PC World's 20 Most Annoying Tech Products

Craig Sender writes to tell us that PC World has compiled a list of the 20 most annoying tech products of all time. Topping the list was AOL's ubiquitous free trial CD's. "This list hardly covers every annoying tech product ever made. But where did this list of 20 come from? [PC World Readers] picked the worst ones by voting in our Annoyances Poll, and you'll see your Top 10 most annoying products flagged with icons. Just for fun, we've added 10 more products that didn't get enough votes from you in our poll but that we found particularly irksome."

Re:seems empty . . .

[grub]

Going from 31 dead people in a senseless mass killing to yet another top 20 list from a worthless site.

Worthless? Dude, you got first post!

Again?

[pclminion]

I've got a better idea for an article: "Slashdot's 20 most annoying duplicate articles."

aol cds

[mastershake_phd]

#1 AOL CDs. I used to work at the post office, they some people decorated entire walls with undeliverable AOL CDs.

The little dog in Windows Search

[gurps_npc]

is the MOST annoying thing I have ever seen.

The thing that really gets me, is that when you click the "Kill the dog" option, instead of instantly vanishing, like any reasonably annoyance, they have this obnoxious beast do a little animation.

Look, you clueless fools, if I like the dog, I would not be getting rid of him. You KNOW I don't want him, but you senselessly subject me to the EXACT kind of animation that I told you I disliked.

What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?

CD Burners and Zip disks

[L. VeGas]

In terms of pure annoyance, not just bad or lousy tech, I would rate CD burners before they were reliable and "click-of-death" zip disks as some of the most exasperating things that I have had to deal with.

I must have wasted dozens of hours with 1x and 2x CD burners before they became mature. I can still remember staring at the little progress bar.

95% completed -- 96% completed -- 97% completed -- 98% completed -- FAILURE BUFFER UNDERRUN.

AAAAAAAGH!

Backup disks

[Harmonious Botch]

Before CDs, AOL used to send floppies. I liked that. It was the backup-disk-of-the-month-club for me. I didn't have to remember, I didn't have to buy a floppy; it just arrived every month so I could backup.

what about Bob?

[CaptainNerdCave]

i couldn't resist the chance at an M$ joke and movie quote all rolled into one!

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[Tx]

What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?

For the love of god, stop putting ideas in their heads!

Desktop Cleanup Wizard

[shawn443]

I could have one icon on the desktop that I click 50 times a day and that so called wizard will still tell me I have unused desktop icons. Even better, when Sally Secretary actually runs this fantastically annoying tool, she calls me ten minutes later to tell me Excel is gone.

auto correction sucks!

[plasmacutter]

Can they possibly cram any more ads and ugly navigation into that abortion of a website.

i didnt know you could turn the act colloqually slandered as "killing babies" into a website, but i'm sure pc world would find a way to do it!

maybe your auto correction should be taught the word "aberration".

Free Software is always an improved experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Software copies the proprietary world sometimes, but it always improves the user experience.
Take the aol CDs, you now have Ubuntu CDs which always come with an ubuntu user.
It wasnt bad enough to have all those CDs, you now have to listen for hours how all distros suck and Ubuntu is just ... you know... so good ... so better ... because it's ... you know ... you see ... Ubuntu, dude.

What no Clippy?

[edwardpickman]

I still get the shakes when I see a paper clip. Also for some reason the name "Bob" makes my hair stand up on end.

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[harvey_peterson]

What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?

Sadly, my cell phone does this. When I turn the speaker phone off it plays a song. I have no idea why changing the speaker phone setting deserves a song to begin with, but there you go. Also plays a song when the phone powers down.

They forgot one huge enormous product

[Anonymous Coward]

This site called PC world that gets people to read stupid articles while showing advertisements and interrupting our viewing of porn.

Re:seems empty . . .

[trewornan]

Yeah it's particularly worrying news considering the current world shortage of American college students.

Re:CD Burners and Zip disks

[pete-classic]

I used to work for Dell major accounts desktop support. One of the best laughs I've ever had was when someone called in from IOmega for a replacement Zip drive. "The one I have just goes click, click, click."

I was very grateful for the mute button that day.

-Peter

my very favorite part . . .

[rev_sanchez]

So if you buy a WMA file from a service that uses Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM (most notably Napster), it won't work with the Zune (which uses Microsoft's Zune DRM).

A thing called PlaysForSure which will not play on something produced by the company that produces both things sounds like what Douglas Adams would write about DRM if he were still around.

As an owner of an original Bondi iMac

[arcite]

I look on my now crippled mouse hand with pride, all those fond memories will be with me forever. Of course, my baseball career is over, ditto with curling, pool, in fact I usually just cover the mangled stump with a black glove.

Re:CD Burners and Zip disks

[Divebus]

Jaz drives developed some nice options - you could lose 1GB of data all at once, or 2GB of data all at once with the newer drives.

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[MrNiceguy_KS]

AMEN!! Preach it, Brother!

I recently discovered another reason to hate the dog. I had recently started a new job, and hadn't gotten around to all the standard tweaks required to make a new Windows install usable. I had done a search and had kept the search box open behind some other windows while working on other things. For the next couple of days I was trying to figure out why my hard drive or CDROM was making two short but loud seeks every once in awhile.

Eventually I realized that the freaking dog was scratching himself. Drove me crazy for several days trying to figure out what the noise was, and it turns out to be Microsoft trying to be cute.

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[tomhudson]

Eventually I realized that the freaking dog was scratching himself. Drove me crazy for several days trying to figure out what the noise was, and it turns out to be Microsoft trying to be cute.

Ahh ... the dog had fleas. Proof that Microsoft software is infested with bugs.

Re:seems empty . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I was shot and killed today, you insensitive clod!

Re:auto correction sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can they possibly cram any more ads and ugly navigation into that abortion of a website...

...maybe your auto correction should be taught the word "aberration".

...Or, more relevantly, "abomination".


Call it an aberrant abomination of an abortion and it wouldn't even phase them. They'd even put it in their press releases:

"Ranked AAA"

#21

[wbren]

#21: Those annoying PC World ads that pop up whenever you visit their articles.

Re:CD Burners and Zip disks

[uhlume]

No no, it's like grating a turtle with a cheese hammer.
 
...Oh, I'm sorry — I thought this was the surrealist analogy thread.

Re:Vista?

[Viceroy Potatohead]

Really? If you try to install Windows 98 on an old enough machine it might not work! That's what happens. Technology marches on. The old must be left behind eventually or the new will get too bogged down to move forward.

Sleeps-With-DRM: I'm sorry, but old Runs-On-DOS will have to be left behind.
Plays-With-Kernel: But chief, I love Runs-On-DOS!
Sleeps-With-DRM: It's for the good of the tribe, she can't chew the instruction set anymore. It is our way.

Re:My favorite

[SpectreHiro]

Have you considered the possibility that you're the type of artificial intelligence the CAPTCHA was designed to foil?

Re:The little dog in Windows Search

[rrohbeck]

What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?

It'll crank up the volume and say "An application is trying to mute the audio output, Cancel or Allow?"

Re:Lotus Notes?

[Anonymous Coward]

You bought your son a toy iron and a doll that plays twinkle twinkle little star? What's next, a Mac? If he's going to have a boyfriend down the road, there's nothing wrong with that. But, could you at least try to send him down the right path?