Worst Websites in the World

I came across an interesting article which listed the 25 worst websites. Unfortunately, I have used a few of them and I was also familiar with several others. You can check out the list here.

The ones that I have used include hotmail and Windows update. Hotmail made the list because of the inordinate amount of spam that it generated. I gave up on hotmail as I would generally receive hundreds of spam messages a day. Life is too short to search for a valid email buried amongst hundreds of junk messages.

Windows update made the list because it is a cryptic and difficult site to use. Oh, and you can only use Internet Explorer for this site. Because that is the only browser used on the web.

BonziBuddy was downloaded on one of my kid’s machines. What a nuisance. Adware, hijacked homepages as well as stealth tracking of surfing. Reinstalling Windows was the action I took to purge the machine.

The one that I remember most was CD Universe. From the article:

In December 1999 a Russian hacker named Maxim broke into the music retailer’s site, stole 350,000 credit card numbers, and then demanded $100,000 in ransom. When CD Universe refused to pay, Maxim posted 25,000 of the numbers to a website. At the time, CD Universe was owned by eUniverse, which combined its site and its customer database on an unprotected server. “Basically, they put the candy jar in plain sight and left the cover off,” says current CD Universe owner Chuck Beilman. “It was only a matter of time until someone stole the candy.” CD Universe’s customer database is now separate from the website, encrypted and protected by a firewall.