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Annoying software: a rogues' gallery

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 20 May 2008 10:29 BST

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No gain without pain?

The internet has brought us many joys. It's rewritten the rules of business and pleasure.

And pain. For it allows what may have seemed like bright ideas at the time ('let's use it to make sure our customers have the latest software', for example) to turn into a stinking pit of misery — usually, but by no means always, after marketing gets its fangs in.

Here are just ten of the guilty parties who try to do the impossible: to make us hate the internet and wish it had never been invented — and who very nearly succeed.

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Why do so many (virtually all) software packages think that they are so important that they have to be started automatically every time the computer boots? What is the largest number of "speed access", "update check", "camera download" and whatever other background programs you have ever seen running? Of those, how many did you really need?