Reading pending feeds I came across this post from Coding Horror about how software spoils (grows bigger with each new version, often adding unnecessary features), and I can't agree more with it.
My first example is Windows, which in each version adds more and more features that in my oppinion should be at least deactivable before installing the OS, and that sometimes cannot be deactivated without hacks or tweaks.
But as I don't want to flame about Windows good or bad "blunded software", I'll just simply recommend you to read that post and leave my point of view.
I, as Jeff, still use (and love) WinAmp 2.95, have switched from my old ACDSee 5.0 to Windows Image Gallery (I still miss some basic actions as "convert" but I can't live without them), stopped using Photoshop 7.0 in exchange of Paint.NET, and I would love if there were a Windows Live MEssenger Lite version, without all crap for youngsters of winks, nudges, painting, flash-backgrounds and other "features" that only serve to annoy you when you just want to communicate with others (for playing we have the Activity window games).
I hate having to maintain a list of "tweaking guides and applications" to tune-up my Windows, my Messenger, my PDA, my browsers... Life would be much easier if applications were more customizable and less oriented to force you using them exactly as their creators wanted.
Mozilla browser dissapeared in favor of Firefox (and I switched from the former to the later) because it was growing as big as the japanese monster. Around the net you can find "Lite" versions of Photoshop because the "original" application has too many unused stuff. Foxit Reader is catching tons of users because Adobe PDF Reader gets bigger and bigger with lots of features that almost nobody uses. I prefer ImgBurn to Nero, for which I have an unused v8 license that came with the pc, to avoid having to get rid of all Nero Scout and other crap it installs... The list is endless.
I now look at the past and smile remembering when I had my gaming PC running a fully-tunned Windows XP which ate just 200MB and had 19 running proccesses and took less than 1 GB of disk space installed, when I had a fully working Photoshop 7.0 in 180MB, and when Nero was the number one small yet fast burning software...