http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,2,00.asp

I love what they choose for #1

I had an iomega zip drive. It died when we put a floppy disk into it, so we got a CD burner instead. Good idea, wasn't it?

i love how 3 of the top 5 are my top hates

Nice list.

Good stuff, er maybe that should be bad stuff. :p

Me 2.

AOL, RealPlayer, and Windows ME, noobified a nation.

Iomega Zip Drive (#15)

Ha. So true. Back then I thought this clumsy way of data storage was so cool. Now I rely on my small awesome flash drive for taking files on the go.

Also, AOL doesn't deserve to live today. Why does it still exist.

That was a good list, especially at number one. This past summer, I nannied for two kids. Their parents had an old Mac, that could only acces the internet through AOL. It was absolute torture to do anything on the computer, and I couldn't believe how bad AOL sucked. I remember it fondly as a child, but now that I'm older and wiser, those memories horrify me.

So, are they just like, ignoring the fact that AOL is largely responsible for how widespread the internet is today?

The list is garbage. It reads like it was written by some 16-year old AOL basher.

And alot of people, myself included, had all three of those at once.

I was surprised to see IE6 on the list, I expected IE to be there in general but not 6... I'll be downloading FireFox now.

Interesting stuff. I had AOL and RealPlayer at the same time when my family bought our first personal computer (the same computer that I would play JK on). The horrors. The pain. The crap.

They still suck.

#1, 2, 4, 8, 15

(AOL, RealPlayer, WinME, IE6, CometCursor)

+ Apple Puck Mouse (honorable mention)

are ones that I remember well and that bring back memories. Oh man.

Especially that apple mouse. I actually didn't mind using that mouse. In fact, I think a couple of 2001-era iMacs at a youth center I used to go to still has them.

Haha, yes, they mentioned DIVX. I can remember going to Circuit City back in 98, looking at the DVD players that were like $300 minimum, then seeing DIVX stuff right beside them and thinking "wow, this will never work".

VIRTUAL BOY!!!!

yeah, I remember that too. Still, I wonder why the divx compression codec was shares a name that is so similar to that of a failed media system. Unless you don't know what both are it would confuse the hell out of people.

Yeah, I'm still unsure of the reasoning for choosing that name. I've never really seen any mention of it. I remember when the codec first came out (back when the concept of fitting a movie on a single CD with pretty good quality was just mind-blowing), I was a little confused when my brother first told me that he had a DiVX movie on a CD...

And I still can't believe I got a Virtual Boy when they were released. It was a birthday present though, so at least those $170 didn't come out of my pocket... I remember my mom was pissed when she saw them like a year later selling for like $30 and games for like $10... Wario Land was a pretty fun game, Mario Tennis was ok. Other than that, none of the games I had really entertained me. One of these days I might dig mine out wherever it's hidden to play through Wario Land, haha. Luckily that damn thing never gave me a headache like it did to a lot of people who played it.

I bought a virtual boy on the day it released. And an Iomega zip drive, which died not when my sister put a floppy in it, but when my mother tried to help her remove it with a butter knife. Also bought a 32MB MP3 player back when they were new.

Honestly, I shouldn't be allowed to shop at Best Buy unsupervised.

Hmm... I have had a zip drive for years (well, of course for years, since nobody buys them these days, if they are even selling them anymore). I have had no problems with it, though. Perhaps because I didn't use it that much. It has been pretty much an exotic dust collector for a long time.

Interesting though that it made it into the list. I never knew zip drives were considered so bad products. They were quite nice things before the advent of USB memory sticks.

I have a virtualboy, but I bought it when it was on clearance. System + 3 games for $30.

I've got 6 ZIP drives and ungodly large numbers of disks around the house. They all work fine.

When I was in middle school, they forced us to use zip drives at one point to "bring us up to date in technology"

A couple of those weren't nearly as bad as PC World said, and a lot of them weren't really "tech products", mostly just software. I don't consider crappy software a tech product, just what you'd expect from lame, moneygrubbing corporations looking to make a cheap buck.

But then again, we're talking about a PC magazine, so I have to give them credit for trying.

AOL never deserved to live at all!!! And I never had it, but somehow I still hate it... That is definately a good choice for the number one worst tech thing ever. The depressing thing is that my friend JUST got off AOL internet (DIAL UP for crying out loud!) and switched to DSL from a RELIABLE and GOOD company that isn't EVIL or CLUELESS. I can't believe that he survived countless years of listening to those torturous and clashing beeps. Of course you can turn them off, but that doesn't make dial up any better. Especially when it is AOL.

The zip drive was great. It was zip's brother 'Jaz' that was bad. $125 EACH for a 1gb disk. Insane. Not a very good list all-in-all IMO.

[QUOTE=Double Helix]AOL anti-fanboy tripe[/QUOTE]
Shut up. I had AOL for DOS 3.10. It was never as bad as people claim. They just like to make fun of it.

Not at first. Then it mutated. *shudder*