1. Family member has 720p webcam
  2. Family member buys shiny new 1080p webcam
  3. Family member plugs in shiny new webcam and gives me a videocall to test it
  4. New camera works flawlessly. I get to keep the old 720p cam. Yippee!!

…BUT THEN

  1. Family member goes to the website listed on camera’s packaging and clicks the big blue download button
  2. download button installs custom usb driver and companion app
  3. companion app has twenty quadrillion toggles and dials spread across fifty billion tabs and sub menus. Family member spends all evening twiddling with it.
  4. No matter what, the image looks like crap. Too bright, but not enough contrast. Worse than it did originally.
  5. next day family member asks for his old 720p webcam back, I get to keep the 1080p webcam

I’m happy with my new webcam so I’m not complaining, but why do people do this?? Why do manufacturers make these shitty custom driver? The whole point of USB is to be plug-and-play without any custom software.

  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 hours ago

    And I hate how windows did everything it could to enable that shit, too. Like I’ve had devices (specifically wireless headphones and mice) that worked fine when plugged in, and then suddenly some installer pops up by the company that made the device because windows is all too happy to automatically run shit when you plug a device in. I hope there’s at least some kind of authentication back end where it recognizes a device ID and grabs the installer like that, but I suspect that it just uses a standardized way to grab an url and just runs whatever is on the other side of that.

    Should have switched autorun anything to default off after the Sony rootkits over twenty fucking years ago. It should have never even been a thing in the first place, since viruses on floppies existed before CDs (where autorun first showed up) even existed.