PC worlds 25 worst ever products

Quote:

At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive.

But it's the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, "What have I done to deserve this?"

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125772,00.asp

 

Personally, I would have put Sony's DRM at number one and Philips' DCC somewhere in the list, but overall (and quite surprisingly, I must say) this article is spot-on.

 

I would like to add PC World to that list.
-Pages covered in ads
-Spyware cookies
-Dubious testing
-Old stories re-hashed

 

Some of my picks:

Apple - overpriced, proprietary everything, elitest, snobby
Note: That said, I still want an iMac!

Kazaa - introduced millions to a new word - spyware. The single most reason I have seen computers made unusable is Kazaa.

Norton Antivirus - too many processes, memory hog, computer hog bypassed by many trojans
Note: Thanks to Norton I have a business on the side cleaning infested computers. : )

Windows System Restore - the only thing it's good for is to restore deleted malware

 

LOL...that list was GREAT!!! All I had to do was click on the first part of the list and see America Online #1, and I knew immedately the list was credible, and that I was likely going to agree with the rest of it. And then, to follow up with RealPlayer at #2!!!! I almost didn't have to read the rest of the list to consider that one a home run......

 

That list was almost perfect, though I think a few changes should be made....

1)Windows ME should be removed from the list. In my experience at least, it was never as bad an OS as it was portrayed. It was much faster and more stable than Windows 98SE on every Pentium PC I tried it on (I tried on an AMD64, both 98SE and ME crashed like mad). It also had some decent new features and had better DirectX support. I even noticed an FPS increase when I first moved from Windows 98SE to ME. I used it till mid-2004, after which I upgraded to XP.

2)HDCP needs to be added to the list. The reasons are explained in the link below:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_nvidia_hdcp_support/

3)NV30 (GeForce FX 5800 Ultra) needs to be added to the list. It is a legendary product:

- Hyped more than any other graphics card
- Noisy, Noisy Dustbuster fan
- Aggressive marketing using 3D animated scantily glad pixies as promotion for the graphics card
- Bad, Bad drivers at the time of release (fixed later)
- Performance was lower when compared to the competition (ATI Radeon 9700/9800 Pro). The performance improved with later drivers though.
- VERY big fan
- Very hot temperatures due to DDR2 memory

However, it did have a few good points:

- Good anisotropic filtering algorithm as compared to the competition
- Allowed for new cinematic-style graphical effects
- Was able to push a lot of geometry
- Good OpenGL support

Although a majority of the initial issues were solved with later drivers, the 5800 Ultra left a bad taste in gamers' mouths. It was soon replaced by the GeForce FX 5900 (NV35) which was a much more competitive product.

 

Oh yes, I forgot about that one. It definitely should be on there, most definitely in the top five. Unlike something like, say, Winfixer (a malware itself, so it shouldn't even be called a "product" anyway), Kazaa did (does?) have a legitimate program, but buried under a load of horrible garbage. One of the worst pieces of software ever, for sure.

 

To that I'd add GoZilla and Gator on the spyware front
Windows DRM/ Starforce and anything else that decides how we use legimately bought products.
As regards 'clean' software Netscape 8 was pretty awful too.

 

Well they did include it at #5, and it's really a hard call. On the one hand what they did was clearly and outrage (BTW have they gotten sued over this?). But once you know about the problem it is easily negated. I would also point out to all of the people who don't understand why autoplay is disabled on my computer, that if they had disabled it on theirs, they never would have been infected.

On the other had problems from AOL and Real even after being identified can curse you for months or even years! AOL persisted in billing me every month for a year after I tried their free trial and then cancelled. I spent hours on the phone. I faxed them copies of everything, and still it would happen again next month.

And real player? Man, oh, man, my original mp3 player required it. it's guarantied to destabilize your system!

Do to the long hours repairing my computer during and after those two where loaded, I will agree they earned there spot in history!

BTW - Interesting topic, Franklin!


-HandsOff

 

I agree with the last three.

In the case of Norton (which I used for 3 years) I think it is a fine performer. I know for a fact it is not a resource hog because I have used at least 8 different AV's and it is not even close to being as slow as some of them. the process thing doesn't bother me, 6 small process or 2 big ones, they add up to about average. Still there are many bad things: the lack of any real hope of uninstalling the program without heroic efforts, the god-awful activation, the infrequent updates, rediculously bad / if present customer support. and of course that it conflicts with half of the programs known to mankind.

For Apple, I am annoyed by the elitists as well, but lets be fair. How many people have you known who have use a Macintosh for any length of time that do not say it is at least 100 times better than the pc.

If that is not enough evidence, I was given a free iPOD and so anyone who has used Windows Media Player and a pc MP3 player will have a good laugh if you try to compare that to iPOD + iTunes. It's sad, because I too am a lowly PC user, but I really don't doubt that Mac's are worth the money...Except, if you are the sort of person who loves a challenge, then Windows PC all the way!

-HandsOff!

 

interesting one..finally IE 6 is rewarded for something.

 

In the top 5...1, 2 and 4 I have used for short periods of time, ME the longest. RealPlayer crapware a virus , Kevin (author of BoClean helped me fix the damage that did) AOL, An Old Loser, enough said.

As for ME a whole lot of problems were solved when I wiped my hard drive clean and loaded a retail box of XP and rid my compaq of the preinstalled ME with the worthless rescue disc. What a joke. Wonder what a future list will look like.

 

I am thankful to Realplayer to be such a crap, otherwise I would not find better alternative.

Yes, the default setup of IE 6 is terrible for common users, at least they fixed it in IE 7.