Upgrades To Avoid
This is my record of software "upgrades"* I've found that cause one or more of the following problems:
- Regressions. Either new bugs (especially critical bugs), broken features, or outright removal of features
- Extortionware. A specific type of regression that deserves to be called out due to greater demonstration of ill-intent. Upgrades to products that are either free or already purchased, that remove/disable features and suggest paying for a non-free or paid update.
- Breaking other software. Typically only operating system updates cause this problem, but some application updates have been known to break other applications.
I'm documenting these badly tested and or designed versions of software so that other folks can avoid them and the problems they bring.
*The term "upgrades" is placed in quotes (think air quotes) to indicate versions of software claiming (or claimed by their vendor) to be upgrades but which are in practice actually downgrades.
See related BugReports and FeatureRequests.
Regressions
Buggy upgrades
One or more critical bugs have been introduced in the following "upgrades" making the product unusable or at least breaking major functionality and should therefore be avoided for any mission-critical / daily-use systems. In alphabetical order by vendor:
Apple Mac OSX 10.5.7
Stick with the immediate previous version 10.5.6, as 10.5.7 has caused numerous users complete or nearly complete loss of functionality of their Apple Macintoshes (MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, etc.). See Jeffrey Zeldman's "OS X 10.5.7 update: unsafe at any speed" for details.
Flickr Uploadr v3.0 Beta 2
Stick with Flickr Uploadr v2.3.1 and see BugReports on Flickr Uploadr v3 beta 2 for a list of bug / performance regressions (need to re-evaluate with Flickr Uploadr v3 final).
Feature removals
These "upgrades" have removed features which worked just fine in previous versions. If you like the features mentioned, you should avoid the respective "upgrades".
Stick with NetNewsWire 3.1.6 (I run 3.1.1) and DO NOT upgrade to 3.1.7 because you will lose:
PBWiki 2.0
Stick with PBWiki 1.x and DO NOT upgrade your pbwiki to 2.0 because you will LOSE two *key* (no pun intended) features:
- global password/invite key. 2.0 forces everyone to login with their own email/pw, and thus it makes it harder to give out a pw to a group of people, you have to whitelist each email one at a time - very annoying and time wasting
- editing accelerator keys. ctrl-E to Edit, S to Save, P to Preview, C to Cancel edit - all very handy for making wiki editing that much more seamless. and yet, removed from 2.0.
- worse HTML support. Some folks have reported that HTML class names are removed sometimes when users use the WYSIWYG editor on a page. Need definite confirmation/repro case on this.
- others' disappointments and criticisms:
Extortionware
Apple products
Apple iMovie 5.0.2 (111)
- 2008-03-29 as twittered: REGRESSION: iMovie HD 5.0.2 (111) "Share..." menu item is broken / does nothing. "Check for update" says to buy iLife '08.
- It's really unethical to *break* a product with a free update (without providing any way to revert to the previous version of the product), and then make the next update for-pay. Extortion is not too harsh a word for this behavior.
Others
Whatsize.app
- 2008-06-03 as twittered by @escapist: Whatsize.app just updated itself and is no longer free. Now I have a crippled, unusable version. Seriously. Dick move.
See Also
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