What is the most intrusive piece of software you've ever installed?

[morkinva]

I remember several years ago installing drivers for a cannon bubblejet printer from their cd. OMG it was vile how it incorporated itself into the browser, desktop and whole system. It was the only time I've actually called a company to complain.

But this was before things like adware and stuff like that. Which POS gets your vote?

 

[Orsorum]

Kazaa.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Girlfriend 2.0

You know I'm kidding, Chels.

nik

 

[Maetryx]

Real Player. I can't believe how many boxes I have to uncheck so that it does not hijack extensions from other software and so that it doesn't start sending me unwanted "services" and spam. It's just plain rude. Then again, it is free....

Anybody else remember PCN (Pointcast Networking)? It was the then-hyped "push" technology which was supposed to be so hot. It was essentially a frontend for news and other information in which you subscribed to various categories. That model doesn't seem to be the wave of the future or anything. Microsoft's ActiveX desktop environment was nothing but a crippled PCN posing as a theme. Everyone disabled it as far as I know.

 

[FoBoT]

bonzi buddy, that stinkin gorilla hosed my wife computer to the bone

 

[SWScorch]

My father installed Gator on his computer and it was the most invasice peice of software I;d ever seen.

 

[syzygy]

comet cursor.

it installed itself. caused a few weird happenings, nothing serious. but just a
few months ago i found it again on my machine. had to comb through the
registry to find and eradicate every bit of it.

 

[wyvrn]

realplayer
comet cursor

I dislike both.

 

[Fandu]

Number one I would say is MSN Messenger. It doesn't really matter how much you don't want it, XP forces it down your throat. God do I hate MSN. After Messenger, there is Comet Cursor, Bonzi Buddy, Gator, Web2000, New.net, Brilliant Digital, the list goes on and on.

 

[Maetryx]

Come to think of it, Internet Explorer is pretty *&#$ing intrusive. Microsoft ended up getting CONVICTED of a crime for bundling it after all. By substituting IE for a file browser, they shove this bloated thing down our throats every time we double-click on My Computer icon. So I use PowerDesk for file management and Opera for browsing.

But get this: IE is so *&%@ing instrusive, that some sites are designed to only be viewed properly with IE, probably unknownst to the web page author. Grrrrrrrrrr. Stupid IE.

 

[no0b]

AOL

they have it setup where the control panel cant affect your modems settings but only in Aol is where you can change them.

 

[morkinva]

Originally posted by: Maetryx
Come to think of it, Internet Explorer is pretty *&#$ing intrusive. Microsoft ended up getting CONVICTED of a crime for bundling it after all. By substituting IE for a file browser, they shove this bloated thing down our throats every time we double-click on My Computer icon. So I use PowerDesk for file management and Opera for browsing. But get this: IE is so *&%@ing instrusive, that some sites are designed to only be viewed properly with IE, probably unknownst to the web page author. Grrrrrrrrrr. Stupid IE.

Heh good point.

Is bonzi buddy that talking parrot guy?

 

[milagro]

Recently looked at an NT box that had had Zone Alarms installed and then removed using the uninstall utility - and there was still all kinds of crap throughout the registry causing problems that normally good registry cleaners couldnt take care of...leaving the chore for me to do it manually.

People, please just get a good hardware firewall, and if you already have a firewall thats current/updated w/ firmware etc., please, don't go throwin zone alarm on there...

 

[BeauJangles]

some website i got redirect to.. it installed about 40 (no joke!) pieces of spyware, along with a desktop search client. It took me about 1/2 hr to find the uninstaller on their website.

 

[ThaGrandCow]

Originally posted by: Fandu
Number one I would say is MSN Messenger. It doesn't really matter how much you don't want it, XP forces it down your throat. God do I hate MSN. After Messenger, there is Comet Cursor, Bonzi Buddy, Gator, Web2000, New.net, Brilliant Digital, the list goes on and on.

Fandu: Linky for j00

 

[jamautosound]

Gator
RealPlayer
CometCursor

In that order.

I installed some music software a couple months back, that fingered through my comp. like oak tree roots. I can't recall the name of it tho'.

*Edit* I just clicked on a link in windows media player and up pops

BThere!:| This is the piece of shiot software that took my computer over. Wouldn't ya knowit. Affiliated with microsoft. Ha. Go figure. No wonder it was so hard to uninstall.

 

[ThePresence]

Without a doubt RealPlayer.

 

[dude]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
bonzi buddy, that stinkin gorilla hosed my wife computer to the bone

Well, did you spank the monkey?

 

[dude]

Real Player
MSN Messenger
Comet Cursor
Any Symantec Application

never used gator.

 

[SHoddyCOmp]

Is bonzi buddy that talking parrot guy?

No, its that stupid purple ape.

 

[reitz]

Real player

 

[Ameesh]

most of you are too young to remember after dark and adobe font manager.

 

[NetworkDad]

Real crap Player

 

[bizmark]

Originally posted by: Maetryx
Come to think of it, Internet Explorer is pretty *&#$ing intrusive. Microsoft ended up getting CONVICTED of a crime for bundling it after all. By substituting IE for a file browser, they shove this bloated thing down our throats every time we double-click on My Computer icon. So I use PowerDesk for file management and Opera for browsing.

But get this: IE is so *&%@ing instrusive, that some sites are designed to only be viewed properly with IE, probably unknownst to the web page author. Grrrrrrrrrr. Stupid IE.

I'm no M$ lover, but I actually like IE is integrated into the OS. I buy Micro$oft's reasoning with this: Web browsing is such a basic function that there's no reason why it shouldn't be integrated. The KDE desktop for Linux does the same. Plus, IE is just SO much easier to write for... God, Netscape handles tables in the oddest ways sometimes. I'll spend 30 minutes making a page and making it look right in IE, then 3 hours figuring out why the f*ck Netscape formats it the way it does. With IE, at least the rules are reasonable and conducive to nice-looking webpage design. I'm not a pro, but every person I've talked to on this issue (even the Mac-lovers) agree with me 100%.

 

[Moonbeam]

I just installed ICQ and found I could get a free ride on AOL on my desk top as well as ICQ on my start menu, my desk top and whatever that thing in the lower right hand corner is. Every time I reboot a tug boat sails through my room and I get a can't desplay active x window and the damn ICQ program open on the desktop too. Geez, i just wanted to send a file.