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More offensive — Resource bloat or Feature bloat?

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mouser:
I remember when i used to be very protective of my memory -- checking programs to make sure they didn't use too much.. and then one day i completely flipped and i started thinking, damn it i have 2gb of memory, i want something using that memory and not have it all go to waste!!! that's when i started filling up my system tray (yes you heard me right) with gadgets :)

nosh:
I really like the plugin/extension based softwares - they can end up being as light or heavily featured as we need.

Nero is definitely a victim of bloat -  I'm testing a CD burning software called Power2Go, it has worked well so far and has a feature I absolutely love (though I haven't personally tested it yet), it lets you optionally encrypt files & scramble filenames for the burnt data. The burnt CD/DVD contains the necessary logic to be self-decrypting and can be used on another PC. I wish features like these were given priority by big players like Nero.

For most application categories I prefer to have one blazing fast app and one fully loaded, more functional one. I use a highly customized version of Firefox for my daily browsing, Opera (which has superceded IE6) is now my 'quick-browser', to be used when I want to look up a specific bit of info in a rush.

Same thing for graphic editing: I have Photoshop with a few 3rd party plugins installed but for a quick job there's Paint Shop Pro 5. I made it a point not to upgrade to later versions which started to look more and more like Photoshop wannabes. 

Software bloat is one of the major reasons I've grown to like freeware so much. Freeware authors tend to keep it real/functional and are not nearly as likely to go in for 'features' that are little more than marketing gimmicks.

nosh:
damn it i have 2gb of memory, i want something using that memory and not have it all go to waste!!! that's when i started filling up my system tray (yes you heard me right) with gadgets :)
-mouser (April 28, 2007, 04:57 AM)
--- End quote ---

Same story here mouser, I have about 15 icons in my systray at the moment and it's consuming just over half of the 1GB RAM. RAM doesn't seem to be that much of a problem anymore. It's the CPU that really gets stretched when any one resource hungry app starts chugging away.
I have an Intel P4 - 3GHz which is not exactly a slow processor but I've seen numerous apps stretch it out completely.

Carol Haynes:
The program that amazes me is iTunes - it regularly maxes out an Athlon64 X2 4600+ process for long periods just downloading podcasts! Madness

Curt:
Combination of Outpost FW and Spysweeper was a real killer on my system response!
-Carol Haynes (April 28, 2007, 04:47 AM)
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I was forced to unplug the PC and remove Spysweeper in F8 SafeMode (Win2K with Outpost). I asked the company what to do, but they only gave me instructions on how to remove Spysweeper, so I guess they are familiar with the problem...


Regarding Word (2003), I have made the choice not to have NOD32 check my documents when I work. Knowing my station is clean I think it is overkill to check every document, when you are not downloading / installing, and in the end the scanning time became too annoying.


I tried iTunes for some time, but gave it up: I could not find the goodies to match the bads. iTunes is like using Office Automatic Update and have an update that failed to install; the PC wil be useless for   s e v e r a l   minutes at each and every upstart.

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