Paid commerical software versus freeware

[Ent]

Hi

We live in a commercial world where we are constantly lied to by politicians and corporations with probably the worst being the computer industry. I can get rather disillusion by this approach that values marketing spin over facts but one of the bright lights is freeware. The internet is a fantastic place for volunteers that trouble shoot and provide some great programs free of charge. It makes me wonder if the corporate and political sickness of deception and spin can result in solid products as frankly my freeware apps are considerably better.

This weekend is a case in point. My fathers Netgear modem/router/wifi is intermittently failing. Or that is the likely suspect. So I dragged up my collection of laptops to find out. Nightmares abound as nothing works consistently except the very old laptop running Linux. Ok time to decommission the old modem and off to the shops.

A few weeks back this resulted in a brand new Netcomm not installing and when I rang support, an exercise in push button call center frustration and the Hindi language barrier I was told that my brand new modem was out of warranty! Also when I found when it was supposedly sold it was eighteen months ago and despite the box's claim it had a one not a two year warranty. I told Netcomm I was taking it back and the Indian call center told me I could not! Thank goodness for Australian not Indian consumer law. So after two hours of my life wasted I returned to the shop and the puzzled sales assistant in disbelief refunded the money. It was a brand new item still shrinked wrapped and he could not believe what I was told. I sent an email off to Netcomm and in usual corporate America and now sadly Australia approach I did not receive a reply. Scrub Netcomm from any purchase list as they are a joke.

So dragged along a friend that is an expert in communications and off to Harvey Norman. I hate Netgear for lack of reliability and intermittent issues I experience with their products so was interested in a Belkin model. In about ten minutes the sales assistant finally admitted that he knew nothing of such equipment despite claiming to be an expert in the beginning as my friend asked a rather simple question as where does the ADSL line plug in. On chance we brought it and much to my friends surprised the modem was in the power-pack with a cable then leading to the router/wifi section. The "expert" Harvey Norman salesperson obviously had never seen one outside the shrink wrapped packing. Ok, it setup and worked a treat so time to test.

I decided to install two my three licence Norton Internet Security on Dad's and one of my other laptops. Apart from slowness things worked but a sneaking suspicion has crept in re the ADSL line. Now that will be a challenge to test as Netspace and Telstra as extremely good at doing nothing blaming each other. But at least the massive download of Norton worked but my big Asus laptop was in need of a Windows update. Yeap, two restarts and five hundred mb proves that Microsoft just does not understand quality control and its customers.

But then my bluetooth mouse did not work. After the useless Microsoft support site I was firmly left with the opinion that commercial companies just do not get it I found some guidance on a forum. This established that the update had installed a new driver and that had not worked. Good one Microsoft and Broadcom. So Googled Broadcom and the driver and after downloading their driver update program I was then told I would have to pay $30.00 USA for the privilege. Blood boiling I slammed the lid down and went visiting a friend. He found the same issue but then I noticed that the site was a front for Driver-Tuner. They (insert range of colorful phrases) had used the logos and attempted to con people into thinking it was Broadcom's official site. Yeap, the computer industry is afflicted with the same porn industry approach of bait and switch. USA companies wonder why people around the world rush into the streets and shout nasty slogans about the USA. Err? USA just look at how you treat people commercially. Strangely your average USA person not tied up with corporate America is generally a very nice individual in my experience.

So we found the proper Asus site and re-installed the original driver and the computer is sort of working. The driver falls over and needs to be disable and re-enabled and then works. Welcome to the commercial computer world where nothing is ever tested. Roll on Germany and Japan and expand from car to computer software.

So back home attempted to connect one of my laptops to the internet via the iPhone and it would not work. Just love Microsoft troubleshooting approach. You can not connect to the internet but it wants to connect to the internet to find out why! Then it suggest you contact your system administrator. Yeap, Microsoft just does not get it. My very computer savvy friends have over the last two years been using Apple iPads and found they work well reliably and gradually tried Apple computers and have found that their Microsoft computers wind up gathering dust. Microsoft's declining sales and profits plus share price reveals that they simply do not understand that customers want computers to do a job rather than be the job!

After much hair pulling I found my other Windows 7 laptop would connect. Again on free user forums I found a few clues and got the other laptop connected.

So when people prattle on about using commercial products I find that freeware is more reliable, better supported and just works.

Given how terrible Windows 8 is to a long term user of Windows NT/XP/7 I think I will gradually drift to Linux for my geek applications such as my map making and to Apple for bread and butter applications like Office that dominated corporate Australia.

As for computer companies, well it is a matter of forced rather than desire that drives my purchasing decisions and that means I have no loyalty so advertising that you care about me as a user is money wasted, you simply do not! If in doubt look at you own websites for support and heavens forbid even ring your own support line.

Cheers

[Strider]

Did you accidentally post your letter to Bill Gates here?

[icefest]

I came here expecting a discussion on what paid and free software people use.

I was disappointed.

[GPSGuided]

I did get one message out of the story, that no IT company (from developers to manufacturers to retailers to support) knows what they are doing. The IT sector is just incompetent!

[Ent]

The simple thing is as I become more familiar with Linux and Windows freeware the more I respect that freeware is considerably better than commercial ware. A good example is OSM.

A lot of my time and bandwidth has been absorbed just keeping systems going rather than actually using software. In fact the challenges of sorting out downloading contours say from the NASA site has been frustrated by wifi not working reliably. My mapping has been constantly frustrated by Bluetooth failures taking out my mouse.

About feedup that Adobe demands frequent updates, etc. Windows drives me mad by telling me that I have unsolved problems because I have disabled automatic updates yet these cause huge bandwidth and reliability issues. The computer industry is irresponsible and vain to think that this is acceptable.

Commercial software is increasingly becoming worst in an industry that has all the hallmarks of Detroit. It is not unexpected that Europe is leading the way for better software. Most if freeware I am using is coming from Europe.

An old laptop (ten years or greater) running one gigabyte of memory runs JOSM better than far newer and faster Windows computers.

I was planning to spend this weekend using an alternative to Basecamp but have wasted a weekend brawling with commercial software. I was hoping to report on trip planning software but instead was sorting out system issues.

The reason I have not updated Ent-World is commercial software has trashed my bandwidth. Sorry but the truth is the IT industry has serious issues but would rather bury its head in the mud and blame users.

[GPSGuided]

The simple thing is as I become more familiar with Linux and Windows freeware the more I respect that freeware is considerably better than commercial ware. A good example is OSM.

You need to define "better".