Is Computer Software Getting Worse?

[Altis]

I'm starting to wonder if it's just me, or if the experience of operating systems, web pages, and software is all getting worse in some ways.

For example, while reading forum posts on my school's web site, there was a post with a long URL; but the box for the post was of course very small, making you have to scroll to see it. But I can't even highlight the whole thing, only the part that I can see. Little things like this shouldn't be an issue at this point in computer.

Finally I manage to copy the link in pieces and put it together to open the PDF. I then can't seem to save it; nothing shows up in the corners or top/bottom when I mouse there, Ctrl+S does nothing, nothing in the menu. Right-clicking didn't seem to work but if I right-clicked in one particular area, I was able to.

Then I open it in Adobe Reader and of course the side-bars take up the entire screen nearly. I go into "Reader Mode" (ie. full-screen) and it's stuck. There's no button, menu item, or seemingly command that I could find to let me out of "Reader Mode".

Anyways, this is just a very small example of what I'm talking about but I'm finding this to be the case with computers and phones. While we're getting lots of new features that can be great, the little things are becoming either broken or painful in some way.

Heck, even Microsoft Edge... the "Forward" button doesn't work after I go "Back" about 75% of the time. It's hardly a new feature or concept.

Am I the only one noticing this stuff? It isn't just Windows, either. OS X, iOS, and even some web pages are becoming buggy/slow.

Sorry for the rant-like post... I'm certain to get the "you're just afraid of / hate change," which I assure you isn't it. I love change but I like change to be for the better. Being critical of change when they become slow, cumbersome, unintuitive, etc isn't unreasonable.

I'm also finding the ability to configure things is going down the drain. I can't stop auto-updates from completely eating my battery and cellular data up when it wants to update while I'm on the go.

[Snowdog993]

Firefox.

[Michael]

Windows

[MeltingTeeth]

Apple.

[trizkut]

Adobe reader/acrobat was NEVER good.

Sounds like your school is just using bad forum software; invision power board and vbulletin for example have been solid and robust for over 10 years now.


I don't have any firsthand experience with Edge, so i can't comment on that.. But having to support multiple browsers (some that aren't even standards compliant and incredibly outdated but still used on many company computers), developers are forced to use 'hacks' and workarounds to make sure their pages display relatively consistently across all browsers

[Connly33]

In general ? I have to say yes, software is getting worse, though i cant say that about everything.

A personal recent example would be the skype desktop application, for whatever reason whenever i send a message it disconnects for 10 minutes before reconnecting and sending the message, same thing with calls, as soon as i join one it disconnects, i know its not an internet connection, i have reinstalled, cleared cache, temp files etc... but nothing, still works fin on linux and android for me but not windows.

In my opinion though it is happening for a few reasons.

1.) The end users are now the Beta tester's, most companies dont bother paying a testing team anymore, they roll updates out region or world wide to check for self reporting issues, Microsoft being one of the big ones when they laid off there entire testing division and replaced it with the error reporting system in windows 10.

2.) Though hardware has not made a hug jump in performance for the average user in many years, most average users have hardware that is more capable than what they use it for, meaning performance in most applications does not have to be as well optimized as it once had needed too, arguably optimization has always been an issue, but when you have to force a program to work with limited hardware you generally have a much more refined from a performance standpoint program , aside from games coming out as of late.

3.) Most software * cough microsoft 10 *  is becoming " free" where instead of paying for the piece of software by buying, you become the the product, and you are being sold to advertiser's, where the companies that the software publishers are sharing data with becomes the priority for the publisher instead of the end user

Just kind of a rant about stuff that has been bugging me for awhile.

[trizkut]

In general ? I have to say yes, software is getting worse, though i cant say that about everything.

A personal recent example would be the skype desktop application, for whatever reason whenever i send a message it disconnects for 10 minutes before reconnecting and sending the message, same thing with calls, as soon as i join one it disconnects, i know its not an internet connection, i have reinstalled, cleared cache, temp files etc... but nothing, still works fin on linux and android for me but not windows.

In my opinion though it is happening for a few reasons.

1.) The end users are now the Beta tester's, most companies dont bother paying a testing team anymore, they roll updates out region or world wide to check for self reporting issues, Microsoft being one of the big ones when they laid off there entire testing division and replaced it with the error reporting system in windows 10.

2.) Though hardware has not made a hug jump in performance for the average user in many years, most average users have hardware that is more capable than what they use it for, meaning performance in most applications does not have to be as well optimized as it once had needed too, arguably optimization has always been an issue, but when you have to force a program to work with limited hardware you generally have a much more refined from a performance standpoint program , aside from games coming out as of late.

3.) Most software * cough microsoft 10 *  is becoming " free" where instead of paying for the piece of software by buying, you become the the product, and you are being sold to advertiser's, where the companies that the software publishers are sharing data with becomes the priority for the publisher instead of the end user

Just kind of a rant about stuff that has been bugging me for awhile.

skype is also terrible and always has been.  ip leaks for days, newly implemented protection not enabled by default

[Connly33]

In general ? I have to say yes, software is getting worse, though i cant say that about everything.

A personal recent example would be the skype desktop application, for whatever reason whenever i send a message it disconnects for 10 minutes before reconnecting and sending the message, same thing with calls, as soon as i join one it disconnects, i know its not an internet connection, i have reinstalled, cleared cache, temp files etc... but nothing, still works fin on linux and android for me but not windows.

In my opinion though it is happening for a few reasons.

1.) The end users are now the Beta tester's, most companies dont bother paying a testing team anymore, they roll updates out region or world wide to check for self reporting issues, Microsoft being one of the big ones when they laid off there entire testing division and replaced it with the error reporting system in windows 10.

2.) Though hardware has not made a hug jump in performance for the average user in many years, most average users have hardware that is more capable than what they use it for, meaning performance in most applications does not have to be as well optimized as it once had needed too, arguably optimization has always been an issue, but when you have to force a program to work with limited hardware you generally have a much more refined from a performance standpoint program , aside from games coming out as of late.

3.) Most software * cough microsoft 10 *  is becoming " free" where instead of paying for the piece of software by buying, you become the the product, and you are being sold to advertiser's, where the companies that the software publishers are sharing data with becomes the priority for the publisher instead of the end user

Just kind of a rant about stuff that has been bugging me for awhile.

skype is also terrible and always has been.  ip leaks for days, newly implemented protection not enabled by default

Agreed, though i'm always the kind of person to go in and tweak the settings myself before using it. But it always has been terrible, still trying to get all of my contacts to switch to a good encrypted IM / video chat client but that's really hard to do when everyone is on skype.

Edit : Or facebook which i refuse to use other than casual conversation's with family/ friends that i cant talk to otherwise.

[Vittra]

[Comment about Linux and Vulkan/glNext being the future followed by maniacal laughter]

[Connly33]

[Comment about Linux and Vulkan/glNext being the future followed by maniacal laughter]

[ Comment about being on the Vulkan/glNext hype train and switching completely over to linux]

[Snowdog993]

To answer your question, I have the feeling that computer software is only as good as the developer of it.  Some software is better than others.  I do highly suggest you change to Firefox rather than using Edge or Chrome or some other web browser.  I have the feeling you will be able to do more with that browser than any of the others.
Of course the OS could be part of the problem/solution you are looking for.  I am very content with using Windows 7 on the machines I have at home.  Why?  It works.
I don't want to be distracted by "social media" software either.  Social networking is something that should not be something that plagues me with tons of content I have no interest in.  If I have a focus, I will go to where my interest brings me, not the other way around.
What really makes me wonder, is the "cloud" computing concept that inherently makes us so reliable on the internet, we can't use our devices without the internet.
Scary.
I want my personal computer to be personal.  Not a cut-and-paste social media crazy culture.  Businesses that rely on the internet should have the internet for their internet ---> business ventures but have the business run in an intranet that has nothing to do with the internet at all.
The scope is narrowing focus, and privacy is becoming more and more public.  It's a mix of good and bad, but my view is just that.
Good software can be used for your needs.  Be it a game, business, or even social media.  Each has its own place in this world.
So ask yourself, what do you feel would be best for your own needs?  A gaming system?  A business system?  Both?  What works for you?
The future is what WE make of it.  Maybe developing software that works reliably with no deadlines or restrictions.  That's what makes software companies fail.  Unreasonable demands to put out software that is supposed to work perfectly out of the box.
Maybe a development of a new OS could be the way to go.  But first, make it.

[Connly33]

I don't want to be distracted by "social media" software either.  Social networking is something that should not be something that plagues me with tons of content I have no interest in.  If I have a focus, I will go to where my interest brings me, not the other way around.
What really makes me wonder, is the "cloud" computing concept that inherently makes us so reliable on the internet, we can't use our devices without the internet.
Scary.
I want my personal computer to be personal.  Not a cut-and-paste social media crazy culture. 

I agree strongly, I dont like my devices being reliant on a fragile network, like the current state of the internet at least in the US,  as unavoidable as it is. .... which if i think about it is probably why i have gotten into ham radio, and am working on my personal archival server.

[Altis]

Some really good thoughts and ideas in here.

I do think that it's the result of products being rushed, way too many compatibility complexities, and a general lack of care or concern (or time) for refinement.

For example, the iPhone used to be so highly regarded for the incredibly fast response time of its touch screen. I remember seeing comparison charts and people were looking at how one was faster than the other by 10 or 20 ms. Then iOS 7 came along and introduced animations that caused all input to be ignored for like 1500 ms. It's slightly better now, but it's never been addressed.

It makes me think that so long as things are selling well and the average user goes along with it, they don't care. Look how long the Facebook mobile app was an absolute pig for data and battery life, and they couldn't be bothered to fix it because it was better for them -- not the user.

Things just seem to be getting slowly worse in terms of experience, control, compatibility (I'm looking at you, HighDPI issues), and especially privacy.

Oh, and I am slowly edging my way towards Linux. I've been playing around with various distros for a year or so. I still do like Windows 7.

[Connly33]

Things just seem to be getting slowly worse in terms of experience, control, compatibility (I'm looking at you, HighDPI issues), and especially privacy.

Oh, and I am slowly edging my way towards Linux. I've been playing around with various distros for a year or so. I still do like Windows 7.

It seems that for casual users ( not trying to use that as a bad term) the general experience is improving...
But deffinitly the loss of control and privacy is what i really dont like, along with the general " if you have nothing to hide  ....blah blah blah... " mindset. I dont know if i can really call myself a power user, but i like power user features and level of control. Though i have appreciation for the entire experience and user interface, id take a less refined experience overall for more control.

For the linux distro ( or well desktop environment)  that meets the balance of control and experience for ME personally  is KDE , so distro's like Kubuntu or KaOS although the latest version of KDE plasma seems to have quite a few bugs at the moment.

[pr0ximity]

It's not getting worse in general, there's just more of it and it's getting more complex.

More complicated systems made by a larger number of people means there will be a larger amount of software with less robust edge cases. Most truly solid software was made during a different time and is scoped very tightly and refined over too long of a time for modern systems to compete. See things like grep, awk, sed, make, lex, yacc, TeX, etc.

And that's not taking into account the ever-increasing expectations of the general populace. Not every piece of software can be engineered to the same standards that people idolize from whenever their golden years of computing were (early Facebook/Twitter, current GMail, first iPhone they used, first BBCode or usenet or whatever). Everyone looks at experiences (software or otherwise) through tinted glasses.

[tp4tissue]

SOLIDWORKS...  is Great !


Everything else is bad..

Creo Parametric can go screw itself..

[vivalarevolución]

My major complaint is that Apple and Windows are trying to optimize their desktop OS to integrate with tablets and mobile devices, and continuing downgrades the desktop experience.  Websites have all this auto play videos and are organized for a smaller tablet/mobile screen and viewing experience.

[digi]

Yes, Windows 7 is all you need.

[Vittra]

@Altis - it's important to note that in your anecdote, you've mentioned some of the worst case examples. Unfortunately, they simply happened to you all within a short period of time.

Adobe has traditionally been one of the worst companies for reliability and stability in their software. Some serious security breaches have roots in flash and reader. Internet Explorer has not been taken seriously for a long time, and while IE11 and Edge have taken strides towards a better product, there is still no reason to use it over Firefox or Chrome.

One thing to keep in mind is that the speed of software releases has not necessarily changed all that much. What has changed is the way they are presented to us. Firefox and Google Chrome are both on a very high version release, to the point that they are hidden due to irrelevance, but there was a time when users were taking note of this and feeling it was taking "too long" for Microsoft to provide significant IE updates. We are now seeing version numbers change consistently, but from much smaller and insignificant updates.

Beyond this, Googles significant software advancement in the past 5 years caused Apple to become quite reactionary. In their particular case, it is a combination of software being released more quickly without proper QA mixed with a larger user-base to detect and encounter, and exploit problems. Their foray into Enterprise has thus far been humorous at best and an unmitigated disaster at worst. Google is fairing a bit better there due to being more open with their APIs but still has a host of problems as well.

Microsoft's removal of user control in Windows 10 comes for two reasons. One, they believe it is acceptable as Google and Apple have already been doing this for some time, and also, they want to eliminate older machines that are never updated and cause vulnerabilities.

Of course, there are still quite a few alternatives to wresting control of the OS back into your own hands, but these are not things the layman would be interested or able to pursue. If you have the capabilities to adapt and adopt a Linux distro, you certain have the ability to make the necessary changes in Windows, too. Since my main rig is a gaming rig, it will remain on Windows until such a time that the climate changes to be favourable on something else.

[Connly33]

Since my main rig is a gaming rig, it will remain on Windows until such a time that the climate changes to be favourable on something else.

Only reason my main PC is on windows still,  i'm at the point where all of the software i use on a regular basis and for my collage classes either have linux ports or alternatives, but only 40% of my game library has a linux port. Next time i refresh my current pc, probably am going to do a small form factor build, ill most likely use a linux distro for most stuff and dual boot 10 for photoshop and gaming.