U3 Technology

I just bought a new jumpdrive, but it had the U3 launchpad installed on it. I was going to uninstall it, but I thought I'd see what the general concensus was. Yeh or Neh? And maybe why if you be kind enough.

U3 bogs down older computers, dosent work on pre-win2k machines, and makes certain computers crash. However, if the computers you use it on dont crash when you pit your disk in, its a very useful program. mainly because you can store a whole browser and mail client on it, complete with stored bookmarks, settings, and mail options. in addition, you can install programs on your thumbdrive that make your lab computer look like your home computer, even down to recalling desktop folders and files. (see Migo). i liked it enough to not delete it, but ymmv.

>>2
You can almost always find the same programs that work as U3 programs in standalone versions.  For example, there is a U3 version of Firefox, but the standalone portable version works just fine.  (Almost all free programs that are converted for U3 are also available this way.)

I consider U3 very annoying, because it wants to unmount the drive its own fucking way, it uses its own launcher menus, etc.  It's as pointless as Iomega's old Active Disk bullshit - they are just attempts to create sub-platforms so that they can receive licensing fees from anybody who wants to sell a something with the logo on it.

If you can live without having such technology on your removable hard drives, DVD+-RWs, CD-RWs, Zip disks, floppies, etc., then you can live without having it on your USB thumbdrives.