Was just reading my Twitter and saw someone complaining about Nero and this got me thinking about software, specifically software that packs in things you don’t really need, for the sake of getting you to purchase an upgrade. Admittedly there is the occasional feature that may be of interest, but on the whole it’s either fluff, or stuff I have no interest in.

Nero is a good case in point. I’ve been on the upgrade path for this, since version 4 or 5, however I’m quite content with version 7 and don’t see myself upgrading anytime soon, even though Nero is now at version 9. I’ve just taken a look at the Nero site and the download for the trial version is over 300 megabytes. I love Nero, but all I used it for is creating CD’s and DVD’s. Why force me to pay over and over again for stuff I don’t want or need.

So with this thought in mind, I tried to thing of other software that’s jumped this over functional shark and I’m not just talking about commercial software, some free applications also have a lot to answer for. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Paint Shop Pro
   Version 7 was the lean mean graphics machine. Version 8 prior to the Corel sell off, starting heading north and all the versions that Corel have produces have been total over kill
2. Adobe Reader
   I want to view PDF documents. I don’t want an update every week or so. Also the basic download is now 41 megabytes, which is crazy. Foxit Software’s reader a sylph like 3 megabytes.
3. iTunes
   As much as I like the way iTunes catalogues my music collection, there’s no denying it’s a unwieldy beast. A 70 megabyte download is just crazy, not to mention sucking my machines resources like an overenthusiastic hooker
4. InstallShield
   Yes I realise that this has all the functions a software developer might want for installing their software, but at a little shy of $1,000 for the basic version, I think I’ll be sticking to InnoSetup for the foreseeable future… and did I mention it’s free.

These are the ones that come to mind now and there’s been a whole ton more, but it’s always the way that you can’t think of them when you want to, but I think you get the general idea.I’d be interested to hear what software you think has jumped the shark.

Before I go, I realise that software companies have a living to make, I’m a programmer myself, but it seems that software is getting more and more bloated, without actually becoming more usable, in fact, many of the latest software packages, require fairly hefty machines. You should not need a dual core Pentium machine with 2 gigs of memory to do basic word processing. I think there is a great opportunity for software companies to rethink their software and strip software back to it’s essence, at least to allow the process to continue, but from a much more tightly programmed core.

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