<img src='/images/misc/cupofcoffee.gif' style='float:right' vspace='8' hspace='8'> <b>These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame.</b><br /><br />Dan Tynan<br /> Friday, May 26, 2006<br /> <br /> 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?"<br /> <br /> Still, even the worst products deserve recognition (or deprecation). So as we put together our list of World Class winners for 2006, we decided also to spotlight the 25 worst tech products that have been released since PC World began publishing nearly a quarter-century ago.<br /> <br /> * The #1 worst tech product is no shocker. ~ S<br /><br /> <div class='newslinks'><img src='http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/style_images/1/cs_page.gif'> <b>Link: <a href='http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,125772,00.asp' target='_blank'><font color='red'>PC World </font></a><br />

I like this one:
Thank you, Comet Cursor.

Yeah, hi. I'd like to give a shout-out to Real Player and Internet Explorer 6: I hate you both. Thanks for all the computer crashes and the error messages.

Nice read, Scarlett...even though it brought back some unpleasant memories....

Wouldnt you know it...Number 1 lol...
Im glad I never had to use aol...never



And internet explorer. Its like one of the first browsers? but it is not secure. I used to have tons of spyware from just visiting sites and now with firefox nothing but tracking cookies...

Oh and good old real player...
I removed it from my pc after I figured out it never worked and I never used it. They seem to be doing better now days as there player does work and they have a music/radio thing going well with it. I still dont use it though.

Everytime I try to loaw a relatively recent version of RealPlayer, it loads so much other garbage that it get removed quickly. Then I have to go in and clean up after it.

For those times when I do need RealPlayer, I have an older, less intrusive, version loaded (ver7).

Thanks for the info! I've never tried AOL & ME, but some of my friends have used them and they agree - they both smell worse than a universe sewage system. IE 6 & Real Player have, unfortunately, been used my me. IE 6 is pretty much mandatory for DLing Microsoft stuff and sadly, some movies/videos mandate Real Player. All in all, I'd have to say this article is pretty interesting.

Maybe those of you who have tried Real Alternative can let us know how
good or safe it is as an alternative to Real Player.

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

I have heard good things about it. But have yet to try it out.
I would do without, before installing Real Player. lol

AOL is definately MY personal pic for the worst technology in the past 20 or so years..... even though i've only been alive for 19 years.... lol.

Real player was also a horrible thing. You could never just watch a movie on it.... you had to download a bunch of crap, go through ads and licensing junk, etc....

I'm surprised they didn't have anything like Kazaa, limewire, or eMule on there... They had so many malware instances and destroyed security....

Lol, of course AOL No.1. Everytime they send you a cd they say its 5x faster and ends up being 2x slower.

What can one say except that there is a reason Aol has been called both Ameica Off Line and A O Hell!
Windows Me was a fiasco from the word go. Trust me. As a Gateway Tech support agent, (Iknow, laugh it up ) the automated repair functions of ME leave format and reload as your only repair option if it crashes. I keep thinking about the pictures of Bill Gates on slashdot.net every time Microsoft is mentioned. They altered him into a STNG borg.

Seafox14

That I would LOVE to see!!!

Not from slashdot but...
http://www.funfry.com/data/503/bill_gates_borg_funfry.jpg
http://www.funfry.com/data/503/bill_gates_borg_2_funfry.jpg

and don't get me started about that stinking pile of crapware
"Real Player" be thy name
Comet Cursor , oh yeah ,there was lots of cursing about that comet.
I still have a zip drive(my first one got the "Click of Death")
and the most insidious of them all ,the Sony "Rootkit" CD's

The one they left out was Altec Lansing's Voice-Pod, made available shortly before the release of XP. This little device allowed you to produce spoken word memos and had a play back function through it's diminutive speakers. Problem was that the sound was terrible and as soon as XP was released they dropped all support for it and refused to update it's drivers. And so, yet another peripheral became land-fill fodder...

Listen to this. It's unbelievable.

Cancelling AOL

I read this in the actual PC World magazine a couple weeks back. Interesting information though. I didn't know it was posted on their website.

1;2'8;15

My favorites to hate