War is not healthy for fancy chickens and other living things.
Sponsored by
L337.com
Using Extractor URL is like opening your CD drive tray only to find it packed full of rotting guinea pig meat. The experience begins innocently enough, and you go into it with an open mind. You can excuse the System 7-style icon — which, by the way, contains the much-overused blue globe — after all. Even when you notice the depressed-dog “droopy.tiff” image in the folder, still you press on, certain that it is not all plague and gulag.
Alas, it is. Upon launching the application, we were presented with a delightfully worded (“If you buy this soft, you will be able…”) registration reminder, which conveniently neglects to provide instructions on purchasing. A Help button peeks out from the bottom of the window, presumably inviting us to join it in the nether-world that lurks in the hidden spaces of the interface.
Why the developers of this oozy-cheese pile of crap thought it would be a good idea to make the window background a light pink, we will never know. Adding to the confusion, there are two narrow blue-bordered boxes running along the left and right edges of the screen. Perhaps their function is to focus your psychic energy within the window, which is really the only thing that could help in understanding this truly terrible interface.
The incomprehensible mingle-mangle of serif-font buttons will push almost anyone over the edge, causing them to become a twitching introvert, unable to ever look a new piece of software in the eye again. Luckily, we here at PvT have much experience with this sort of thing, but still, this brings an unhealthy pallor to our normally rosy cheeks.
By skimming the read-me, we were able to determine that we must open a XML or HTML file to begin. The file contents appeared in a table, with alternating white and pink rows. The sadistic tendencies of this developer should be clear by now. After doing so, a large “EXTRACT” button suddenly appeared, with an utterly confusing border surrounding it and a new popup button. The border actually appeared to be composed of colored lines and, get this, disabled radio buttons. If I had a dog this ugly, I’d shave his butt and make him walk backwards.
Braving more potential bludgeoning of our sensibilities, we selected “http” from the popup button and pressed “EXTRACT.” An excruciating “crr-ick” sound played. The world stopped. A dialog appeared. “Preferences do not exist yet or are probably damaged.” It went on: “please save your preferences in next window at least once.” Stunningly, it now opened the preferences for the whole application. Which might have been useful if almost every control except the checkbox labeled “ALWAYS WARN ME” wasn’t disabled.
After clicking our way through the preferences in a near panic, a new window opened, identical to the one that opened when we started this (as the French say) tour de douleur. No results of any sort in sight, even though the file we opened clearly contained several http URLs.
Before dumping this pile of refuse for good, we must mention a few other odds and ends we encountered:
Droopit, for constructing one of the worst applications since TeachText 1.0 first reared its ugly head, we award you a dull, grease-stained and scratched 11.0 for your very own. This application was obviously carefully crafted by a single monkey with a head cold and broken wrists.
Posted by jan at March 21, 2003 03:23 PM | TrackBackThat about box has left me scarred. Why? Why did they do that? And why won't it open up a web page even, if that is supposed to be what it does?
Posted by: ginkgo on March 22, 2003 11:24 AMExtactor URL is the worst application I have ever seen, including Windows or X11 apps.
The icing on this bowl of dog food is the website: http://perso.club-internet.fr/stehub/
If you thought the application was bad, just wait until you see the homepage. I'm proud to be visitor #79 to this marvelous work. Apparently, there is no end to this gentleman's UI incompetence.
Posted by: john on March 22, 2003 01:09 PMFor added amusement, you can edit the droopy.tiff image, which changes it the aout box. I gave him a French-style moustache and beret. I suppose you could replace it with porn too.
Posted by: mrCharlie on March 22, 2003 01:12 PMOh my God. The website has an embedded .wav file that plays when you load the page. I haven't seen that since 1997. No, seriously. Not since 1997. I'm going to go drink a container of Draino.
Posted by: fuddes on March 22, 2003 02:16 PMApparently this application is "approved by" Versiontracker. Do they do that? Cool!
Posted by: Tony Blur on March 22, 2003 02:25 PMHas anyone ever used Realbasic? Because you know what this program is? It's the test program they have you create in Realbasic's instruction manual. No joke. This is exactly what they have you make.
Posted by: fuddes on March 22, 2003 03:14 PMA RealBARGAIN at only $52 too!
Posted by: Tony Blur on March 22, 2003 03:42 PM"like opening your CD drive tray only to find it packed full of rotting guinea pig meat."
That line belongs in Bartletts.
Posted by: John Schilling on March 22, 2003 07:05 PMOh please, stop this, I'm dying. I can't stop laughing since I opened this app. This is true art.
For those who understand french, alert messages are excellent!
But why is the "how to register" the only file in english and only in english???
Ho, I just read that we should find "Salter, Baskerville et Baskerville Semibold" fonts and put it in our system before launching Extracteur... Why why why????
This app is really perfect!
Posted by: on March 22, 2003 09:00 PMjohn, you're visitor #79? odd, I was #54. Either he's counting backwards, or even his web counter sucks.
What a dung heap.
Holy Christ!!! I call on Torquemada and the Inquisition to deal with this agony! If any app called for the auto-de-fe its this one.
Posted by: Hodag on March 23, 2003 09:43 AMThis is without question the worst application I have ever attempted to use. The fact that he's selling a realbasic tutorial project for $52 make it all the better.
Posted by: Gordon Byrnes on March 23, 2003 03:51 PMWhen WILL the madness stop? Just droop it.
Posted by: Dustin on March 23, 2003 05:57 PMLike Jem and the Holograms, this app is truly outrageous. I don't usually download these but I had to see the About box and it is everything I dreamed it would be. Better yet, when I tried to quit the app, it made me click though about 4 dialog boxes, finally ending with an "unexpected quit" error message. Well done, mes amis.
Posted by: Scott on March 23, 2003 10:53 PMActually it seems to work much better in OS 9. Which is to say, it still doesn't work, but at least the preferences window options are no longer disabled.
Posted by: webb on March 24, 2003 11:51 AMVive la France!
Posted by: frog on March 24, 2003 09:13 PMThis is funny - i removed the droopy.tiff file from the folder and then opened the about box. it needs to have the image in the folder with the program or the program will crash.
if you are considering boycotting the french and live in the usa, here's a start. :-)
Posted by: on March 24, 2003 10:41 PMInteresting. I have to say, not all europeans are like that. Some of us are not mutants from a galaxy far, far away. Actually, I want to think that all this Droop It business is just a performance, some sick form of modern art. It must be that.
Posted by: rafa on March 25, 2003 04:59 PMIt's sort of charming, in a 'watch the tard at a special olympics fall down, have a seizure and wet his pants' kind of way.
Not that there's anything wrong about pants.
Posted by: shawk on March 25, 2003 08:12 PMThe About box is unavailable if there isn't a window open (as if there weren't enough already wrong with this...)
Posted by: neilw on March 26, 2003 03:32 AMAnother nifty feature! I loaded it up, played with the about box, opened the preferences (receiving many errors in the process) and then I noticed that something I had done had caused its icon to start hopping in the dock. It just kept hopping and hopping for no reason that I could see. It finally stopped when I clicked on another application and came back to it. At this point, I closed the preferences window (no cancel button?) and the background turned completely black on the main window. The application has now been deleted.
Posted by: SuperMatt on March 28, 2003 09:21 AMMake sure you also check out the Droopit utilities advertised on the author's home page, which he claims will "enhance your desk solving partially the delicate problem of storage." I've always wanted to enhance my desk, but the problem of storage is so delicate, I wasn't sure how to approach it. Luckily, Droopit utilities will solve this problem for me, albeit partially.
Posted by: chris on April 4, 2003 12:31 PMLooks to work fine to me
Posted by: on May 17, 2003 06:11 AMApparently useless site: Amerikaka (boudin)
Boycott all wars !!
Michael Moore for president
Monica lewinski for vice-president !!
Woody Allen as ministry of culture !!!
You sent latinos to fight Saddam in Iraq promisnig them the american citizenship if they are back even dead ?
(Real !!) Americans are cowards and have no balls: what a lesson for hypocrisy and cynismus
You americans are so stupid: do you want to boycott the Chateau-margot bercause your president said so ? drink coca-cola in your burgercracy and don't send your movies to Europe (except M. Moore)
Posted by: Amerixcons on May 18, 2003 06:27 PMAmercanns, boycott Bush: he is the first president of USA who has been elected by a MINORITY of Americans due to the friends of his daddy in the Congress: unique in history of the STates !
Please don't gave lessons of democracy to other country in Europe: thanks to Coca-Cola !
you don't even read these comments ... you are so stupid
Posted by: Ducon on June 3, 2003 05:41 AMOn the contrary, we read and ridicule every comment very closely. Especially when they aren't complementary to us, Monsieur Developer.
Posted by: Jan on June 3, 2003 09:56 AMVive la France! Vive la Droopinoiss!!
Posted by: Le Visiteur #558 on July 30, 2003 08:27 PM