Just give me the results!

So is anybody else fed up with those sites who throw links to their sponsors all over the place? Or how about those sites that bring you to a special page that says “Get these great deals!” right in the middle of your browsing? I don’t want to sign up for your spam lists! I don’t want to commit my soul to a credit card company! I just want to keep browsing.

The Hotmail Rant

Several sites feature this annoying method of advertising their sponsors. Of them, I find that Hotmail is the most annoying. Does Microsoft not have enough money as is? They need to seriously cut this out of their system. Since I am being so vague, I will go ahead and point right at the offending content.

One of the first things they ask you to do when you sign up for a Hotmail account is choose your package. They want you to pay for certain features that should come with all e-mail accounts! Lets take a look at the list of features that the basic free list is lacking.

• Outlook Express (or other e-mail client) access. Comes free with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail.
• No expiration. Yes, Hotmail will delete your account if you don’t access it often. Gmail doesn’t do this.
• More than 1GB of storage. Microsoft is really getting their ass kicked by Gmail in this race.
• Conversation grouping. Actually, I think Gmail is the only one that offers this, but everyone should have it.

So you get it, Microsoft can’t provide basic features. The next loop you have to jump through is their stupid parental controls. I accidentally set my age to under 18. Hell followed. Even closing my browser and clearing my cache/cookies/sessions and everything couldn’t save me from the screen. I need parental permission. I am an adult, but I need permission from my parents in order to use Hotmail.

Yes, they want you to give them your credit card number. Maybe it is just me, but I don’t trust Microsoft with my credit card number. When they have so many paid services (such as those above) and such a long and extensive terms of use, how do I know that those greedy pigs didn’t slip something in about requiring purchase of a service whenever you hand over your credit card number? They have done other criminal acts before, such as creating Windows.

Finally, on to the biggest and worst part about signing up for Hotmail. The services that you can get (and probably would be charged for…)

Talk about long, eh? Somethings were meant to be, this isn’t one of them. It is unnatural to have this many subscriptions! Your junk mail box would be like trying to use a bucket to try and stop the floodwaters.

I love Microsoft as much as McDonald’s.

Pages: 1 2