Perhaps the single most annoying online invention and the bane of Internet users. They are even responsible for countless browser crashes and have resulted in unauthorised software installations and ID theft.
In the days before Mac OS X, users were regularly left on the brink of a nervous breakdown with '34' and '108' error type messages. System crashes resulted in these obscure messages that only Apple developers understood.
You’re going about your normal business when SMACK, a flash movie starts playing, blocking what you’re trying to view. The frustration increases as you scramble to look for the ‘close’ button, which isn’t always in the same place.
Vista promised to be an all-singing, all-dancing, industry revolutionising phenomenon… in fact, it turned out to be XP in a posh tux! This resource-heavy system caused Microsoft numerous problems, from delayed launches and lawsuits to misleading ‘Vista Capable’ hardware stickers.
‘My hamster had her stitches out’, ‘I just sneezed’… more to the point, who cares! Satisfying people’s cravings to share every itch and scratch, the ‘tweeting’ generation offers little to audiences or ‘followers’ apart from the stream of pointless comments.
What was wrong with a browser’s ‘favourites’ list? Too easy? Well sites like Digg want you to work harder. In essence, you have to bookmark a bookmarking site to access your bookmarked sites… great!
What started as a great way of communicating with distant friends and family has turned into a modern day plague of ‘zombies and werewolves’, ‘be my top friend’ and ‘I’ve nothing better to do so I’ll annoy you’ invites.
Most of us aren’t really keen on someone watching over our shoulder and correcting us as we work. Microsoft thought it would be fun to incorporate this into earlier versions of Office and thus the nuisance that was Clippy the Assistant was born.