What's the worst tech product you've ever used?

[CrystalGlacia]

Just a note: individual video games don't count. But actual consoles do.

Topic. Inspired by this.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772/the_25_worst_tech_products_of_all_time.html

Technology's awesome. But sometimes it sucks.

Windows Me
Oh my god. How I managed to survive using this monstrosity for the last five or so years is beyond me. Error messages every five seconds, Blue Screens of Death almost every day, slow load times, and Clippy...oh god. And you don't know how many times I've lost school assignments and other stuff thanks to it. it got so bad, my dad wiped the hard drive, but it didn't do anything. Typical.

AOL
Aparently the only reason why my parents use it is becuase it's free. But so is Mozilla frickin' Firefox! God damn...I want to murder the dude who does that voiceover!!! "WELCOME! YOU'VE GOT MAIL!"

Dialup internet
*imitates screeching noises* Why the hell does dialup exist? It was bad, but if you get AOL on dialup, it becomes absolutely unbearable.

 

[Lilac Hill]

Dial-up on Firefox is fine for me.

My worst is Norton. Sure, when it scans, it doesn't need to clean up any viruses. But that's because it's so useless that it doesn't detect them in the first place!

 

[fate]

Virtual Boy

My EEEEEEEEEEEEEYEEEEEEEEES

MY EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

Seriously I hope I don't get eye cancer when I'm older or something as a result of it.

... but Mario Tennis and that one Mario Battling game were actually pretty fun.

Also, is dial-up really fair game for this? It's not like dial-up was invented as a first. It was a stepping stone in network communication technology which has gotten us to where we are now.

 

[Nekusagi]

SanDisk Sansa MP3 players. After six months, my 1 GB Sansa died on me. It was my first MP3 player and a Christmas present, and I was not happy. Now it boggles my brain whenever I see that very player getting rave reviews. My Zen's been around for a year now and it's still running as good as the day I got it out of the box, even after I spilled coffee on it.

 

[X Dragoon]

Dial-up....can't stand all the wi-fi interuptions from phone calls.

 

[!Tommy]

Yeah, I'd have to agree that Norton is pretty damn useless, especially the headaches it gives me when I work on computers that need to be networked. And Compaq computers, they are a pain in the ass to work on especially when they use special parts. I don't mind dialup so much except for when it kicks you off every five seconds or Skype keeps dropping you out of calls.

 

[nickstr]

I guess the fact that HP bought Compaq was a good thing since this HP/Compaq laptop I have here is the most reliable one I have ever owned, well over a year and NO problems of which to speak. Perhaps the worst tech product I have ever used was Norton's firewall, it is a PAIN to configure and caused me nothing but trouble when I needed to open a port for special software. Another bad tech product I have used was a Systemax laptop that died on me one morning and had lots of issues such as with the battery. I guess the price on it really was too good to be true since it was made with cheap parts and did not hold up to much abuse at all.

 

[Gligar13]

Windows Vista. It crashes all the time, and on some computers, it can be really, really slow and it can get in the way of work because it is that slow.

 

[commonguy]

The worst thing I have ever used was Internet Explorer! It was a virus magnet and had too many pop ups on my end.

 

[GuitarHero]

Windows Vista. It crashes all the time, and on some computers, it can be really, really slow and it can get in the way of work because it is that slow.

On a computer that can handle it, it is quite fast. Been running it for several months, haven't had a single crash or any problem at all. I'd say its at least 20-25% faster than XP was on the same rig... and I'm even running all the useless "pretty features". Just don't install this on a mediocre PC and you should be golden.

On another note, DIAL UP. I hated it as a kid growing up, especially whenever all my friends were getting cable and I was still stuck "dialing in" because cable back then was so expensive. I was so thankful when we got cable and I still am to this day. xD

 

[Ben Cousins]

The Xbox 360 and the whole 'red ring of death' thing that plagues most of the consoles. That is a pain in the arse.

 

[Æsahættr]

THIS LAPTOP.

Ugh, Dell Inspiron 9100. Slow as hell, can't handle more than 3 programs at once (and forget burning anything) and has about 2 minutes 30 seconds of power at full battery.

 

[Lilac Hill]

It could be worse.

You could've got an Acer.

 

[Æsahættr]

It could still get worse. This is a 9100, part of the "Explodey-battery" line.

 

[Shinx3000]

Windows Vista. It crashes all the time, and on some computers, it can be really, really slow and it can get in the way of work because it is that slow.

No problems for me, I had Home Premium since it first came out and its never crashed or had any problems at all or even a virus I have had none. And My computers only a Pentium 4.

And for all dial-up, I'd say yes too, it was annoying. I had dialup when most people I knew moved onto broadband speeds. Now I have a 8MBps connection that only gets 4MBps total speed mostly. Heck, I'd be very upset without it because my best friend, she lives far away and I'll hardly get to see her and can't chat without being online.

Anyway, a worse product for me, McAfee Antivirus. Seriouly, I installed it with Security Center and wanted a while ago to change to Norton, but I tried removing McAfee and it told me to remove Security Center first, which I thought I did, but somehow the registery keys were still there for it and it appeared as installed, so I had to painstakingly go in a find them all and remove them to uninstall the product. Eventually it worked.

I have a laptop, E-system and its so giving me a headache. Its been fixed 3 times since I got it. The charger keeps failing to work, now the battery life is died, it only works when plugged in and I have had it just over a year. darn thing!

 

[anonymous920314]

AOL was really horrible for me to use. It astounds me that my parents both still use it today when they have firefox installed on their laptops; my mom will use it on occasion.

I don't get how it's still around and hasn't brought tabbed browsing in or an easier system for switching between screens . . 'tis very annoying.

 

[Silverwynde]

My Compaq Presario, who was nicknamed Kenny (as in South Park) was the worst tech item I have ever used. You could not run that PC for more than ten minutes without it either freezing up, back freezing (you could move the cursor but nothing would respond), throwing out the blue screen of death with a twist (the screen would spin) or completely rebooting itself. Trying to do anything on that machine was nearly impossible. Needless to say, Kenny was an utter piece of crap. When it finally died I was about ready to hold a party. His remains are still in the garage; I'm tempted to burn them in a nice, cleansing fire.

 

[Ben Cousins]

THIS LAPTOP.

Ugh, Dell Inspiron 9100. Slow as hell, can't handle more than 3 programs at once (and forget burning anything) and has about 2 minutes 30 seconds of power at full battery.

You should never run your laptop off the mains power otherwise you risk overcharging the battery which causes the battery to die slowly. ;-)

 

[oddball walking]

A USB mug heater I got for Christmas last year, Its shockingly bad.

 

[Ino-Chan]

Now that I'm using Firefox, I would now have to say Internet Explorer. I still hate the "You Opened A New Tab!" like it's excited that I did something right on it.