u3 is a hassle

i got a free mini usb drive it was almost more hassle that it was worth.  it had that u3 junk already installed on it.  that stuff should be optional.  i move between a variety of systems and that junky software just gets in the way.  on any given day i will be between my mac,  my xp machine, vista machine, linux server, or vmware server.  i can never tell when i am going to be using day to day, but i can tell you that u3 does not work natively on most of my operating systems.  on the mac you have to load a little utility and on vista you have to flash the software so it will work… and  on linux or vmware esx you can forget it.  so i had to update it to the newest version of the suck software so that i could use their tool to take the software off the drive completely.  it almost makes a free drive too much hassle.  anyway if anyone else happens to run across it i found the software here that has all of the updates and utilities to remove u3 from your drive.  However, if you are a windows only user and want to have portable apps on your jump drive that actually work and function correctly there is a free utility that whips u3 any day.  it is called portable apps and can be found at http://portableapps.com/.  it is open-source and runs on any kind of removable drive and is not tied to a vendor like u3.  you can’t just load u3 on anything you like and use it like portable apps it only works on certain hardware.  you can run many popular browsers and productivity suites (open office, abiword, etc…) on portable apps.  i learned about it at a vmware conference i went to and i have used it on my windows machines here and there when it was useful.  anyway i am going to climb down from my i despise u3 soapbox and head to bed.