One Thing Google Sucks At
Figured I’d blow your mind today and talk trash against my true love, my darling Google. Total 180 on my part but I’m trying to build my street cred with all these Microsoft clowns surrounding me here.
All right so whenever I need a Windows driver for something that Windows can’t figure out for me I desperately turn to Google, bang in something like “creative sb x-fi driver xp 64” and instead of aiming me in a good direction I end up on these bait and switch driver download sites that make you take stupid surveys or download their own driver detector crap. Man I hate those. Hate. Well wait, that search brings up the right thing, bad example, but I’m sure many of you know what I’m talking about with this Google driver hunting hell.
These sites make a bunch of fake driver download pages for everything with circuits that’s ever been sold to get you on their site just to try to coerce you to install some shady software to solve all your problems. And I’m not talking about sponsored links, they’re top search returns. Given that no one’s paying them to give me a migraine, am I reaching for the stars to expect their fancy top secret ranking algorithms to figure out which sites have the actual drivers and which sites are garbage, and to sort accordingly? I’ve been living without sound for two weeks damnit. Gave up and plugged my speakers into my Nexus One.
On the other hand, the only reason I’ve needed these drivers in the first place is because Microsoft sucks.
Doug Simmons
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About The Author
Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
As I pointed out with that one, as I was writing the article I did find the driver finally but I’ve been staring at this for the past hour. But that’s not the point.
…and creative’s website doesn’t have the drivers listed there?
got it
Haven’t you figured out the Microsoft system yet? Buy something that sucks from them (hard to miss), get a bunch of viruses because of all the exploits they bundled with the software, then you get to buy their antivirus software. And in your case, buy XP Pro, run into your driver hell, now you get to buy their newer operating system that everyone’s saying doesn’t suck quite as much, problem solved.
Alternatively, get a Mac and never look back, reallocating that MS antivirus and Windows 7 money for a share or two of Apple.
First, yes Google sucks at finding drivers, but that’s not what Google does. They find words in text blocks. You’re expecting too much. They’re not your personal driver assistant. Get Windows 7 and it will get drivers for you. Did you not save your restore discs for your PC? That’s not a good idea. If you built it, then it came with a driver disc. So if Microsoft sucks at building operating systems then you suck just as much at keeping up with important data. If you want to only have one option for sound, graphics, processors, a limited set of software that can even run on your computer, and an intelligence quotient indicative of doorknob humping behavior then buy the mac.
And microsoft doesn’t sell anti-virus they give it away. Luckily I never have to worry about drivers cause I’ve got a bank of over 8 gigs of drivers for sound, graphics, network cards, etc. Working in electronics has its advantages.
If you think about it, none of the search engines are very efficient.
If you do a search for video drivers on Bing, you will get 99,000,000 results.
If you do a search for creative video drivers you still get 22,000,000 results.
Not very efficient in my opinion, it’s amazing that we are able to find anything useful at all, it doesn’t matter what search engine you use.
Hmm, let’s see here. Write an OS that has to take into account 1 million or so possible combinations of hardware and make it work well. Or write an OS that has to account for 15 or so combinations of hardware – oh yeah – all made by the OS vendor.
Then let bundle a browser on that 1 million OS and get your ass sued or bundle your browser on the 15 or so OS and get a free pass.
Hmm, why does Apple not suck yet? Let me count the ways.
Why does everyone bash Microsoft if you do not like them do not use their product since this site is mainly microsoft products on here.
Google is not any better they promise the world and give u a rock.
I trust MS far more than I trust anyone at google.
hahaha “they promise the world and give u a rock.”
that’s great!! (even though the world is also technically a rock)
Instead of searching the whole web on google, narrow down your results to “discussions”. I find that I can usually find what I am looking for on discussion boards quicker, plus it filters out all those “fake driver sites”
I agree with Matt. Get Windows 7. I’ve never had to hunt for a driver since I upgraded. Love it.
As for Google and hunting for drivers, I agree.. it’s a PITA, but why even bother.. you know what the hardware is. Hitup the OEM website and get the drivers. Not on the site? Call ’em.
WTF is going on here? i’m gone for 2 seconds and you guys are microsoft bashing behind my back?!?!?!
1. Run windows update, it will pull the drivers for you!
2. If those drivers are not available on windows update, it points to creative’s notorious behavior habits when it comes to following Microsoft’s driver subscription model. Microsoft went through hell and high water to make sure as much drivers as possible are available to you when you need them.
3. Drivers on windows update only works IF THE OEM SUBMITS THEM!!!!! So lets no point fingers at Microsoft here, lets point at creative’s poor business ethics. By the way, this driver hunt for anything creative and the last of drivers on windows update have been going on for ever. which is why i refuse to buy creative product. point blank.
4. Anyone with a brain must surely know by now, Microsoft does not make hardware. So why you hardware craps out, or you feel the need to reload your pc and can’t find drivers….lets understand how the whole thing works before we point fingers at Microsoft.
5. OEM makes the hardware, and they make the software. They’re given the tools to make it all happen by Microsoft, if you’re seeing blue screens and crappy performance, then perhaps you should take the fight to the piss poor development teams of what ever OEM is taking a shit on your day.
6. Get a bunch of viruses from software bundled? Exactly what is that supposed to mean? Are you saying you got a virus while stealing movies and music? Hmmm, interesting. You dont go down a dark alley to purchase your brand new justin beaver cd…do you? No…you go to virgin mega store. So why is it okay to do it on the internet? And then complain when the bag guy sticks his penis in your back pocket? right….
7. Switch to a mac? and then what? use a program called “numbers” to carry out my personal and professional lifestyle. No thank you! Fuck apple. And fuck google too!
cheers 🙂
Sounds more like it’s the hardware maker’s fault, not Microsoft. MS provides the software and as many drivers as they can but realistically, dvd drives, sound cards, bluetooth, etc are produced at a staggering rate. No way they can capture all of them (or devices that are several years old with each new iteration of Windows).
Screw Mac, Screw Linux, and Screw Google. I blame the software and hardware manufacturers for the driver issues. Surely not any of the OS vendors. In my opinion… (After 14 years in the business for all you school boys bashing microsoft) Microsoft does the best job of getting the drivers that you need. I blame the vendors of the hardware and software you are using… and maybe the opensource junkies that don’t sign their drivers and do a half ass job of building things in the first place…
Buy yourself a Mac and keep it for a year… then wait until you have to go out and buy a hundred bucks worth of PC tools to clean it up once it freezes and won’t boot.
Good day,
@who dis?!:
Get a Mac and watch yourself go broke on it… spending a shitload of money for the same hardware and and OS that doesn’t take you very far in the business world is not too smart in my opinion. Especially when people are loading XP or Win7 on the thing just so they can work. It’s amazing to me that someone would go spend 1700-2500.00 bucks on the same hardware you get in an hp or dell or lenovo…..and then load xp or win7 on the thing… Somebody’s got to be smoking crack.
Just about every Mac I’ve been around crashes beyond the beginner to average users ability to fix in OS X. Have a nephew that I warned of this and sure enough… less than a year later he spent 200.00 getting it fixed.
Get a mac and an open line of credit at the bank….(If you can still get one of those) Also, they are the best place in the world to store the viruses that hack other OS’s