink]

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?

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Why should I change my usage? They're the ones that suck.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[carpe_noctem]

(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...

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[AndrewNeo]

This is a very good example of why I just reinstall with a normal Windows CD instead of the retail version. I even have an OEM version of XP handy so I don't get the junk from a 'restore' CD.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Keruo]

Removing Norton is simple, it just takes few steps.

Just open Start->Settings->Control Panel->Add or remove programs and uninstall it. Reboot.
If the install asks for password, the password is symantec.
After reboot uninstall Live-Update, also from control panel. Reboot.
Then download norton removal tool and run it to make sure it's gone.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[pnewhook]

Because you're doing it wrong??

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[nmb3000]

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.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[gaspyy]

No - if you disable it instead of deleting the entry, it'll stay away.

It's the first thing I do after installing stuff - disabling stupid startup items.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[FredFredrickson]

You're right, that is simple.

I work in computer repair, and on more than just a few occasions, the actual uninstaller for norton doesn't work. In fact, it takes very little effort to get a copy of norton to stop functioning properly. The security center will warn that certain parts of the software aren't working properly- and when you try to fix it, they just don't work. So then you try to uninstall it, and it comes up with an error.

So, I'd like to correct your few steps:

Step 1. Run the Norton Removal Tool. Don't waste your time with any of the other steps.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[toleraen]

Sure, sure, and I'm guessing there was nothing wrong with your usage until that piece of trash program started winning CODiE awards?

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Lumpy]

Want to know WTF? What if you DONT want to register their software.. Final Cut pro suite. I have to do the mac equivalent of registry hacking to turn off those stupid "register now?" dialogs that show up every 5 loads. The video editor stations are NEVER going to be on the net, I will NOT register them , BITE ME!

There are a lot of things they get right, and a LOT of things they get wrong. They do tend to get more right than wrong though.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[ceifeira]

Simple?! Two reboots, a non-disclosed password (as far as I know), and an additional removal tool just to uninstall a piece of software?

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[The Great Pretender]

I know that I'm going to get panned for this by the fruit lovers, but here goes:

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?

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[nawcom]

assuming you're runnning teatimer since every windows user should, permanently reject permissions for qttray to get added to the startup apps in the registry the next time it tries to.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[colourmyeyes]

Edit the registry and nuke all the autostart crap:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Delete entries at will (you might want to back it up first).

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[greetings programs]

You can avoid installing QT by using QT Alternative here http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm All the goods without the bloatware.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[p0tat03]

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.

May I suggest that this may be a hardware issue? I run a MBP with Leopard and have had none of these problems. In fact multiple monitors is one of the great things about running a Mac :) It just works, and it remembers all your settings to boot. Connect it to your work external monitor and blam, one desktop, connect to home, blam, another. I've also seen problems on MacBook hinges that prevent proper sleep, maybe this is the case.

Take it into your local Apple Store, this just ain't right.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Jesus_666]

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.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Kelbear]

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?)

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Dahamma]

It's a piece of shit program that happens to be required/automatically installed with iTunes (which is slightly less annoying software in itself that unfortunately is a must have for those little trendy devices called iPods...

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Colonel Korn]

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.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Zanth_]

I use Windows at work, I have a Debian server and a Ubuntu desktop at home and I own a MBP dual booting Leopard and XP SP2. Windows is easily the most frustrating out of the ones I use but my response is mainly an enquiry regarding your mac.

I run dual monitors (24" Dell) with my MBP, I run VM Ware Fusion with 1 GB of RAM allocated to the machine (I run a 2G MBP so it is capped at 2 Gigs of Ram). I have Fink installed and when compiling I can still have the VM up and all the while not having any stability issues. I hardly have any updates (and I check weekly). I've never experienced nor heard of anyone in my circle (we are about 20) who have had issues with Leopard. Despite it being a bit sluggish compared to a well setup Ubuntu install or a stripped down XP SP2, I would say it is more stable than the other two over time. I do get the "sleep" problem you mention though, but that seems to be endemic across laptops and OS'. For whatever reason, no one has perfected awaking from sleep yet.

I'm wondering if your laptop might not have some serious issues. What you describe seems out of the ordinary. You might want to send it off for a checkup. Perhaps you have dying RAM? I've never had to restart Leopard safe for a major update (usually a security patch) and certainly never when plugging in a second monitor. I plug it in and it just works.

Sure, myself and the 20 folks I work with are a small sample size and therefore this is mostly anecdotal, but just in case, you may want to get it looked at.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[encoderer]

You can also delete it and then create a text file and name it qttray.exe.

It will pass the generic:

if(!exists(qttray.exe))
{ // recreate
}

check but when it tries to execute it it just fails silently.

More on point, though: By deleting the file (or doing this little hack I proposed) you're still "changing your usage." It would be easier to just disable it in msconfig.

Of course, even that is fallible: Next time the app updates itself it'll be re-enabled.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Roughmar]

This should be tagged as Funny. =P

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Keruo]

>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.

I have to agree with that 100%. It is nearly impossible to uninstall acrobat reader 6/7 after installing 8.
They don't even provide cleanup tool to fix their shit, so it's manual labor all the way.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Cannelloni]

This has never happened to me, and I have been using OS X since OS X 10.2 Jaguar (but Panther, Tiger and Leopard have been even more solid). You probably just have bad RAM. Use Apple Hardware Test (extended test mode) to verify that nothing is wrong. It has got to be a hardware problem. Or why don't you bring it to an Apple authorized service provider if the machine is still under warranty?

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[MPAB]

Many cameras take videos in .MOV instead of .AVI; Joe User is told he needs to download QT in order to view his homemade videos and he does.

OTOH, editing a .MOV file with QT pro takes 1/10 of the time needed to edit it with most non-dedicated video editors.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Colonel Korn]

More on point, though: By deleting the file (or doing this little hack I proposed) you're still "changing your usage." It would be easier to just disable it in msconfig.

Of course, even that is fallible: Next time the app updates itself it'll be re-enabled. Removing all Apple software is a good first step in prepping any Windows computer for use. When Apple has no attack vectors into your system you don't have to worry about qttray coming back at all.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[elrous0]

Bewtween Apple, Realplayer, and various AV software packages playing hide and seek in my system tray and that goddamn Clippy in Word, I've been tempted to throw many a new computer right out my window over the years.

SEE THAT CLIPPY, I'M TRYING TO KILL YOU! CAN YOU HELP ME WITH *THAT*, MOTHERFUCKER?!?!

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Lisandro]

Yeah, and the Safari "update".

Don't forget the infamous iTunes "update" as well. Like QT by itself wasn't annoying enough.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[mrraven]

This week on Survivor:

"Quicktime opens its maw and barfs up a new version of it. Then it turns it on and puts it back in the task tray."

Ewwwwwwww.... :)

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[ttldkns]

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.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[BillTheKatt]

I think you just insulted the chimps...

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[mrraven]

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.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[supun]

Nice reference to Office Space. :)

Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It's not that hard: Samir Na-gheen-an-a-jar. Nagheenanajar.
Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn't Michael Bolton.
Samir: You know there's nothing wrong with that name.
Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it... until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
Samir: Hmm... well why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael Bolton: No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[hudsucker]

Jeez, do guys you turn off lights by hitting the switch with a hammer? Why not just use QuickTime's control panel to tell it you don't want an icon in the notification area? Then it will never return.

1. Right-click notification area icon, select Settings.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Under Tray Icon, turn off the option "Install QuickTime icon in system tray".

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Trogre]

You should try to remove Norton virus checker.

And that, sir, is the best advice I've seen on /. this week.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[mrraven]

Here are some links to show this is not just me BTW:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6035_102-0.html?forumID=5&threadID=260482&messageID=2563323

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/638297.html

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Why not just use QuickTime's control panel to tell it you don't want an icon in the notification area? Then it will never return.

Why not just use Quicktime Alternative & never have to bother with Quicktime's arrogance / spamminess / attempts to install other software / irritating update / etc?

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[toddestan]

Because the icon is only a symptom , the real problem is all the worthless processes Quicktime spawns. While that option does get rid of the icon, that's all it does.

Re:Print Version (and my Apple woes)

[Geek of Tech]

>>Jeez, do guys you turn off lights by hitting the switch with a hammer?
Yes.

Norton Products...

[DaRat]

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...

Re:Norton Products...

[The Living Fractal]

Repeat after me:

AVG Free.
AVG Free.
AVG Free.

You should start to feel better soon.

Re:Norton Products...

[Richard Steiner]

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?

Re:Norton Products...

[gravyface]

While I'm a regular AVG user (Free Edition at home, and Network Edition for my clients), the interface is attrocious, the malware encyclopedia is next to useless, and the bizarre update/error-state notices are a nuisance. Version 8 improved the admin console a bit, but not nearly enough.

Re:Norton Products...

[stubob]

Seconded. After twiddling with VPN settings in Anti-Virus 2007, which featured a firewall that they didn't ever mention, it decided to upgrade to 2008. Guess what? It didn't move my additional rules over and I had to redo them.

I'm not renewing when the subscription expires.

Re:Norton Products...

[Corporate Troll]

I love AVG, but the version 8 isn't really as good as the 7.5. It eats up CPU and is a bit more intrusive. Wish that I hadn't upgraded.

Re:Norton Products...

[MrMr]

I'd say around 1990 or MS-DOS 5.0, when Peter norton sold his company to Symantec.

Re:Norton Products...

[geekoid]

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

Re:Norton Products...

[Hankapobe]

My brother in law "all of a sudden" lost his internet connection on his computer. After testing the connection, I ran some diagnostics. Guess what? Norton AV was blocking port 80.

But wait! it gets better. You cannot uninstall it through the remove programs. You have to go into safe mode and uninstall there. Otherwise, you'll just get error messages - regardless if you use Norton's uninstall or Windows.

What a kick in the balls!

Re:Norton Products...

[AmiMoJo]

Don't forget:

AntiVir Free
AntiVir Free
AntiVir Free

I find that helps too.

Re:Norton Products...

[AdmiralAl]

I couldn't agree more. Disk Doctor for DOS was a fantastic program. Useful for everything from fixing corrupt files to editing "saved game" files. Once Norton was taken over by Symantec, it was all down hill from there. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've had to remove Norton Internet Security from people's systems because it was completely killing system performance.

Re:Norton Products...

[KlomDark]

It's so much more fun to say "Avast! Avast! Avast!" - I've used AVG for years, but am finding Avast even better with a far better GUI. (Although shut off the audio alert "Virus Database Has Been Updated", especially when you have the speakers set for loud and then thing goes off at 4AM or when you're busy with your girlfriend. Scares the hell out of you!) http://www.avast.com/

And they had 64-bit support before AVG, that's why I switched.

Re:Norton Products...

[dreamchaser]

Huh? I use AVG Free on one of my machines at home and it doesn't 'kidnap' my system. Things run just fine while it checks for updates.

Re:Norton Products...

[TheRaven64]

I still have a copy of NU 4.5, which I keep in DOSBox. I still miss NCD when I am in the terminal (being able to do ncd foo, and it does a breadth-first search of the tree until it encounters a directory called foo, then changes there, was great), and NU is still the hex editor with the best UI I've found for simple tasks.

Re:Norton Products...

[FredFredrickson]

I've seen this, and can confirm this behavior, but I think you're a bit mixed up... I work in computer repair, and yes, by default it should block port 80, unless you're running a webserver.

What you meant to say, is that it blocks internet access- and this is true. Norton Internet Security's default install would block any and all internet access. I think they finally put out an update that fixed it, but during one or two months in 2006ish/2007 we had about 15 computers come in with the same symptoms - no internet. Took us very little time to figure out that it was the NIS firewall's default settings. Bloody stupid if you ask me.

Re:Norton Products...

[kimvette]

Yes, AVG is great, and it comes without support, but don't ever buy the commercial versions.

Why?

Their software doesn't save settings or apply updates unless you're on NTFS (not a problem on new machines but many, many older machines shipped to businesses shipped with FAT - NTFS became the default from Dell only about a year ago! If you didn't specify they shipped their Optiplexes and Precisions on FAT).

Support takes three days to respond.

There is no phone number to contact them in the USA.

Their software works incredibly well (aside from the undocumented requirement for NTFS) but in a business you cannot afford a three-day turnaround time for support inquiries, and a game of email tag which takes hours to days.

Re:Norton Products...

[BigDogCH]

"I'm really hoping Backup Exec and Netbackup don't go the same way."

Too late. We just rolled back to an older version of Backup Exec because of constant crashing in the latest version, along with horrid performance, and overall unreliability. Symantec support is useless. The new version runs dead slow on a fairly powerful machine as well. If anyone can recommend some software that works with a tandberg storage loader, let me know.

The best user quote from the symantec forum (one of many)......."Unfortunately, I've rebuilt the server because 11d pretty much ruined my life." Congrats Kevin K.

Re:Norton Products...

[spazimodo]

It's amazing how bad the "consumer" versions of Norton, McAfee, etc have become. Apparently they don't realize that's the impression people go with when they need to purchase business AV as well.

The corporate versions are still pretty usable (When people ask for AV suggestions for their home PC, I usually recommend getting a single Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition license - cheap and runs well)

Re:Norton Products...

[Junior J. Junior III]

Agreed. Version 8 feels bloaty and is more in-your-face than an antivirus application has any business being. It wants to install a "security" toolbar in my web browser. It feels slower when bringing up its management window.

WTF does everyone in the world and their brother want to install a toolbar in my web browser? If I said yes to all of them, I'd have about 2 pixels of viewpane left to look at.

Re:Norton Products...

[TheLinuxSRC]

If you are using Thunderbird/Mozilla mail this is a fairly common occurence with any virus scanner. Apparently these scanners are smart enough to be able to quarantine single emails from Outlook but cannot do it for a file format that has been used for 10+ years . You can restore the inbox (after making a copy of your current inbox and deleting the associated .msf file). You can then delete the offending email and copy the email from the inbox that was used during the interrum back into your restored inbox.

Re:Norton Products...

[travellersside]

Mod grandparent not a troll.

I don't run it on my primary machine precisely because it is so intrusive and demanding when the machine turns on. It is used on my secondary machine and the machines of two of my friends, all of which have decent specs. With these, you might as well wander off when you boot up, because anything that you try to do will be so incredibly slow that it really isn't worth the effort. As far as I can tell, the program works fine otherwise, but it has a horrible UI.

Re:Norton Products...

[Nimey]

There's a setting in T-bird for this: Tools->Options->Privacy->Anti-Virus->Allow anti-virus clients to quarantine individual incoming messages

Re:Norton Products...

[innocent_white_lamb]

WTF does everyone in the world and their brother want to install a toolbar in my web browser? If I said yes to all of them, I'd have about 2 pixels of viewpane left to look at.
 
  http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/images/toolbar400gif.gif

Winamp becoming Damned Irritating

[Toreo asesino]

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.

Re:Winamp becoming Damned Irritating

[PsyQo]

You forgot that when you change the volume of winamp, it changes the master volume of your PC.

Re:Winamp becoming Damned Irritating

[MBCook]

WinAmp 2.95 was perfect. Small, wicked fast, just about perfect.

WinAmp 3 was an unnecessary rewrite, and I didn't like it much. Felt slower for no real benefit to me. It was about this time I went over to iTunes (mostly due to iPod).

Then they later released 5 because of all the complaints. 2 (the good version) + 3 (the recent version) = 5 (the new version). Never tried it, WinAmp had lost all mindshare by that point.

So much good software just bloats past what it needed and into death. Reader used to be pretty good. Norton wasn't the amazingly bad program it is now, it was once the best.

Honestly, these problems are solveable

[It doesn't come easy]

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.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Anonymous Coward]

Adobe Reader - Using open source PDF reader "Evince Document Viewer" instead. Result? Software does not annoy. Yeah, too bad nothing other than the Adobe version can support Reader plugins. Document signing, etc.

Apple iTunes - Using open source music program "Amarok". Result? Software does not annoy (and works much better than iTunes as well). You can buy stuff from iTunes in Amarok?

Norton Antivirus - Using upgraded OS "Linux" so that viruses are not a problem. Result? Viruses? I don't have no stinking viruses! Not yet anyway.

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! This I don't even know what you are talking about. Hell, Ubuntu comes with a shitload of preinstalled stuff.

Outlook/Exchange - Using "Evolution". The jury is still out on whether "Evolution" is worth using verses online calendar and scheduling web sites. Evolution sucks donkey balls. Thunderbird is better (PKCS#11 support, smartcards, etc). There is no good calendering unfortunately (Sunbird maybe some day).

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. You would have to be an idiot to ignore YouTube and sites like it. I'm not talking about all the stupid crap on there. I'm talking about the tutorials and such. The instructional value is off the charts.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Oxy the moron]

Apple iTunes - Using open source music program "Amarok". Result? Software does not annoy (and works much better than iTunes as well).

This one needs some clarification... Remember not to buy your music from the iTunes store or using Amarok doesn't help much. Buy from a vendor that does not use DRM-laden music downloads (such as Amazon), use Amarok, and annoyances are no more!

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[gmuslera]

Flash- Using NoScript to decide which pages/sites could show me flash content. Only see what i want,

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[SirGeek]

Adobe Reader - Using open source PDF reader "Evince Document Viewer" instead. Result? Software does not annoy.

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.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[pdusen]

"Stop using Windows" isn't a bugfix.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[theaceoffire]

I don't like your flash solution, so here is mine: Firefox + Flash Block.

I get all the benefits of no flash, but can still watch youtube and all the rest if I change my mind with no hassle.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[unformed]

On Windows, use Foxit PDF Reader. It's not open-source, but they do have a free version for non-commerical purposes. It's fast, it's small, and they have it available in a ZIP so you don't have to run an installer.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Corporate Troll]

Java -- Also it really is easy to disable the update scheduler (jusched.exe). In Windows, simply go to the control panel, select the Java Console (sorry, I'm not on Windows, so I do this by memory), go to the "Updates" tab and just say "Never". Java will never bother you ever again.

Disabling the auto-update of Acrobat Reader is much harder (=less intuitive). By definition I disable auto-updates of my applications. I decied when to upgrade what. Besides, those auto-updates rarely work correctly when running "Limited User", which is what I do. (Strange, yes, I know, but it works and it's not that hard to do)

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[ChrisMaple]

Conporate quarterly conference calls are generally available only in Windows Media Player and RealPlay formats. Under Linux, this means RealPlay only. Fortunately, Linux RealPlay seems pretty benign.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Nimey]

Piss off, troll. Some of us use Windows for our own reasons, and OS advocacy doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Digana]

You can buy stuff from iTunes in Amarok?

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.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Rude Turnip]

"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."

Because I don't buy music based on business models and politics. Magnatune does offer some compelling music though.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[maxume]

Also, Flashblock. It just inserts a box with a play button wherever there is flash content.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[manwal]

...it's many.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Tom]

No.

It's a workaround.

But one that works exceptionally well. :-)

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[darkwhite]

Sumatra PDF kicks Foxit's ass. And it's open source. Another piece of shitty bloatware (Adobe Reader) bites the dust.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[Taibhsear]

> You can buy stuff from iTunes in Amarok?
No, but you can buy from magnatune.com. Disclaimer: I haven't, I prefer thepiratebay.org and isohunt.com.

Currently, no. Will there be? yes.
Remember kids, a little research goes a long way...

From Amarok's website:

The Amarok Team is happy to announce that Amarok 2 will come with native support for the itunes music store. Utilizing the new Scriptable Service framework, Amarok developers have utilized a development model known as creative backwards engineering to develop a C# script and obtain full compatability with the itunes music store. This support is already availible in our subversion sources, and will be released in the next version of Amarok. As a warning, there appears to be a small bug currently where users are not charged for the music they purchase and download. We are working dillegently to fix this problem, and will commit a fix as soon as possible. Thank you for flying Amarok!

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[skeeto]

You would have to be an idiot to ignore YouTube and sites like it.

Good thing then that you don't need Flash to use and view videos on YouTube: Fast Video Downloader and, my favorite, youtube-dl.

Re:Honestly, these problems are solveable

[cha5on]

Actually, Amarok is already working in Windows. While it's not ready for general use, information on the tech preview can be found at http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/583-Windows-Binaries-of-Amarok-2-Tech-Preview.html Also, I and I'm sure many others have had iPods working with Amarok just fine for years, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

That page was annoying

[Todd Fisher]

I found the layout and navigation of that gallery pretty annoying.

Re:Did they mention linux firefox?

[Uncle Focker]

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?

Bloody Adobe Reader

[tempest69]

I have no clue as to why this program takes upwards of a minute to read a simple pdf file that is mostly text. It really boggles my mind as to what the computer could be doing with that time/cycles.. Where as foxit can load the same pdf in a blink of an eye.. but microsoft loves to revert the extentions to adobe, unless I march through a convoluted maze to revert it back. never let your well-meaning friend install adobe on your box, it's a nightmare to remove.

Storm

Re:Bloody Adobe Reader

[MBCook]

I've been using FoxIt recently which is quite nice. That said, Reading is an amazing piece of software.

It's slow. Really slow. Amazingly slow. It uses tons of memory. It's just atrocious. But I was used to it on Windows (before a friend pointed out FoxIt which I switched to immediately).

Then I switched to OS X and got to use Preview. It's wicked fast. It's like opening a 1kb text file in Notepad on Windows. It's almost instant. It's easy to use, no crazy interface, not 6 updates to the updater each time I open it.

Then I installed CS 2.

Soon I tried to open a PDF and thought my computer locked up because the file didn't pop open. After a bit the loading screen popped up and loaded. Then the program, then the document. It was terrible.

So I went and changed the file association and now Preview handles them again and my system works.

I remember when I had a full copy of Acrobat (not reader, Acrobat) and it opened about 10x faster than Reader does on the relatively high-end (multi-core, 2GB+ RAM) machines I've been forced to use it on.

Almost everything on the list was good at one time or another. RealPlayer, while not perfect, was small and fast. Norton (the first version for 95) was quite good, even on my slow 386 (yes... 386). Outlook used to be WAY faster than it is now. On my nice desktop it feels like I'm running it through VirtualWindows on a 500MHz G4.

Flash it's self isn't bad. But so many people seem to not use delay loops and let it run at 600 FPS and suck up all the CPU. Combine that with the terrible and slow interfaces people use it for and it gets a bad rap. Flashblock is your friend here.

Re:Bloody Adobe Reader

[Thaelon]

I have no clue as to why this program takes upwards of a minute to read a simple pdf file that is mostly text. It really boggles my mind as to what the computer could be doing with that time/cycles.. Where as foxit can load the same pdf in a blink of an eye.. but microsoft loves to revert the extentions to adobe, unless I march through a convoluted maze to revert it back. never let your well-meaning friend install adobe on your box, it's a nightmare to remove.

Foxit has already gone the way of Adobe Reader, updating, slow loading, and a nice little "advertising toolbar" for you.

The cool kids are using Sumatra now.

It's a little sparse on features (like remembering page view settings), but it makes even Foxit look slow.

Re:Bloody Adobe Reader

[darkwhite]

Use Sumatra PDF, or kpdf/whatever on Linux. Finally, an Adobe-free existence!

Why just Windows Update?

[hyperz69]

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.

Re:Why just Windows Update?

[eln]

Please do not speak ill of Google Bar. Google does no harm to anyone, and all of its software is useful and error-free. Speaking negatively of Google is unwise. Remember, they know where you live.

What?

[Daimanta]

No Microsoft Bob?

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they are talking about software somebody has actually used.

Please let Apple software update be on there...

[shawnmchorse]

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.

Windows Vista

[QuietLagoon]

According to Microsoft, Vista actually was designed to be annoying. That is one design goal in which Microsoft seems to have succeeded.

Takes one to know one

[Roger W Moore]

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!

My vote: HP

[truthsearch]

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.

Re:My vote: HP

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

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.

Re:My vote: HP

[wile_e_wonka]

No kidding--I'm not on Mac, but HP drivers are terrible on Windows too.

How about the 50 MB (seriously) driver to run this printer. I thought, "what could possibly be in that thing?"

Well, how about a pretty crappy photo manager, a pretty crappy scanning utility, etc., then it wants to run all the time and have stuff blinking on my desktop (along with all those other programs blinking on my desktop--if I actually let all the programs do this my monitor would look like the circus is in town and I wouldn't have any space left to see anything).

So I thought I'd finish off with a bit of useful advice--I thought I had found a driver on HP's page for just the printer driver and that's it weighing in at about 13 MB with no annoying crap. Turns out, however, that I'm either dreaming or it's gone--the three driver options for my printer are 50 MB, 250 MB, or 365 MB! Something tells me a printer driver does not need to be 50 MB, let alone 365. And whatever programs make of that other 300 MB must be written pretty bad to take up that much space.

Re:My vote: HP

[AmiMoJo]

If you want a printer with just a driver and no extra crap, try looking at business printers. I have a HP LaserJet 1022. It's economical, fast, good quality output and the driver is minimal with just the features you need (like duplex and watermarking support, all on the properties page). No ink monitoring utilities, no photo optimisers etc.

Re:My vote: HP

[nine-times]

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.

Update apps...

[Bert64]

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.

Re:Update apps...

[CopaceticOpus]

The linux approach is far better, but I don't see it being implemented on Windows anytime soon. For the time being, windows developers need to follow the Firefox model of automatic, unobtrusive updates.

If your update process requires a separate executable running constantly in the background, you're doing it wrong. If your update process requires anything from the user other than clicking "Ok" and waiting no more than a few seconds, you're doing it wrong. Despite Firefox 2 having updated itself 13 times, I have not once been annoyed by it.

Re:Update apps...

[EvilIdler]

People often also integrate Sparkle into OS X apps, giving them a nifty updater
which checks for updates and handles downloading & installing with next to no
effort from the programmers. I love it. It's so widespread there is barely any
need for a central package manager.

I'd love to see a central uninstaller for all those things which aren't app-bundles,
though. Plugins and instruments are scattered all over the system, with no common
signature in the files so the OS could remove the parts automatically.

Re:Update apps...

[FredFredrickson]

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 )

Re:Update apps...

[bbdd]

I agree, the Linux approach is way better.

But, I have found the Secunia Software Inspector a great help in keeping my Windows boxes more up-to-date.

It doesn't cover every program in the world, but every major one I use.

https://psi.secunia.com/

Re:Update apps...

[Bert64]

Most package managers offer the facility to use multiple repositories, apt supports it, and gentoo has it's overlays... So if something isn't covered by the main tree, there could well be third party packages and you will still have the automatic update facility.
Occasionally there are packages which don't have any native packages, but these are the minority unless you run a really obscure distribution... Anyone writing software for linux should really provide packages, or have someone else contribute them.

What about Lotus Note?

[paradoxSpirit]

How could they have forgotten Lotus Note?

Re:What about Lotus Note?

[Uncle Focker]

Aren't they only talking about software that people actually use?

Article is a Troll

[teknopurge]

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,

Re:Article is a Troll

[value_added]

His best quip is that Outlook doesn't have threaded views? Is he for real?

I believe the author was referring to threading as it relates to processes, not threaded views.

As for Outlook and it's threaded views, well, that's a funny one. IIRC, Microsoft discovered that old-as-dirt concept only a few years ago. A common whine on usenet was "Why doesn't Outlook Express support threading? Google has since implemented threaded views for their webmail, but decided to call it "Conversations". But what did Microsoft do? Microsoft being Microsoft couldn't use make use the 'Message-ID' header, like everyone else had been doing, but instead decided to add a new Microsoft-only header called 'Thread-Index' or some equally stupid name.

Call me impressed.

Software annoys becuse ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

For a product to improve there should be feedback to the market forces that removes bad software. When the feedback is bad because the users are apathetic or because the users are uninformed the product will not improve. Just browse through the old advertisements at the turn of the century American newspapers. Thousands and thousands of ads for things like, "Uncle Ben's Oil of Balsam, complete cure for Arthritis". When the users are not able judge the product objectively, there is no way for the free market to improve the product through competition.

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.

ARGHSFARGH!

[Aquaseafoam]

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.

Re:ARGHSFARGH!

[comm2k]

Err.. EnableBalloonTips=0 anyone?

Re:ARGHSFARGH!

[Anonymous Coward]

\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\

Create DWORD called EnableBalloonTips and call it 0.

Is there a similar setting in gnome/ubuntu? The balloons there are just as annoying, and I haven't found any way to turn them off besides running a chmod -x on some executable or another...

Re:ARGHSFARGH!

[Antero]

I feel your pain... Try this, it will disable all pop-up balloons, but I find that the lesser of two evils.
(taken from Microsof Support)

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
2. Navigate to the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
3. Right-click the right pane, create a new DWORD value, and then name it EnableBalloonTips.
4. Double-click this new entry, and then give it a hexadecimal value of 0.
5. Quit Registry Editor. Log off Windows, and then log back on.

These steps disable all Notification Area balloon tips for this user. There is no way to disable balloon tips for specific programs only.

Antivirus + Java

[grassy_knoll]

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 hearty welcome to our latest new member

[zappepcs]

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....

Re:A hearty welcome to our latest new member

[jank1887]

i have to disable it each update, which sucks, but OOo is at least painless to disable. If I recall correctly, it's all in the context menu. but it should figure out from the previous version whether or not to have it turned on for an upgrade.

Re:A hearty welcome to our latest new member

[raddan]

Speaking of Apple, has anyone ever noticed that under Mac OS X, there isn't even a built-in function to remove an application? At least Windows pretends to. And before you mention, "just drag the application icon to the trash"-- what about the dotfiles, preferences, tempfiles, and other miscellaneous shit that applications spew around the system? E.g., Dreamweaver, the only application I've found so far to be completely unmanageable with radmind, thanks to these assholes?

Re:A hearty welcome to our latest new member

[Phroggy]

Which user's preferences files should be removed when you delete an application? Just yours? Everybody's? I almost never want an application's preferences files to be deleted when I uninstall an application, because I usually intend to reinstall the latest version and I want it to keep all my settings; occasionally I'll try a new app and decide I don't like it, but a few wayward preferences files for these lying around don't bother me too much (although admittedly it would be nice if there were an easy way to clean them up).

What if the application was never copied to the Applications folder in the first place - should preferences be deleted if you delete an application from the Desktop? What if I create an Applications folder on a separate volume or partition, and install certain applications there?

What if I have two versions of an application installed? I've got both Firefox 2 and the latest Firefox 3 beta, happily coexisting; when I delete Firefox 2 I sure as hell don't want it to delete my preferences for Firefox 3.

Having said all of that, for applications that come as an Installer package (because they're not self-contained in an application bundle), it'd be awfully nice to have an uninstall option for them.

Acrobat Reader on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Did they mention linux firefox?

[pdusen]

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.

Left out Top Ten Slideshows

[rocketjam]

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.

Outlook/Exchange?

[Drakin020]

Seriously? One of the most annoying? I beg to differ.

Flashblock FTW

[snarfies]

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.

It's Not Always the Software Per Se

[FurtiveGlancer]

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.

Re:Did they mention linux firefox?

[Uncle Focker]

In this very article, when I click the red arrows to go to the next page, they go backwards. They don't for me and I've just tested it on 5 different boxes running Linux.

Plus the images? don't show up at all. Are you running no script or something else that could be blocking them? They show up just fine again here.

Firefox is shit in linux. You keep stating this and then giving examples that I can't reproduce on any available machine.

I have been using it for years and it sucks. Bullshit. If you had such severe problems as you claim you'd have stopped using it unless you're just an idiot. Since you're just trolling, though, it matters not. Get some better material next time.

Re:Windows woes

[zoward]

I've been playing WoW relibably on Linux for years. Works great under WINE. Producing an OpenGL version of the client (mostly in order to provide a Mac version) of WoW pretty much bought Blizzard the lion's share of MMO users running Linux.

It's for multisession CD-R.

[tepples]

Why do I have to stick my CD in the drive before it starts to convert (copy)files? So that the CD mastering software can know if you want to add an additional session to an existing CD-R.

Re:It's for multisession CD-R.

[tepples]

The CD's are individually shrinkwrapped.

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.

The answer is right there in front of you

[HungWeiLo]

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!

Re:The answer is right there in front of you

[JimR]

Hmmm, the title bar on my browser window says:

Slashdot | The Most Annoying Software Out There

Re:The answer is right there in front of you

[oodaloop]

Mine says The Most Annoying Software Out There - Microsoft Internet Explorer. I'd kill to have any veriosn of Firefox here at work.

Re:The answer is right there in front of you

[Guanine]

I can help you with that. Grab the latest version of Firefox at Portable Apps -- I would have gone crazy at work long ago without Firefox Portable. The way it works is it installs software to a USB drive, i.e. only to one directory. You miss out on browsing history and page caching (to avoid wearing out your USB memory), but I've used it for 9 months without problems or headaches. Anyhow, I put my FF Portable on a USB stick and start it off that each morning. If you can't mount USB drives, you can run the software off your desktop. If you can't access that website, you could attach the exe file to an email to yourself, renamed to something like firefox.ppt -- enjoy Firefox at work!

Java update process needs fixing

[schwit1]

Some of my users' add/remove programs have a half dozen separate Java installs. And they all install in separate folders.

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

Re:Java update process needs fixing

[Spad]

The Java installer just needs a "Previous versions of the JVM were found on your PC, please select any that you wish to keep" option.

Marketing does it again...

[Jane Q. Public]

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.

I concur

[Finallyjoined!!!]

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.

worse than annoying for someone like me

[spirit_fingers]

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.

+ Nintendo DS

[tepples]

For the vortex of suck, get stuck with an antivirus package set up to scan everything at launch ( no exceptions... thanks, corporate ) If your employer is paying you to sit and watch an antivirus package scan the entire hard disk, that's what a Nintendo DS is for. If your employer bans that too, it might be time to weigh whether you should exercise your "right to work" for someone else.

so-so

[Tom]

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.

Re:so-so

[AndrewNeo]

Outlook is the worst disaster for corporate productivity?

I think you missed the Outlook vs. Lotus Notes discussion here a few weeks ago..

Re:so-so

[spazimodo]

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. What magic awesome enterprise messaging systems have you been using? I love Notes but the mail client UI (and the UI in general) sucks. What are your other options of awesomeness? cc:Mail? Groupwise? Oh wait, of course, I forgot OfficeVision!

Right on the money

[H0p313ss]

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..."

Re:Did they mention linux firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Make Microsoft Look Good day?

[Futurepower(R)]

I like this quote from the article, about Apple QuickTime: "... what is this, Make Microsoft Look Good day?"

Re:Make Microsoft Look Good day?

[tobiasly]

I like this quote from the article, about Apple QuickTime: "... what is this, Make Microsoft Look Good day?" Personally I enjoyed the sentence before that: It spends half its time trying to sell us stuff and the other half trying to stop us [from] using it.

Re:Make Microsoft Look Good day?

[STFS]

Well, actually... I think it's the other way around really. QuickTime and other Apple products do not behave as annoyingly on Mac OS X, so you have to wonder if they are actually doing this to make Microsoft look bad. I'm not really sure that the majority of computer users associate the lameness of QT on Windows with Apple... I'm pretty sure they rather tend to curse Microsoft, or at least wonder why it's so much better on their friends computer, which is an Apple.

Re:Make Microsoft Look Good day?

[mdwh2]

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.

Re:Did they mention linux firefox?

[clarkn0va]

...Windows fonts are not available on Linux...

http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/

Or apt-get install msttcorefonts for debian/ubuntu users.

db

Yup, HP has lost the plot

[Kupfernigk]

Even though I think HP Printing System for Linux is really rather good.

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.

Re:For those who use Adobe

[CelticWhisper]

No.

I'm sorry, but as nice as some of Foxit's features were, the two things that irritated me about it were first that you still had to pay to get the full featureset, and second that it kept altering the goddamn context menu option. "Foxit Reader, Best Reader for Everyday Use!"

How's 'bout just "Foxit Reader." *Regedit*

2 reboots later...

"Foxit Reader, Best Reader for Everyday Use!"

No, your name is "Foxit Reader." That's...fucking...it. You don't tell me what you are, I tell you what you are on MY computer. And stop expanding out my context menu with a name 3 times longer than any of the other options contained therein.

*Regedit*

2 reboots later... Ad nauseam.

Try SumatraPDF if you just need to read documents. It's super-lightweight, which does unfortunately mean it lacks some features of Foxit, Evince, and others, but I find that I'm usually only interested in reading documents anyway and for that, Sumatra is excellent.

You haven't seen some of the alternatives

[Moraelin]

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.

Flash! Aaaaaaa!

[Dachannien]

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.

Resident processes for no reason!

[Hankapobe]

Many programs have these resident services (Windows) that sit there and just take up memory and CPU for no reason.

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.

Re:Did they mention linux firefox?

[Bloodoflethe]

Mmmm. Cereal.

Re:Windows woes

[VanessaE]

Oh please! The reason we have centralized repositories is because it is convenient for both the distro makers and the end users to put everything in one place (from the package manager program's standpoint). The individual programs' authors generally have their own home pages, websites, etc scattered around the 'net, just like they always have had (aside from those programs that have been abandoned).

No, if and when the time comes that we see a large quantity of commercial games for Linux, there will already be a system in place to handle this type of content, if a special system is needed to begin with. There's no reason whatsoever that a company that releases some commercial game for Linux can't make it so that a distribution has the right to spread it - just set the license appropriately and the distro makers will handle the rest, just like they always have. Just make your game work like Quake 3 did, where you need to have the CD/DVD handy to perform the final install (except have the package manager run a script to handle copying data from the CD/DVD, so as to avoid whatever installer the game maker might otherwise use, if possible).

If worst comes to worst, there's nothing physically stopping one or another non-US distribution from just blowing off whatever ridiculous license some game might have and just start distributing the program in question anyway.

It didn't say "unsolvable problems of computing"

[Moraelin]

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.

Parent is a Troll?

[clarkn0va]

he's never worked(obviously) in a corporate environment... I work in a corporate environment where all of our email and calendaring is handled by Outlook/Exchange, and I have to agree with the article 100% on this point. Was there something good about this platform that you wanted to point out?

db

My vote: The Browser

[postbigbang]

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.

Re:My vote: The Browser

[Guy Harris]

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.

What browser is written in PHP? (Note: "browser" and "server" are two separate pieces of software. To lift a line from the original article, the server is like a sewage treatment plant - the average user should only notice it when something goes wrong. Unfortunately, we live in a world where your sewer line backs up several times a day. :-))

But the screen real estate, and the number of ways that it can be buggered are just insane.

Yes, just as desktop publishing software enabled what Henry Spencer called "ransom-note typography", the Web has enabled the construction of huge numbers of crappily-designed Web sites (many of which are enabled by a not-quite-so-great plugin - one of the pieces of software mentioned in the original article, with a name that begins with the letter grade you'd like to give to a lot of the designers who use it, namely the grade for "fail", and ends with a verb describing what you'd like to do to said designers with a whip).

A good UI shouldn't have to have users embedding markup language manually.

Most browsers don't. Did you mean "Web page editor" when you said "browser"?

Mark me as flamebait if you want, but the browser is a disaster, years after its invention, and constant reinvention.

Yes, such a disaster that most businesses and government organizations haven't bothered going online, and nobody's come up with any mechanism for searching the contents of Web sites.

The Web might be a disaster, but I, at least, still find it more convenient than the "lack of a Web" that we had before.

RealPlayer, totally. Quicktime, HP runner-up

[joe_n_bloe]

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.

Re:Flash! Aaaaaaa!

[oahazmatt]

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.

Taming AVG Free

[Forget4it]

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.

ANY Enterprise AntiVirus

[NumbDr9]

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.

Re:ANY Enterprise AntiVirus

[felipekk]

Have you hear of Corporate Security Policy?

Do you ask yourself every now and then why the IT admins on your company hate you?

Re:ANY Enterprise AntiVirus

[Nimey]

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.

I think the reason Sun does this...

[Hamster Lover]

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*

SAP?

[satmd]

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.

Quickbooks Pro 2007

[tuxgeek]

While I have found Linux alternatives for all other application requirements, I still had to have accounting software to manage my business and payroll. My accountant suggested Quickbooks Pro 2007. I've been using it for 6 months now and find the frustration factor right up there with such classics as win95.

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.

foxItPDF fixIt

[Forget4it]

Two grumbles for the latest FoxItPDF:

• 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"

pages

[Quiet_Desperation]

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.

Simple?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Removing Norton is simple, it just takes few steps.

Just ... uninstall it... Reboot... password ... uninstall ... reboot... download... run

Yep. Simple.

Regarding Amarok

[cparker15]

Amarok will be working on Windows soon, and since when does Amarok not support iPods?

Re:M$ Word

[sizzzzlerz]

That and figuring out how to apply section numbering and section title formatting for the eleventy-millionth time because it is so non-intuitive and the MS help pages are next to worthless.

Current Daily Headaches

[korbin_dallas]

DOORs...This government approved monstrosity is almost beyond belief.
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 /lib files with symlinks to THEIR libs.

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.

ACT 2007

[ka9dgx]

I'm assuming the 300+ comments above me mean that most of you are lucky enough to have never encountered ACT!2007 Premium.

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--

Nero

[Toreo asesino]

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

Re:My Personal Favorite

[Black Art]

Comet Cursor did not come with Netscape, it was something you had to download on your own. (The usual method of infection was ActiveX controls under IE. It was also distributed with RealPlayer.) I think the list was excluding spyware intentionally. Comet Cursor was spyware. (It only ran under Windows as well.) Spyware is a totally different class of annoyance.

I am glad to see Outlook included on the list. One of the worst designed mail apps I have ever seen. It makes Pegasus mail look professional. (Not to mention that Outlook is one of the major causes of top posting. Getting Outlook to quote correctly is next to impossible. There are hacks that claim to make it quote correctly, but I have never gotten one to work.)

The software I would add to the list would be SourceSafe. It was a version control system from Microsoft that was not very safe. It had a tendency of trashing the repository every once in a while. One of the worst things Microsoft ever put out on the market.

Bonzi Buddy is the MOST ANNOYING EVER!!

[zukinux]

We've already discussed it before, and Bonzi Buddy, is the most annoying piece of code, ever written!

Re:Bonzi Buddy is the MOST ANNOYING EVER!!

[fullmetal55]

MOD parent up
Bonzi buddy is the most annoying ever...

"The Purple Monkey is not your friend..." (thanks Melissa ;))

Lotus Notes

[GottliebPins]

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.

Some software I hate

[Abattoir]

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.

Re:Windows woes

[Koiu Lpoi]

Unified, Trustable source for updates on Windows? Are you kidding me? I hate to sound like a troll, but you've been living in a very small world if you think the logistics of that are even remotely possible in even the next 5 years. Windows has orders of magnitude more software written and used every day than Linux, and even Linux package managers have their share of problems.

And, strangely enough, most Windows users aren't WoW players. Makes me wonder why you would think that, frankly. In fact, most Windows users aren't even gamers beyond Solitaire. Seems odd then, that they don't spend time and energy trying to install something on their computer that's used by less than 5% of users, to a system that requires new paradigms and won't run the software in the way they're used to. But no, it must be WoW.

Excel

[thewils]

I can't believe that no-one's mentioned Excel yet, especially on importing and exporting.

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 .Net here) tears their hair out trying to cope with the last 10%.

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.

Not software, but what it does

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

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":

• Software that phones home or automatically updates without permission (numerous media players, Java...)
• Software that installs stuff you don't want, or stuff you want where you don't want it (anything that puts icons on my desktop, new auto-start things that live in my system tray, new entries on my Start menu buried under several layers of company branding...)
• Software that interrupts what you're doing (Clippy, anything that steals the focus, and especially that damned "Windows needs to be restarted" dialog that keeps popping up and trying to steal a keystroke until either you give in or you happen to be hitting the wrong letter when it pops up and it goes anyway)
• Games that only let you play on-line if you install spyware pretending to be anti-cheat software (I'm looking at you, PunkBuster)
• And of course, the one we all love to hate: software that meddles with your system beyond its remit (Why does Adobe Creative Suite need to splat crap all over my boot sector and mess up my dual-booting? Applications have no business doing that, particularly not without warning!)

In other words, software that can't just do its job and leave everything else well alone.

EULAs that won't take NO for an answer

[mbstone]

I don't want to exit the installation. I want to decline your %^&* "license agreement."

Seconded...

[msimm]

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.