About six months ago I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Go 160 GB USB External Hard Drive from the evil empire™. As far as hard drives go, well, it’s big and it stores data. So in that regard it performs perfectly. It also has a soothing amber glow that pulses while it’s spinning, which is very nice. The problem with this thing is the software. It’s two sacks of rotten apples bad. And, based on the 1994-esque, we-hate-our-visitors Seagate website, it’s not going to get any better.
I’ve been returning to the site every few weeks, hoping that they’ll release some sort of upgrade or patch, but no. The software that’s bundled with the drive is the FreeAgent Launcher. Like almost all new software, it lives in the systray. To kill it, you have to right-click on it, choose exit, and then confirm when it asks, “Are you sure you want to exit?” (This annoys the hell out of me. If you insist on treating me like I might be slightly retarded — Why would I click “exit” if I wasn’t sure? — then at least give me an option to not have to confirm next time.) In a fit of desperation I installed the software for one of Seagate’s other drives. The other software is Drive Manager or something like that. It also lives in the system tray. Get this, though: To kill that one, you have to left-click and do the “Are you sure?” dance. Why would Seagate make one work via right-click and the other work via left-click?!
[click to continue...]
