PC World's 25 worst products of all time...

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Well, I was reading the July 2006 edition of PC World, and they had a nice article on the 25 worst products of all time...followed by the "worst company of the year". Guess which company it is? (Hint, it's products are on this list)

So here's a run-through of PC World's 25 worst products of all time, followed by the worst Company of the year.

#1: Aol (America Online)(1989 to present). Tops the list due to its infamously slow service, especially when it adopted an all-you-can-eat plan in the late 1990s. You can also blame kludgy software, the “1000 hours free” CDs, and hardball tactics intended to discourage cancellations.

#2: Real Networks' 'RealPlayer' (1999). Though we’re happier with the most recent versions, its
legacy of privacy intrusions and annoying pop-ups made it a clear pick.

#3: Syncronys' SoftRAM (1995)Syncronys sold hundreds of thousands of copies of its SoftRAM memory-doubling software before it was forced to admit that the product did nothing.

#4: Windows Millennium
Edition (aka: Me, or the Mistake Edition)(2000) was supposed to tide people over until Windows XP arrived — it did, by giving the users who had to work around its bugs something to do.

#5: Sony’s rootkit infested
CDs (2005). They crashed PCs and exposed them to security risks, all in a ham-handed attempt at copy protection.

#6: Disney's 'The Lion King' CD-ROM (1994). Few products get accused of killing Christmas for thousands of kids, but that fate befell Disney's first CD-ROM for Windows. The problem: The game relied on Microsoft's new WinG graphics engine, and video card drivers had to be hand-tuned to work with it. When parents loaded the Lion King disc into their new Compaq Presarios on Christmas morning, many children got their first glimpse of the Blue Screen of Death.

#7: Microsoft Bob (1995). No list of the worst of the worst would be complete without Windows' idiot cousin, Bob. Designed as a "social" interface for Windows 3.1, Bob featured a living room filled with clickable objects, and a series of cartoon "helpers" like Chaos the Cat and Scuzz the Rat that walked you through a small suite of applications.

#8: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001). Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser--any browser--other than IE.

#9: Pressplay and MusicNet 2002. Digital music is such a great idea that even record companies finally, begrudgingly accepted it after years of implacable opposition. In 2002, two online services backed by music industry giants proposed giving consumers a legitimate alternative to illegal file sharing. But the services' stunningly brain-dead features showed that the record companies still didn't get it.
PressPlay charged $15 per month for the right to listen to 500 low-quality audio streams, download 50 audio tracks, and burn 10 tracks to CD. It didn't sound like an awful deal, until you found out that not every song could be downloaded, and that you couldn't burn more than two tracks from the same artist. MusicNet cost $10 per month for 100 streamed songs and 100 downloads, but each downloaded audio file expired after only 30 days, and every time you renewed the song it counted against your allotment.

#10: Ashton-Tate dBASE IV (1988). In the early days of the PC, dBASE was synonymous with database. By the late 1980s, Ashton-Tate's flagship product owned nearly 70 percent of the PC database market. But dBASE IV changed all that. Impossibly slow and filled with more bugs than a rain forest, the $795 program was an unmitigated disaster.

#11: Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000). The name-your-price model worked for airline tickets, rental cars, and hotels--why not groceries and gas? Unfortunately, even Priceline spokescaptain William Shatner couldn't keep these services in orbit.

#12: PointCast Network (1996). Back in the mid-90s, so-called "push" technology was all the rage. In place of surfing the Web for news and information, push apps like the PointCast Network would deliver customized information directly to your desktop--along with a healthy serving of ads. But push quickly turned into a drag, as PointCast's endless appetite for bandwidth overwhelmed dial-up connections and clogged corporate networks.

#13: IBM PCjr (1984). Talk about your bastard offspring. IBM's attempt to build an inexpensive computer for homes and schools was an orphan almost from the start. The infamous "Chiclet" keyboard on the PCjr. was virtually unusable for typing, and the computer couldn't run much of the software written for its hugely successful parent, the IBM PC.
With a price tag nearly twice that of competing home systems from Commodore and Atari didn't improve the situation. Two years after Junior's splashy debut, IBM sent him to his room and never let him out again.

#14: Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995). After a decade as one of the computer industry's major PC builders, the folks at Gateway 2000 wanted to celebrate--not just by popping a few corks, but by offering a specially configured system to show some customer appreciation.
But instead of Cristal champagne, buyers got Boone's Farm--the so-called 6X CD-ROM spun at 4X or slower (a big performance hit in 1995), the video card was a crippled version of what people thought they were getting, and the surround-sound speakers weren't actually surround-capable. Perhaps Gateway was sticking to the traditional gift for a tenth anniversary: It's tin, not gold.

#15: Iomega Zip Drive (1998). Click-click-click. That was the sound of data dying on thousands of Iomega Zip drives. Though Iomega sold tens of millions of Zip and Jaz drives that worked flawlessly, thousands of the drives died mysteriously, issuing a clicking noise as the drive head became misaligned and clipped the edge of the removable media, rendering any data on that disc permanently inaccessible.

#16: Comet Systems Comet Cursor (1997). Thank Comet Cursor for introducing spyware to an ungrateful nation. This simple program had one purpose: to change your mouse cursor into Bart Simpson, Dilbert, or one of thousands of other cutesy icons while you were visiting certain Web sites. But Comet had other habits that were not so cute.
For example, it assigned your computer a unique ID and phoned home whenever you visited a Comet-friendly Web site. When you visited certain sites, it could install itself into Internet Explorer without your knowledge or explicit consent. And it was bundled with RealPlayer 7 (yet another reason to loathe RealPlayer). Some versions would hijack IE's search assistant or cause the browser to crash.

#17: Apple Macintosh Portable (1989). Some buildings are portable, if you have access to a Freightliner. Stonehenge is a portable sun dial, if you have enough people on hand to get things rolling. And in 1989, Apple offered a "portable" Macintosh--a 4-inch-thick, 16-pound beast that severely strained the definition of "laptop"--and the aching backs of its porters.
Huge lead-acid batteries contributed to its weight and bulk; the batteries were especially important because Portable wouldn't run on AC power. Some computers are affordable, too; the Portable met that description only if you had $6500 of extra cash on hand.

#18: IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000). Fast, big, and highly unreliable, this 75GB hard drive was quickly dubbed the "Deathstar" for its habit of suddenly failing and taking all of your data with it.

#19: OQO Model 1 (2004). The 14-ounce OQO Model 1 billed itself as the "world's smallest Windows XP computer"--and that was a big part of its problem. You needed a magnifying glass to read icons or text on its 5-by-3-inch screen, and the hide-away keypad was too tiny to accommodate even two adult fingers.
The Model 1 also ran hot to the touch, and at $1900+ it could easily burn a hole in your wallet. Good things often come in small packages, but not this time.

#20: DigitalConvergence CueCat (2000). Appearing at the tail end of the dot com craze, the CueCat was supposed to make it easier for magazine and newspaper readers to find advertisers' Web sites (because apparently it was too challenging to type www.pepsi.com into your browser).
The company behind the device, DigitalConvergence, mailed hundreds of thousands of these cat-shaped bar-code scanners to subscribers of magazines and newspapers. Readers were supposed to connect the device to a computer, install some software, scan the barcodes inside the ads, and be whiskered away to advertisers' websites. Another "benefit": The company used the device to gather personally identifiable information about its users.

#21: Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004). Some things just aren't meant to be done while walking or driving, and one of them is watching DVDs. Unfortunately, that message was lost on Eyetop.net, makers of the Eyetop Wearable DVD Player.
This system consisted of a standard portable DVD player attached to a pair of heavy-duty shades that had a tiny 320-by-240-pixel LCD embedded in the right eyepiece. You were supposed to carry the DVD player and battery pack in an over-the shoulder sling, put on the eyeglasses, and then... squint. Or maybe wear a patch on your left eye as you walked and watched at the same time. Up close, the LCD was supposed to simulate a 14-inch screen. Unfortunately, the only thing the Eyetop stimulated was motion sickness.

#22: Apple Pippin @World (1996). Before Xbox, before PlayStation, before DreamCast, there was Apple's Pippin. Wha-huh? That's right--Apple had an Internet-capable game console that connected to your TV. But it ran on a weak PowerPC processor and came with a puny 14.4-kbps modem, so it was stupendously slow offline and online.
Then, too, it was based on the Mac OS, so almost no games were available for it. And it cost nearly $600--nearly twice as much as other, far more powerful game consoles. Underpowered, overpriced, and underutilized--that pretty much describes everything that came out of Apple in the mid-90s.

#23: Free PCs (1999). In the late 90s, companies competed to dangle free PCs in front of you: All you had to do was sign up, and a PC would eventually show up at your door. But one way or another. there was always a catch: You had to sign up for a long-term ISP agreement, or tolerate an endless procession of Web ads, or surrender reams of personal information. Free-PC.com may have been the creepiest of them all. First you filled out an extensive questionnaire on your income, interests, racial and marital status, and more. Then you had to spend at least 10 hours a week on the PC and at least 1 hour surfing the Web using Free-PC's ISP.
In return you got a low-end Compaq Presario with roughly a third of the screen covered in ads. And while you watched the PC (and the ads), Free-PC watched you--recording where you surfed, what software you used, and who knows what else.

#24: DigiScents iSmell (2001). Few products literally stink, but this one did--or at least it would have, had it progressed beyond the prototype stage.
In 2001, DigiScents unveiled the iSmell, a shark-fin-shaped gizmo that plugged into your PC's USB port and wafted appropriate scents as you surfed smell-enabled Web sites--say, perfume as you were browsing Chanel.com, or cheese doodles at Frito-Lay.com. But skeptical users turned up their noses at the idea, making the iSmell the ultimate in vaporware.

#25: Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004). As the first "autostereo" 3D notebook, Sharp's RD3D was supposed to display 3D images without requiring the use of funny glasses. But "auto-headache" was more like it, as the RD3D was painful to look at.
When you pressed the button to enable 3D mode, the notebook's performance slowed, and the 3D effect was noticeable only within a very narrow angle--and if you moved your head, it disappeared. Maybe the funny glasses weren't so bad after all.

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I hope none of you guys use, or have used any of those products just listed.

But As I promised, here is the worst company of the year:

Sony!
We get the feeling that Sony doesn't trust people. Many of its ills over the past year involve copy protection: First was the fiasco with its music CDs, which installed rootkits on PCs to hide digital rights management spyware, thereby exposing the computers to viruses. Then came delays in the delivery of Blu-ray drives due to difficulties implementing a second copy protection scheme. And as a result of the Blu-ray problems, Sony had to push back its PlayStation 3 console to November. All this from the company that virtually pioneered copying with the Betamax.

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Your thoughts and comments?

 

I heartily agree with Windows ME, which has been nothing but a pain in the arse for the short time I had it - refused to take ME drivers, drivers crashed... a ****ing nightmare.

Sony's rootkit infested CDs I also agree with.

IE6 also.

StarForce should be part of the list too.

 

I used win ME for 5+ years.

 

My old laptop, Edwin, used Windows ME. I always found the name "ME" appropriate, because when a computer had it it would generally slow down and stop working for no apparent reason, as well as being prone to displaying any number of other symptoms with no obvious cause, other than Micro$oft releasing their worst OS since... well, their last OS, actually.

#2 and #3 must've been pretty crappy to overtake ME. Although no-one can disagree with AOL in the #1 spot; not only is the software terrible, but the company is another one of Satan's little helpers.

 

When first got internet at home, I used IE because it came with Windows, but then sasser and all that stuff started to live on my PC; I couldn't even download Firefox, and everytime I reformated, the only thing I could do was to open IE and try to download Firefox, but then again, virus... after the third try, a friend of mine sent me a CD with Firefox so I could install it and not have to use IE. End of problems.

StarForce already made me format my new computer 3 times; and even worst part, it killed my 2 DVD drivers for about 3 days, untill I found a solution.
So for me, StarForce should be first on that list.

 

Many people say that Aol is in fact malware because it comes preinstalled on almost every computer, it's near impossible to get off your system, and when you sign up for the 1000 hours free (or 3 months, which ever comes first), it requires a credit card number up front that they charge automaticly once the 1000 hours/3 months is up.

What's this StarForce you guys are talking about?

 

StarForce is a copy-protection system based on "if their computer is broken, they can't play a pirated copy".

That list should include StarForce, and possibly all of creative's non-soundcard products.

 

@Kitrax: read the topic about 'additonal software installed by games' and you'll see.

 

Like the Zen Player? uuh.. Why?

 

Creative's drivers!

Creative MuVo player, Creative webcam, Creative burning CD-rom, Creative graphics card.

Always the same thing with Creative's own drivers. They work, uh, "rather badly". Aka they're so crashprone when they work I always have to hack around them.

 

Maybe I'm just lucky, but my MuVo has always worked like a champ - it never, ever crashed. Creative MediaSource never did either.

 

The muvo works perfect as long as I use it as an usb drive and don't touch the driver CD.

The webcam, well, is now stuck with half-installed drivers. Works fine, just can't install or reinstall drivers.

The burning CD drive works fine with DeepBurner.

And the graphics card works fine with a relatively recent forceware drivers.

As you can see, the real problem is with Creative's drivers.

 

Add me to the lucky list. I have a Zen Micro, and I use the Zen Micro Media Explorer to transfer/organize music, and I've allocated 512MB of space to be used as a "removable disk"...and I've never once had a problem with it...well, except for that day I was hoping the battery would last for two of my 12 hours shifts.

 

Another lucky here and like Kitrax, I use the Media Explorer, the player, the ripper and the disk manager; well, there is this just little problem, somehow and for a very weird reason, I can't get into the Zen Micro the song God gave me evrything I want by Mick Jagger, no matter what I do, I ripped the song about 4 times with no success, strange thing is that I can put the other songs onto the Zen.

 

ok, let's see how many on the list I've had
Had AOL. Almost inpossible to cancel until you start threatening lawsuits.
Had and have Real Player.
First computer had Windows ME on it.
Stupid rootkit!
Used IE6, now have Firefox.
Ha ha, had a CueCat. ITs why my laptop got replaced by a desktop.

 

#1 and #4 are definites. When I first started with a PC and the internet I used AOL (it was everywhere, it must be good). I have never been so wrong, it is so a$$ backwards, and you have to do everything thier way. When I went to cancel, I literally had to call my credit card company and tell them I had cancelled. Then my credit card company went after them for the two months they had charged after I cancelled. Lucky for me I got a name and cancelatation number when I called to cancel.

Don't even get me started on ME!

 

I have never used any of those products (and have barely even heard of most of them - as the crappiest of them probably never left the USA).

But I am fascinated to hear Taza showing how rubbish Creative products can be. Sounds like exactly what everyone claims iPods to be. Just goes to show that some things work for some people and are crap for others.

 

The iPod *is* trash, Harbs.

In defense of Taza, it's not Creative products by themselves who suck - it's Creative's *drivers*.

 

Why is iPod trash? :/
It's designed to store and play music, and be small in size. I fulfills it's design criteria.
Only the iPod Nano's are a bit ropey, because they scratch really easily. But the rest are alright for what you want one for.