Vista Makes CNET UK's List of "Worst Consumer Tech" 484
Several anonymous readers pointed us at CNET UK's Crave blog for a list of what is or was, in their opinion, the worst consumer tech in history. Vista comes in at number 10, in company with Apple's puck mouse (number 6) and Sony's CD rootkit (number 9). According to Crave: "[Vista's] incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade, are just some examples of why this expensive operating system earns the final place in our terrible tech list." That's gotta hurt a little, coinciding as it does with Apple's Don't Give Up On Vista attack ad.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:1, Informative)
I'm tired of this myth. I've been using Vista for a while now, and I've never encountered any 'abusive DRM' that prevented my from doing anything I could already do in XP.
I suggest people read this before beleiving the people blindly yelling 'Vista DRM Sux':
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 1) [zdnet.com]
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 2) [zdnet.com]
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 3) [zdnet.com]
Gates gambles on Longhorn (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's the DRM? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Vista says there's a byte error in the file and refuses to play the movie. This is Windows Media Player, same version as the version on XP.
Vista DRM is a little over-zealous. Or maybe Vista itself just is incapable of playing movies.
Re:as much as I dislike Vista (Score:5, Informative)
True. Many people don't own printers or scanners or sound cards, and so will never notice that half their peripherals are now driverless.
Re:How quickly we forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Explain something to me . . . (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think anyone has ever complained about the gaming experience, or how HD DVDs look on the XBox 360, but a lot of people have complained that it's not reliable, and a gaming system that can't game is, in most people's minds, a POS, or something equivalent.
Out of curiosity, how often does yours break? I know someone who went through three in a matter of six months. He ended up buying another one to ensure that he had a spare around when one needed to be sent in for warantee work...
Re:Explain something to me . . . (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA, you'll notice that the ordering of the items in the list seems arbitrary, and that the authors don't really refer to any sort of ranking within the list.
And yeah.... the puck mouse did suck, but it also wasn't horribly difficult to go out to buy a new mouse if you hated the thing. It was the first apple peripheral, after all, to use a universally standard interface. (Apple really led the pack with USB and Firewire. The PS/2 interface *still* shows up on many PCs! It's a bit sad, however, to see FireWire slowly dying out, as it was undoubtedly the technically superior interface for data transfers)
uac = ! evil (Score:3, Informative)
My friend who is a Mac die hard tells me - but you need to fiddle with the UAC prompt when setting the clock! Well? Guess what - you do on the Mac as well. Same with installing most apps, setting a good chunk of settings as well.
Also on the Mac if you try to copy a file into a directory you don't have permission to - it prompts for elevation - same as Vista.
I think most people are pissed off because it doesn't work like XP which let you have free run of the machine, but then the slashdot crowd bemoans the fact that XP is insecure. Microsoft fixes that - and now Vista is crap - I don't get it.
Fact is - I play games on my Vista box, browse the net, and watch "pirated" videos on it - and gasp - it works quite well. My TV tuner work, my scanner works, both my printers work, my video card works, everything works - and this is even the x64 version. I rarely ever have to deal with UAC unless I'm installing something.
The Puck beats the rootkit? (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, considering Vista's "Content Protection" is talked about very specifically by Microsoft itself, including Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers) [windowsvistablog.com], it would appear that nobody including Microsoft is denying its existence in Vista, or that it goes far beyond what any previous operating system would do with regard to "Content Protection."
Here's a quote specifically from the the link above, which is provided by Microsoft itself:
"Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."
Just because you have yet to run into Vista's DRM or that you don't deal much with A/V content that would cause you to notice limitations when using Vista doesn't mean that it isn't a significant issue for many people. Oh, and if you read the questions Microsoft responded to in the Vista blog you will also notice that Microsoft does admit the DRM will increase CPU resource consumption.
Wired [wired.com] also has an article covering Vista's DRM that specifically addresses criticism of Vista's DRM and Microsoft's response to that criticism. And if you'd like to see what your boss is reading, Forbes [forbes.com] also has an article on Vista DRM entitled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You."
Perhaps you should do some research before you post.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:uac = ! evil (Score:3, Informative)
The difference is that only a few tasks on a Mac asks you for a password while nearly everything in Windows is considered an admin task. As an owner of a Mac, I can go weeks without my Mac asking for a password. The most common event that requires a password is when I get system updates from Apple every few weeks. Otherwise it never asks me for admin rights.
Changing the time on the machine should be considered an admin task as this affects many things on the machine. So what? Installing many apps on a Mac does not prompt you for a password.
Microsoft didn't fix the underlying security issues. It just shifted the responsibility to the user to constantly approve what might be a security risk.
Re:Puck mouse (Score:3, Informative)
???
I use a 3-button mouse both at work and at home. The problem wasn't with the number of buttons, you ignorant foob, but the fact that with the mouse turned the wrong way it was easy hit the wrong one. If you're trying to do a quick copy to the command line in an Xterm, it's most annoying.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Informative)
And I can only assume you've turned off the security prompts if you like the OS. It drives me bananas to click on something, have the computer lock up for a second, redraw the screen shaded, and then pop up with a security warning. Just a warning. No prompt for a password. Nothing. I feel so much more secure for losing that 5 seconds of my life every time I want to look at that control panel.
It's a POS. I'm sure you could make it work as well (or possibly better) than XP, but who has that kind of time? It's broken as shipped. And fixing it makes Linux's foibles seem easy to deal with. I'm a Linux fanboy, but I at least recognize Windows 2000 and XP as being perfectly decent operating systems. Vista is not. I'd prefer to use Windows Me over Vista. It crashes about the same amount and is quicker.
Re:Whew! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:1, Informative)
That should be "astroturfer", with a 't'.
In English slang there is a term, grassroots [wikipedia.org], which means that something becomes popular naturally from within a community.
Some organizations wish to create the appearance of grassroots support, and they hire people to pretend to be enthusiastic about something. Perhaps Microsoft might hire some people to post on Slashdot about how great Microsoft products are. Fake grassroots support is now called "astroturfing", as a contrast with actual grassroots and as a play on AstroTurf [wikipedia.org] imitation grass.
Whoops, I just realized that Wikipedia has an entry for astroturfing [wikipedia.org] so I'll just let you read that.
P.S. You wrote "astrosurfer" so people are making bad jokes about surfers [wikipedia.org] in space. See also The Silver Surfer [wikipedia.org].
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:3, Informative)
Every single Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player you buy in a store today will have a protected video path. They will downsample HD content with the ICT bit set if it is played over a non-HDCP path (i.e. component outputs). The reason you don't see that yet, is that hollywood has agreed not to set the ICT bit on any media until 2012. It's all in the original three links I posted!! Just to spell it out -- I am not saying that this is good/acceptable -- it sucks. But I don't see everyone in /. up in arms about it when it's identical to the protections in Vista. And I don't see anyone really bothering to get to the root cause of both cases (ICT, MPAA, govt/courts not doing anything to protect our rights).
Again, I am not saying this is fair. I'm saying, blame the MPAA or the govt. for not stepping in to rectify this bullshit situation, instead of yelling bloody murder at MS when they have no choice in the matter.
Regrading giraffes, refrigerators, knives, etc. -- I don't see how they are relevant to this thread. Even the matter of the "impossibility of forcing compliance" isn't relevant. The MPAA knows very well that all DRM schemes can be hacked. The aim is never to make it 100% unhackable. The aim is always to make it so inconvenient to hack that only a very small % of people ever bother taking the effort. At no point did I defend any of this nonsense as a Good Thing, or a win for consumers. My point is that everyone's anger at Vista is misdirected, and they should know who the real culprit for this mess is. Of course, my original post got moderated as 'Troll', for even daring to suggest on /. that MS may not be completely evil.
Re:as much as I dislike Vista (Score:3, Informative)
Conversely, Apple has maintained an anti-DRM stance for years prior to opening the iTunes Store, as was documented in the Steve Jobs Rolling Stone interview* back in 2003. It hasn't changed since. Apple set up the most permissive DRM in the industry, and was the first major commercial music distributor to deliver DRM-free music from a top five label. That's despite the fact that Apple holds a majority position in the online media market. Do you think Microsoft was gearing up to liberalize media downloads after it expanded its monopoly position into media?
Arguing that Microsoft now has no significant control over DRM policy is a bit weak. It is interesting that Apple hasn't moved to support playback of either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD and the required HDCP DRM. While that might happen in the future, one might expect that Leopard would deliver the underpinnings, and no evidence has arrived to suggest that's the case. Modern Macs appear to have the hardware to support HDCP, but Apple isn't exposing it to jump on the HD-DRM bandwagon. Microsoft is.
*Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth [roughlydrafted.com]
Re:Sure every one likes... (Score:1, Informative)
All OSes on major upgrades make things incompatible - that's why they are major upgrades and that's just the technical limitation that we have to live with. Look at how many things Leopard made incompatible - http://www.macintouch.com/leopard/compat.html [macintouch.com] . On the other hand there is a ton of other stuff that works just fine on Vista and OSX Leopard.