Dear Vodafone

[growler_south]

I know your mobile connect software is all part of maintaining your brand identity- it looks flash, it's nicely tabbed and has pretty icons of flashing cell towers. Well done.

Having used it for a week or two, I also now know that it's slow, annoying, auto-launches only sometimes, and doesn't play nice with other internet connections. I also know that it's just a pretty front-end for a bog standard Windows dial-up connection.

In future, I would appreciate it if there were two options during setup:

1-Install Vodafone Mobile Connect software to manage my connections
or
2-Create a dial-up connection only- I will use Windows to manage my connections.

I'm currently using Windows to manage my connection and it's completely transparent. It connects when I want internet and disconnects when I'm done- and does so within fractions of a second. No splash screens, no notification icons or message bubbles, no arbitrary usage limits, no data 'optimisation', no popup windows to interrupt my surfing.

It's a far more enjoyable experience, and my annoyance with Vodafone's software has been replaced with enjoyment of Vodafone's connection speed.

Kind regards,
Growler

Comments

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Verizon *requires* that you install their MSN-based software on a Windows PC to set up your initial DSL username/passwor/"free email" to make the data go.

But after that initial modem config, it's just so much useless marketing rubbish. So I installed it on a Virtual PC image... then blew it away after account setup. So much cleaner. PacBell did the same shit. Qwest did the same shit. They're all idiots with big marketing departments and no software-development expertise.

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

LOL that's pretty much what I did- installed it, duplicated the dial up connection it made, and removed the software again. I would have just got the settings off the net, but without a connection I didn't have that option.

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Yep, yep.

BTW, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en) is a freebie that's sometimes handy to have around for that sort of thing. Or running Linux.

Strangely enough, you can also download (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en) perfectly functional pre-populated virtual machines for testing old versions of Internet Exploiter. Weird, eh?

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

Ahh, geek love...!