Opinions on peripheral driver programs

[mrskeltal]

Some people I know absolutely despise or love driver programs for their mice/headsets/etc. (Things like steelseries engine, razer synapse). What do you think about them?

[minibois]

They are usually pieces of software you will use once every year. You will use them:

Day 1. to set the RGB color and the macros

Week 2. to adjust the settings you made last week

End of year 1. to tweak the lighting, because you got tired of it

Some more times maybe to tweak some stuff

 

This is why (IMO) all peripherals should have built-in memory so you don't have to do all that stuff. My Coolermaster keyboard can be tweaked from the keyboard itself, it will remember all settings (lighting and macro settings) and you don't have to install the software.

if you can just set the macro buttons to something complicated (e.g. a combo of Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F-key) you can use a proper macro program like AutoHotKey to deal with that.

 

Long story short, the programs are usually quite useless (so it's annoying to have it open on startup, introduce vulnerabilities, etc.), but sadly a necessary evil.

[Corrupt_Liberty]

Some of them are almost as useful as that F^%$@$ purple F^%$#@ APE IN YOUR PROFILE!!

 

They usually aren't that useful and waste system resources.

[Founders]

It largely depends on the OEM. Some take a more minimalist approach and give you what you need and nothing that you don't, that's fine. It's the ones that hide basic everyday features behind tab after tab of useless crap that's not OK and pisses everyone off. 

[kirashi]

40 minutes ago, mrskeltal said:

Some people I know absolutely despise or love driver programs for their mice/headsets/etc. (Things like steelseries engine, razer synapse). What do you think about them?

I don't mind the programs themselves; what I do mind is having to run a separate program for every brand of device I have. I'd love to own a Steelseries headset, and upgrade to a Corsair keyboard alongside my Logitech mouse, but pigs will have to fly before I bog down my system running 3 different programs for each of these.

[mrskeltal]

4 hours ago, Corrupt_Liberty said:

Some of them are almost as useful as that F^%$@$ purple F^%$#@ APE IN YOUR PROFILE!!

 

They usually aren't that useful and waste system resources.

Bonzi is basically just the missing link between clippy and cortana

[Corrupt_Liberty]

16 minutes ago, mrskeltal said:

Bonzi is basically just the missing link between clippy and cortana

I actually spent a day in 2000 playing with Bonzi Buddy.  I heard it was impossible to uninstall.  Luckily I was running Windows ME at the time and had to recover my system every Tuesday and twice on Fridays.