the worst piece of software

[Beardy]

Not a piece of software, but an approach. The subscription model of software ‘ownership’. If it came with a decent level of support, then ok, but software that won’t play nicely if it can’t phone home is just bloody annoying, especially when they expect me to pay for it on a month by month basis. Bastard product managers.

[Adam]

I grew up designing for 35mm slide projector with Harvard Graphics 3 for DOS.  Every version of PowerPoint I've had the misfortune to use since has been a retrograde step.

About 30 years ago I was working for a large insurance company (which no longer exists but that's nothing to do with me).  We had Harvard Graphics so that we could design presentations for clients.  One year I used it to create an on-screen Christmas card with lots of typical Christmas things as well as the company logo, which I sent out to our local branch offices.  The pièce de résistance was at the end inserting lots of white dots.  Due to the massive size of the file severely overloading the limited memory of the office PCs (286s?), the white dots slowly appeared, making it look like snow coming down.  It looked very impressive.

[Kim]

Not a piece of software, but an approach. The subscription model of software ‘ownership’. If it came with a decent level of support, then ok, but software that won’t play nicely if it can’t phone home is just bloody annoying, especially when they expect me to pay for it on a month by month basis. Bastard product managers.

This is particularly Type 2 Fun when you don't have an internet connection.

[ian]

Subscription is very dire, more so for mature software where, let's face it, you don't want continued improvement because that's just fascinating ways to break the features you need in the vain pursuit of new features that you and no one else ever needed. I wouldn't mind if they fixed the stuff that is obviously broken, but they've done the maths and figured out that they have your money anyway, so why spend it on you.

[StuAff]

Outlook Express

<Checks decade>
Wot???

It is what my employer gives me to work with.
As well as an OSX which is around 5 years out of date 
I'm more up to date at home than I am at work.

I used Outlook Express way back when in OS 9 days…honestly didn't know it was still being developed on Mac. Email client share on Mac of non-Apple programmes must be in the region of naff-all. Spark is nice, but nothing that's really tempted me away from Mail.

[Kim]

I expect the majority of non-Apple mail client use is probably thunderbollocks, on account of it being reasonably functional and basically the same as on Windows and Linux.

[StuAff]

I expect the majority of non-Apple mail client use is probably thunderbollocks, on account of it being reasonably functional and basically the same as on Windows and Linux.

Yup, probably.

[StuAff]

+1 for the hatred of subscription. Adobe used to have this crazy idea of making Photoshop better with each new version. Bought a scanner with the bundle version back in 1997 (I think), then upgraded to 4.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, CS2 & CS3. Then the ****s went to subscription, and pretty much gave up doing anything with the product. Pixelmator Pro is a way better buy, not just because you can actually buy it....

[perpetual dan]

The revenue and customs website.
A theatrical production of special numbers, IDs, passwords on special paper and reference numbers.
Some "tell me the previous date" when they've plainly got the data already and a refusal to just get on with adding new information.
A general inability to do the sensible thing.
And, to cap it all, the money going to the present government.
Probably not helped by me having personal and company tax to do.

[Mr Larrington]

Anyone who puts their application help files on the Internets instead of bundled with the program.  Yes, Microsith, I'm looking at you.  People have been known to travel, y'know, to places without even mobile phone coverage.  Which in the case of my phone seems to include anywhere in Leftpondia with a population under half a million.

[pcolbeck]

This Unit endorses Sumatra for reading PDFs, after Foxit started to get middle-age spread.

+1 for Sumatra. Fast and lean.

[woollypigs]

I've never managed to figure out why, when you do a copy & paste in Outlook Express, it changes the font and the format.
Is this some sort of advantage that I've never really appreciated?

This comes from something in windows and outlook express, it too does my head in. Here's a VERY basic explanation! (so don't @ me) It takes the settings - font/colour - from the person who send you the email, mix it up with the settings you got. It also depends on if they or you have emails set to HTML or not etc.

I really do hate it when you copy some text from one place and past it to another it takes all the setting on Program A and dump it into Program B. Why! I'm copying the text not the the fancy colours and fonts, which I don't care about, I care only about the text since that is what I'm copying.

One way to bypass that is hitting "ctrl + shift + v" when pasting. Or the good old basic text editor trick, paste into that and copy away from it.

Though in Outlook 365 or what ever it's called now you can't (well I haven't found a way around that) and have to use the extra step to paste, click one of the 2-3 options (dunno know what that is called). It's kinda ok and nice as it give you the option to paste as the Program A, paste as Program B, paste as plain text only. But an annoying extra step or two.

[Lightning Phil]

Not even subscription software just apps that won’t show data without an internet connection.  An example is the BBC weather app on iPad.  It won’t show you the weather forecast from last time you had a connection. Oh no, you actually need a connection for anything to show at all. 

[DaveReading]

+1 for the hatred of subscription. Adobe used to have this crazy idea of making Photoshop better with each new version. Bought a scanner with the bundle version back in 1997 (I think), then upgraded to 4.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, CS2 & CS3. Then the ****s went to subscription, and pretty much gave up doing anything with the product. Pixelmator Pro is a way better buy, not just because you can actually buy it....

To be fair to Adobe, a couple of years ago (may still be the case) they made Photoshop CS2 available as a free, time-unlimited download.  I've been happily using it since then and don't see any need to upgrade to a newer/paid version, as no doubt Adobe would rather I did.

[pcolbeck]

Not even subscription software just apps that won’t show data without an internet connection.  An example is the BBC weather app on iPad.  It won’t show you the weather forecast from last time you had a connection. Oh no, you actually need a connection for anything to show at all.

Presumably its just a web browser in a fancy wrapper.

[Jaded]

Not even subscription software just apps that won’t show data without an internet connection.  An example is the BBC weather app on iPad.  It won’t show you the weather forecast from last time you had a connection. Oh no, you actually need a connection for anything to show at all. 

They did, and then I believe they turned the activation servers off?

They certainly have done that on older software.

The subscription model made me switch to Affinity products, and I’m very happy with them.

[rogerzilla]

+1 for the hatred of subscription. Adobe used to have this crazy idea of making Photoshop better with each new version. Bought a scanner with the bundle version back in 1997 (I think), then upgraded to 4.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, CS2 & CS3. Then the ****s went to subscription, and pretty much gave up doing anything with the product. Pixelmator Pro is a way better buy, not just because you can actually buy it....

To be fair to Adobe, a couple of years ago (may still be the case) they made Photoshop CS2 available as a free, time-unlimited download.  I've been happily using it since then and don't see any need to upgrade to a newer/paid version, as no doubt Adobe would rather I did.

There's been a warez version of CS2 ever since it came out 

[mrcharly-YHT]

Word, Excel and Visio used to be good apps for power users, very confusing for basic users.

They've tried to make them more basic-user-friendly, and in the process totally stuffed them for 'power users'.

I nominate Mcafee antivirus and anything else from mcafee.  Was always shite and has just got worse over the years.

Then I'll add Perforce. Takes all the crap of MS SourceSafe (which is ancient), tries to 'improve' it with some features available in git, and results in something that is unreliable, difficult to use, difficult to control. Crud visibility of changes and terrible change control. Git is superior in just about every way.

[Regulator]

Florence... our HR system based on Oracle Cloud.   Absolute shite!

[StuAff]

+1 for the hatred of subscription. Adobe used to have this crazy idea of making Photoshop better with each new version. Bought a scanner with the bundle version back in 1997 (I think), then upgraded to 4.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0, CS2 & CS3. Then the ****s went to subscription, and pretty much gave up doing anything with the product. Pixelmator Pro is a way better buy, not just because you can actually buy it....

To be fair to Adobe, a couple of years ago (may still be the case) they made Photoshop CS2 available as a free, time-unlimited download.  I've been happily using it since then and don't see any need to upgrade to a newer/paid version, as no doubt Adobe would rather I did.

"You can no longer reinstall Creative Suite 2, 3 or 4 even if you have the original installation disks. The aging activation servers for those apps had to be retired."
Bull****. They could have kept the activation working, or disabled it, but no…So that's CS3 out if I ever have a problem with it. Bastards.

[ian]

As mention, Affinity has replacements for the Adobe products which, tbh, unless you have a peculiar workflow are better all round. They're modestly priced and genuinely pleasant and intuitive to use.

[woollypigs]

So that's where Gimp, Darktable and Inkscape comes in handy. If you are just faffing around for yourself and don't need to collaborate with others on bigger projects. All these programs I have managed to get something to others for say printing, without too much faff and issues. 

[Clare]

I nominate SITS by Tribal Group.

Those of you who do not work in the higher education sector consider yourselves very, very blessed.

[Kim]

Is that the one with the letter missing?  Barakta may have ranted about it...

Speaking of student records, there should be a related award for using reasonably competent software in arsebackwards and inefficient ways.  They've bought in to Maximiser, but only so far as the manglement get to look at pretty metrics.  The grunts have to spend hours duplicating data and sharing logins and other rubbish, because they're too stingy to use it as a canonical records system.

Obviously Excel is the prime candidate for this sort of thing, as you can abuse it as everything from a database to a DTP package.

[Clare]

Is that the one with the letter missing?  Barakta may have ranted about it...

It is indeed.

Latest massive issue for us was at boards time when it didn't calculate any undergraduate results correctly. One of ours was due a first and the boards calculation awarded them a 2:2 (discarded a 92% mark and an 80% mark). Turned a 45 minute Board of Examiners meeting into a 5 hour maths marathon and we only have about 50 undergrads in our department.