4 ms·

There were a lot of people telling others to use AdBlock Plus for a long time, and once a bit of advice like that gets lodged in the public consciousness, it's

There were a lot of people telling others to use AdBlock Plus for a long time, and once a bit of advice like that gets lodged in the public consciousness, it's next to impossible to extract it. I still run into Windows users who still think they need to install WinZip to open ZIP files, for instance, even though Windows has come with ZIP handling built in to its file explorer ever since Windows XP. This is why brands have immense value.

behringer 8y ago
Also antivirus is the same way. Windows AV is perfectly acceptable for many normal use cases, but people still think they need free AV alternatives like AVG.
- wingworks 8y ago
  Or horrible (in my opinion) paid solutions like McAfee...
  - magduf 8y ago
    >Or horrible (in my opinion) paid solutions like McAfee... It's not just your opinion. Mr. John McAfee himself, the guy who started the company and whose name it still bears, has publicly stated that McAfee software is "the worst software on the planet"! If that isn't enough for people to avoid a brand name, then I don't know what is. But apparently, countless businesses are so clueless they keep using McAfee software even though its own founder says it's trash.
GrinningFool 8y ago
> Windows has come with ZIP handling built in to its file explorer ever since Windows XP. Although it's been molasses-slow in comparison to 3rd party tools since that time as well.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  True, but it's Good Enough for most people, who only deal with ZIP files infrequently and generally only ever encounter relatively small ones. When I talk to these folks and probe why they think they need WinZip, they never say "oh, I was trying to uncompress a 7GB file the other day in Explorer and it took forever." They say "I'm on Windows, and this is a Zip, therefore I need WinZip." They're usually genuinely surprised to find out that this is something Windows can do all by itself.
- angott 8y ago
  Does anybody know why this happens? I don't think MSFT would really have issues finding some software engineers to fix this.
  - jraph 8y ago
    I guess this is the reason: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180515-00/?p=98755 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180515-00/?p=98... > Since its release in Windows XP, Zip folders has not been actively developed. The reason is the usual: Because adding features requires engineering resources, and engineering resources are limited. Furthermore, since the compression and decompression code weren’t written by anybody from Microsoft, there is no expertise in the code base, which means that debugging and making changes is a very difficult undertaking.
    - code_duck 8y ago
      “Because adding features requires engineering resources, and engineering resources are limited.“ seems to translate to ‘because we really don’t care’. It’s not as if Microsoft is strapped for cash.
      - metildaa 8y ago
        At least they haven't purged it, if this were Google then there would be no ZIP support in newer OS versions. They even killed ChromeOS ans Chorme updates for a bunch of 3 to 4 year old Chromebooks recently, despite the hardware being fine to run newer ChromeOS.

behringer 8y ago

Also antivirus is the same way. Windows AV is perfectly acceptable for many normal use cases, but people still think they need free AV alternatives like AVG.

wingworks 8y ago
Or horrible (in my opinion) paid solutions like McAfee...
- magduf 8y ago
  >Or horrible (in my opinion) paid solutions like McAfee... It's not just your opinion. Mr. John McAfee himself, the guy who started the company and whose name it still bears, has publicly stated that McAfee software is "the worst software on the planet"! If that isn't enough for people to avoid a brand name, then I don't know what is. But apparently, countless businesses are so clueless they keep using McAfee software even though its own founder says it's trash.

GrinningFool 8y ago

> Windows has come with ZIP handling built in to its file explorer ever since Windows XP. Although it's been molasses-slow in comparison to 3rd party tools since that time as well.

smacktoward 8y ago
True, but it's Good Enough for most people, who only deal with ZIP files infrequently and generally only ever encounter relatively small ones. When I talk to these folks and probe why they think they need WinZip, they never say "oh, I was trying to uncompress a 7GB file the other day in Explorer and it took forever." They say "I'm on Windows, and this is a Zip, therefore I need WinZip." They're usually genuinely surprised to find out that this is something Windows can do all by itself.
angott 8y ago
Does anybody know why this happens? I don't think MSFT would really have issues finding some software engineers to fix this.
- jraph 8y ago
  I guess this is the reason: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180515-00/?p=98755 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180515-00/?p=98... > Since its release in Windows XP, Zip folders has not been actively developed. The reason is the usual: Because adding features requires engineering resources, and engineering resources are limited. Furthermore, since the compression and decompression code weren’t written by anybody from Microsoft, there is no expertise in the code base, which means that debugging and making changes is a very difficult undertaking.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    “Because adding features requires engineering resources, and engineering resources are limited.“ seems to translate to ‘because we really don’t care’. It’s not as if Microsoft is strapped for cash.
    - metildaa 8y ago
      At least they haven't purged it, if this were Google then there would be no ZIP support in newer OS versions. They even killed ChromeOS ans Chorme updates for a bunch of 3 to 4 year old Chromebooks recently, despite the hardware being fine to run newer ChromeOS.