For the love of god…all I want is the driver!

//Warning rant ahead//
So I downloaded the new version of MSN Messenger. It’s really cool, and has some neat features. I noticed that they were supposed to improve the webcam support and experience. I thought, cool..let me try that with some friends. So I wandered off to my equipment closet and pulled out my Logitech webcam. I plugged it in, and of course it wanted the drivers. Since I rebuilt this machine a few months ago, I knew I had none of the drivers..so off I go to download the drivers. Off I go to Logitech.com. I figured, webcam drivers are about say 500k to a meg..tops. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the download is 33 megabytes. 33 MEGABYTES! HOLY COW. Of course, I can’t JUST get the driver..no. I have to download the whole damn thing. Look Logitech, listen to me: I don’t want you to install any crap on my taskbar. I don’t want any fancy control panel thingy…all I want to do is make my Logitech camera work with my MSN Messenger. That’s it. Period.
While I don’t know a lot about programming, there is NO way that you can convince me that a simple audio/video driver needs to weigh in at 33 Megabytes. Logitech claims ?oThis is a full version, but does not contain any third party applications to minimize download size.? Minimize download size? 33Mb is a small download? Here’s the best part?33Mb is the compressed size. If I want to use this software (I won’t call it a driver since there is clearly more baked into the install then just a driver) it actually takes 69.19 Megabytes of disk space!! 69.19???!! What the hell is in this thing? I don’t think the Windows 95 operating system was 69.19 Mb on install!

This is absolutory ridiculous. While I can see that some of this additional software may be needed for newbies?give me the option to download JUST the driver. These bloated ?~driver’ downloads are out of control. I am really steamed that hardware companies continue to take the meaning of drivers to mean the need to a install start up app, task tray app, control panel app and what ever else they decide. We need to fight back.

I am sure you are wondering??so..did he install it?? The answer is no. I did not. I cancelled out and unplugged the camera. I am going to do some research and buy a camera that either 1) has plug and play drivers (I think the older Logitech cameras do) or 2) Has a nice small and tidy driver that just does the job without a mammoth memory/disk space footprint.

Of course I had to go check the Mac OS X driver. How big was it? only 1.9Mb. Now that’s a driver size I can deal with.