[cnbcwatcher]

Just something I was randomly thinking about yesterday. For me it has to be:

Norton Antivirus/Internet Security
Windows Vista
Microsoft Access
Internet Explorer
McAfee Antivirus
AOL (ended up on it when fixing someone's computer... just awful)
RealPlayer
iTunes for Windows
The software that comes with those LeapPad kids tablet devices (had to set up one for a neighbour's kids last Christmas and it was slow and clunky and like something I would have used on Windows 98)
Windows Live Mail
Magix MP3 Maker 2004 (or whatever the version was)
Nero Burning Rom 6
F-Secure Antivirus (crashed my old XP laptop when I installed it)
Adobe Reader on slow computers (crashes them!)
Microsoft Office 2007/2010 (that bloody ribbon interface... need I say any more?)

I strangely can't think of any bad Mac software I've ever used...

[alan1302]

iTunes - Windows version, McAffe and Samsung Kies
Windows Vista worst OS

[cnbcwatcher]

Wonder if anyone will mention Windows 8 or is that too new?

[alan1302]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

Wonder if anyone will mention Windows 8 or is that too new?

I'm sure someone will!

I've used it and thought it was like Windows 7 with a touch based UI bolted on...so not the worst so would not be on my list!

[Maxatoria]

ICL pathway software on a S39/35 mainframe, was as much use as a chocolate fireguard and it took some seriously creative measures to do what it was supposed to do involving multiple mainframes and a serious amount of pratting around to get what it could do since the licensing costs were rather silly at the time so installing stuff like the EFO options was a no go

[DANCE OF DEATH]

Windows ME.... I was fed up with it crashing all the time , so borrowed a works version of Windows 2000.

Norton Internet Security
McAfee Internet Security
Windows Vista
Adobe Reader
Internet Explorer
Windows Mail Live

[Geiger]

iTunes.
WinAmp.
PowerDVD.

All need an axe taking to them.

[Braunschweig]

Samsung Kies. Absolutely dire!

[Stig]

Originally Posted by cnbcwatcher

I strangely can't think of any bad Mac software I've ever used...

Really? Shocker.

[bluesmurf]

Mac OSX 10.8 (not sure where they hid all the new features, that and lion combined should of had 400+ features more than Snow Leopard, I was struggling to count 10 new features), plus they ruined a few things such as Expose.

eBay Turbo Lister, unbelievably slow for no good reason. It makes Vista on 512mb of RAM look fast.

[KieranDS]

I always see people complain about iTunes...why?
I've never had any problems with it

[AnywhereButHome]

Internet Explorer v6-9. I only use it about ten times a year and it crashes *every* *single* *time* on every computer. The first run wizard does my head in, I don't care about web accelerators or anything, I usually only want to do a simple Google search. I hate the way when you open it, it opens the default page and you can sit there repeatedly hitting Esc because I don't want to load MSN.com and it just loads anyway. Also when you're downloading something and the information bar says it has blocked the download for your safety. I'm not stupid, I've just clicked on the bloody download link, I WANT to download it. It does the 'this tab has recovered' thing a lot for seemingly no reason too.

Firefox is going the same way, their major release per month policy is irritating, you just find workarounds for annoyances then they update the sodding thing again (automatically, then you have to wait minutes whilst it checks addon compatibility). It can take up to a minute to launch because it's checking for updates and they're starting to have 'features' like IE when you press escape to stop it loading a page and it does what it likes anyway. It runs like a dog, often freezing for up to ten seconds on Javascript heavy pages (Facebook e.g). My laptop is less than a year old too, it's not like I'm using a 486 DX2 or something.

Windows Media Player is, or was, a joke, I stopped using it at v10. It would choke on a big library and loved to crash out.

Adobe Flash, horrible, bloated, insecure, CPU hogging program that needs to die.

Adobe Reader, bloated beyond belief.

Windows XP. I can't understand why people love this so much. Explorer has some bizarre and stupid limitations, like if you're copying lots of files and it encounters a problem with one, it just stops altogether. And annoying bugs that never got fixed, like the desktop cleanup wizard telling you twice that there are unused icons on the desktop. When you're logging into tens of machines a day, things like that really start to grate. Stopped being good the moment Windows 7 came out, Mac OS Leopard, and probably hundreds of Linux distros.

I've had no bother with iTunes on Windows or Mac either.

[s2k]

McAfee - My friend loaded this onto her brand new laptop (as it was provided with her ISP) and it dragged the whole system down to a crawl. Sure there was probably no viruses on the laptop but that was probably because Mcafee was preventing them from running by hogging all the resources.

RealPlayer - At one point half decent, then they went nuts packing it full of adverts and junk that ran in the background. Popups are very 90s.

RM CC3 - When it breaks, it breaks on a truly epic scale. On the rare occasion its not broken you have to contend with numerous "quirks" and workarounds. All basic computing common sense goes out of the window.

Nero - Ok up to about version 5 then they just started cramming it full of unnecessary bloat.

ISScript - The people that made this are the Hitler of the software world.

Google Toolbar (or any other toolbar) - Lags the browser out and meddles with the settings, whilst having dubious privacy issues. Glorified malware, but at least it usually comes with an uninstaller.

Quicktime - As with most Apple software under Windows, its a half-baked mess that insists on running in the background, tries to steal your file associations and does a really crappy job of playing back anything other than MOV It also has a really crappy non-standard installer that makes deployment a pain in the ass.

HP Printer Software - A printer driver should NOT be a 250MB download. I do NOT want to sit there for half an hour looking at stock photos of office workers grinning at me in contempt while your stupid installer adds half a dozen other packages I didn't ask for. I just want this stupid thing to print damnit.

FlipShare - If anyone from Cisco is reading this, I want you guys to know you are up there alongside the Hitlers of ISScript. You bring nothing but misery and despair to anyone trying to use your software on a managed network. I can't help but think some (or all) of the devs were stoned when they were coding this thing up.

[newda898]

Originally Posted by s2k

HP Printer Software - A printer driver should NOT be a 250MB download. I do NOT want to sit there for half an hour looking at stock photos of office workers grinning at me in contempt while your stupid installer adds half a dozen other packages I didn't ask for. I just want this stupid thing to print damnit.
.

Oh fully agree about that.

Also, there's nothing that annoys me more, than having to sort out a family computer that is full to the brim of various HP, Sony, Olympus, Epson bloatware that came on the installation disc for their camera or printer.

Every company wants their own photo viewing software, that it installs by default.

[Lyricalis]

SAP - or at least the parts of that monster us poor users get inflicted on us. A horrible system that is more like an attention-seeking teenager than a piece of software you can actually rely on.

StarTeam - the only version control system I've used that doesn't seem that clear on what that actually entails. It's like giving the responsibility of your filing to someone with dementia.

Sharepoint - possibly more the fault of the people writing websites that use it, but I just find the way it works totally unintuitive.

Yeah, all stuff use by corporates. You haven't really experienced bad software until you've used the stuff that salespeople dupe middle managers into buying!

[marcla]

Windows ME, Airport inc., Real player, some Linux distros (needed upgrading every 6 months plus when first installed needed a 1gb update). Google chrome, Steam, Norton System works. catalyst control center.

[cnbcwatcher]

Originally Posted by DANCE OF DEATH

Windows ME.... I was fed up with it crashing all the time , so borrowed a works version of Windows 2000.

There's a reason that version of Windows was called the Mistake Edition

[Loobster]

iTunes.

No contest.

[BrokenArrow]

Linux.

[whoever,hey]

iTunes, Nero, Firefox, AOL, RealPlayer, Adobe Reader and Apple Maps.

[Sexbomb]

Seriously what is up with itunes? i use it all the time for ripping cd's, playing music on it. Apart from the odd crash it works perfectly for me on the pc.

Don't like windows media player though.

[Blofeld]

Originally Posted by marcla

Airport inc.

Wow, there's a blast from the past!

I remember going to Electronics Boutique and ordering this. Even though our PC at the time met the needed requirements, the game still ran slow, painfully slow. I could never get it to work right and I always lost money no matter how much I tried.

[mincepie]

Originally Posted by Lyricalis

SAP - or at least the parts of that monster us poor users get inflicted on us. A horrible system that is more like an attention-seeking teenager than a piece of software you can actually rely on.

Yeah, all stuff use by corporates. You haven't really experienced bad software until you've used the stuff that salespeople dupe middle managers into buying!

Too true...the worst software I've used seems to be business packages... the most expensive and sometimes the most specific to one industry, yet totally wak.

SAP seems to get universal hate everywhere!

[barky99]

Windows Me - awful OS, never worked very well
iTunes - never got it to run in a stable way, tried 3 times & binned 3 times (on various windows machines) -- must have been insufficient hardware or conflicts with other software
McAfee - creates more problems than it protects .. and it protects poorly
AOL - pathetic waste of time

[Superwomble]

Originally Posted by Geiger

iTunes.
WinAmp.
PowerDVD.

All need an axe taking to them.

Agree about the others but why WinAmp? I use it pretty much all day, every day, and it always produces the goods.
Are the newer versions rubbish? I use an old version on a netbook.