Dissapointed with the new Viewer 3.2

I haven't been hanging out in SL as much as I did a couple of years ago - work study and other hobbies didn't leave me much time, but I'm hoping to get back in a bit more now. So I thought I'd use the new viewer. It's brought me nothing but frustration...



The crashes are pretty much constant - crash trying to log in, crash trying to change a setting, crash, crash crash!! I've never experienced that in SL before.

The new Search function to me is awful.  With my old 1.23 viewer I could happily see lists of place and events to visit from the various categories in 'Events' or 'Popular places' -it was just a couple of clicks, then I could readily choose where to go and what to see. But have you seen the new Search! You can't do the same thing and I'm pretty sure that many events will not be discovered by people because they've change Search to what it is. That annoys me, because part of what make SL such fascinating, enjoyable place is the variety things to do and see. But if you can't find out about those things...well I guess people may not bother in the long run to do anything.

I'm wondering if Linden Labs have become too complacent. Until now there hasn't really been a successful good alternative to SL. But how long will it stay that way? There is a potential competitor (for the life of me I can't remember the name...will edit this post with it when I find it) - it looks similar to SL, you can create content etc, has the same interface as the old 1.23 viewer. But It lacks some of the features from what I remember. From what I read some weeks ago online quite a few SL'ers left SL to move there instead.

To be honest, I'm surprised there hasn't been a heavy competitor to SL yet. And where is SL going? If a competitor does make it's mark on the scene what will Linden Labs do to give SL the edge to keep it as the favourite?

Guess we'll have to just wait and see...in the meantime I'm sticking with my old viewer even though it's showing a few problems and is no longer supported.