Blogs The Most Annoying Crapware

Dell Small Business is interesting.
The system comes clean, with the OS disk (not some image), The only software that are installed are actually useful.

The first software is PowerDVD, because Vista Business and Home Basic edition and XP doesn't comes with a MPEG-2 codec. Power DVD is actually a good software as well. So no complaints.

The second and last software is Roxio, because XP can't burn DVD's, and Vista doesn't like thin laptop drives (fixed in WIn7). In any case it's really easy to uninstall, and doesn't leave out junk.

And I am sure I could have asked not to have any additional software when I order my laptop over the phone.

That is all. If only all OEMs would be like Dell Small Business it would be great, but then again computers will be more expensive as you don't have anything reducing it's price. And the average person will just pick the cheapest system and sees all the trial software as bonus software only to be deceived in 30-60 days.

 

I spent half a day kicking the bloatware from a new Toshiba satellite...

But I actually like their wireless utility, it's so easy my dad understands it...unlike the winXP variant.

Also think the CCC is too big, just a plain driver should do.
(not needing .net just to display CCC would be nice also)

 

attitudes have changed too when it comes to third party software, i remember a time when everyone just wanted as much software as possible. there seems to be much more of a "less is more" philosophy now

 

It's really not that difficult to uncheck the extras you do not want installing.

 

If given the choice. If it's preinstalled, your stuck - especially since I've not found an uninstall program yet that completely removes every trace of the program it is supposedly removing. Dell have been quite good recently - the Studio I bought for myself and the Inspiron my mum wanted both came with restore discs, clean OS discs, and drivers on separate DVDs. Format, OS, drivers. Bang, done, sorted. None of this "Dell Dock" and "Dell Recovery" and "Dell Auto Driver Update" and "McAfee System Defender"... etc...

edit: The worst offender in my experience has got to be Acer. The default XP install from them on my Travelmate 8215 was chewing up 1.2GB of RAM... how they managed it I have no idea, I can't get XP to chew that much up without running a game or some sort of scientific analysis program... and was merrily gobbling over 100GB of HDD space.

 

Thank god for Ccleaner.
Some manufacturers offer the option not to have free software installed, but they're no way way of knowing if they've just deleted it leaving all the crap in the registry.

 

My (somewhat old) wireless adapter seemed to be fine, I just pointed Vista to the driver CD and it installed the drivers, without the program. But that might have been that the program was merely for older OS's that needed special programs for wireless connectivity. I find HP is by far the worst for bloatware, they manage to take up 10GB for 'recovery' when Vista is only about 5 tops. That and their refusal to provide a proper Windows install DVD. Adobe speed launcher is also awful, I don't want Reader every time I boot my computer.

 

you forgot the classic bonzi buddy.. you could have a ape tell you what to do

 

while i love winamp, it decided to install its toolbar to my web-browser

in itself this wasn't actually a problem but what it ALSO did was change my default search to AOL/winamp search, and it took some very deep investigation into settings one shouldn't really be needing to touch, and the help of a friend with whom i could compare settings to get rid of it finally.

was bloody annoyin

 

I like the part about WLM because it's so true, exactly why I stopped using it, give me aMSN, emesene or pidgin any day.

 

lordy be, lordy be, you have spoken the truth

 

I've come to expect this with computers now when you buy them. I used to shift large volumes of desktops and laptops, so I used to ghost them with my own sys-prepped vanilla images.

No Bloatware, Faster PC, Less Problems.

God knows what some of these programs are letting in through the back door.

 

I got a dell mini9 vodaphone netbook. on first boot the notification area took up almost half the screen with useless crap. As if that wasn't bad enough it came with 1gb of ram and the virtual memory was set to a fixed size of 128mb. doing the simplest of things resulted in an out of virtual memory error...

 

Had the Adobe/McAffe one after updating Flash, was wondering where that had come from.

 

Other people have mentioned the same already:
Dell Business ++ I have to make almost no changes to the machines we have at work (but then group policy helps a lot there...)
Apple -- Having to use iTunes just to update my phone is bad enough, but why would I want quicktime when I have VLC?

(pro tip: you can open the itunes installer in winrar and extract just the apple mobile device support msi, which lets you charge your ipod/phone. Of course they could have just given me a link to download just the drivers, but I guess steve didn't want that.)

 

Indeed - this is *real shame*! Especially when useful programs like Asus Update or AMD overdrive(for AMD boards of course), are "hidden" under utilities tab.

The same goes for preinstalled av software on Acer notebooks which behaves like "if you don't buy this software you'll break the law".

Nero is also very notable crapware - even "the smallest" versions bundled with DVD writers contain at least 75% of crapware. And what's funnier - during installation nero will pop-up a window where you can subscribe for more crapware - on low-res display it deliberately moves the window so that there's no visible button to close the window.

 

Symantec has a single m.

WoW with ATI drivers? What the hell? D:

 

Pre-installed antivirus trials with new computers.

 

My sister's Dell 1545 that arrived last week was surprisingly clean; only needed me to uninstall the AV trial and a poke around msconfig to disable the update, webcam and online backup stuff. My friend's sister's Asus X58 on the other hand, that's terrible. Especially when they insist on only putting 1GB of memory in a laptop with a Celeron and Vista

You know what really grinds my gears? As if having to use iTunes to get full features with my iPod Touch wasn't bad enough; having to install Quicktime with it every time an update arrives, which ruins my QTLite install. Arrrrgh

 

HP. When installing new printer drivers first I have to download a 100 MB file so I could later remove all the image management software it installs.

Next thing is notebooks, you have to install loads of crap just to be able to switch WiFi on/off.