Leave My Freakin' Software Alone

Enough with the software updates already. In these days of everything being connected to the internet, vendors are quick to push updates on us frequently, and it drives me nuts. Here are some of the worst annoyances.

Comcast Cable Box / DVR - Comcast feels the need to update the firmware on my cable box every other month or so. This happens transparently and the only clue I have that it happens is when I press a button on my remote and something completely unexpected happens. Not once have I ever felt like one of these updates improved the service. If anything, it usually makes things worse. Features that I used to be able to access with one button press are now buried three buttons deep. Just stop messing with it already.

Microsoft Windows - This one is too obvious. The amount of updates and reboots is simply ridiculous. I'd rather MS just bundle all the updates into one monthly download than mutliple downloads in a single week. Also, I thought Vista was supposed to be more secure? Why do I need security updates every other day AND suffer through those annoying UAC (User Account Control) pop-ups? One or the other must go.

Firefox - Most Mozillaphiles rave about the ability to use add-ons to customize the browser, but few talk about the ensuing update mania. Even if you only use a handful of add-ons, the browser will nag you every few days to perform some kind of update. Yeah, you can opt-out of automatic updates, and live without them, so I suppose this is only half as annoying as the other examples.