Slashdot Mirror
Who Installs the Most Crapware?
Barence writes "PC Pro has done a thorough test of the software bundled by nine of the leading laptop manufacturers to find out who installs the most crapware on their PCs. Manufacturers such as Acer add as much as two minutes to their boot times by stuffing their machines full of bundled software, with own-brand proprietary software being the worst offender. HP's bundled apps, meanwhile, have a memory footprint of more than 1GB. PC Pro has also reviewed three pieces of software which promise to remove rubbish from your PC — with mixed results."
I ALWAYS format the computer before giving it to the final user, but as a rule I can tell you that any "big" name out there installs a lot of crapware, but the winner is: LENOVO.
The last Dells I've got have:
1. Adobe reader
2. Google toolbar
3. Google Desktop (!!!! ahhhggg the pain)
4. Adobe Flash player
5. Lots of Dell crapware like Support center and so on..
Lenovo: 1. Adobe reader
2. MS Office 30 days trial (yes, trials ARE crapware in my book)
3. McAffee antivirus + Firewall + anything (60 days trial)
4. Google toolbar
5. Google Desktop
6. Google Chrome (AHHHHHHH MORE PAIN)
7. Adobe flash player
8. Skype (!!!)
10. Lots and I mean LOOOOTS of Lenovo panels, gadgets and stuff
HP 1. Adobe reader
2. Norton antivirus + Firewall + anything (60 days trial)
4. Google toolbar
5. Google Desktop
6. Lots of gadgets and added HP value"
On the bright side, Dell always gives you a new brand Windows CD and a CD with drivers so the re-installation is easy.
Lenovo? They give you a Restore CD that installs the system with all the crap from the beginning.
Oh well... At lest nobody else (that I know) is installing Abble crapware by default. The day some big name intalls iTunes, QuickTime, Safary or other Abble Supercrap, as default, that's the last day I buy such a brand for us.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Apple.
Even the wireless toggle keys do not work without installing their crapware.
Personally, I build my own and install vanilla Windows, but sh** has hit the fan long time ago.
This plus anti virus software resource hogs makes windows experience horrible on a brand new computer.
Not a single manufacturer offers option "windows and drivers only".
In other words, you need 4 core CPU and 2GB of RAM to open internet explorer.
Grandma does.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
This will get 100% of the crap off your system or your money back!
4. PROFIT!!!
Boy, this is going to be a tough discussion. I wonder how many mod-points are going to be spent labeling items "flamebait" for talking about Windows vs. Linux vs. Mac..
:)
Anyway, I think Acer I got for my wife is the worst. I also recently purchased an HP, and it actually got a lot better in terms of less crapware. I was very surprised, although Vista disappeared ten minutes after I got it out of the box and Windows 7 magically appeared later..
Any geek worth his salt gets rid of the current OS installation anyway and installs their flavour of choice anyway
I bought an Asus EEE netbook a few months back and was surprised to see that Skype was basically the only app that was installed by default. It was otherwise a pretty clean install of XP. Considering the experience I've had with other notebooks in recent years, I was pleasantly surprised. Kudos to them.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The crapware installed on thses computers are advertisements. These computers would cost a lot more money if they didn't have all this preinstalled rubbish on the HDD, but I'd much rather take a couple minutes to remove Spore Creature Creator from my new HP than pay the extra money for buying an "ad-free" computer.
Maybe this is why Macs are so expensive for the same hardware.
Why yes, I am an apple fanboy. How did you guess?
By the way that you pretended to defer to Linux first.
Why yes, I am an apple fanboy. How did you guess?
You're a self-described bum.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
You can remove *all* your crapware just by installing Snow Leopard and logging in as guest!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
When you order a computer with OS installation media, do those CD's / DVD's install the crapware as well, or just the basic OS?
Absolutely dreadful experience with some of their earlier Vaio models. On the same note, I've seen terrible incidents of this from Samsung as well. Varies from one model to the other, it seems.
Thankfully there are the BSDs, Mac OS X (if you care to "hackintosh"), and that "linux" thing, for those with that kind of taste.
It would be great to be able to opt-out of the crapware. I understand, the trial-ware and that kind of third party stuff generates income for the PC company, but I can imagine they lose some PC sales entirely, by bogging the PC down so much right from the start. Even the proprietary software that is well-meant and supposed to be helpful tips the scales to the side of inconvenience, when you take into account the long startup time and resources taken because of it. I realise this post is aimed at those who are bothered by the crapware and know the PC could do much better without, but are unwilling/unable to quickly and easily change that themselves.
The best one is not mentioned in the crappy article: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Offer a service to REMOVE all that junk for you when you buy it, for almost $100. That's the crazy part.
We bought my dad a laptop at Circuit City a few years back for Christmas, and the Firedog(sic?) tech was very persistent that we purchase the removal plan from them, as it's hard to do ourselves. I asked him what they do, and he said they take a vanilla Vista install disc and reformat the HDD with it. For $100, no thank you.
As someone stated in an above thread, it's ads on the computer to lower the cost of it. If you buy off the shelf computers, it may be worth it. And with a laptop/netbook, you have no choice but to buy it off the shelf.
1. Install Linux and never worry about crapware again.
I dunno ... I installed Linux and ended up with two desktop environments, three word processors, four web browsers, and a whole bunch of image editors, system utilities, file managers, and other stuff.
;-)
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
FTA: tl;dr "with Acer, Sony and HP being the worst offenders."
1. Install Linux and never worry about crapware again.
And lose compatibility with many applications and newer peripherals, the majority of which are made for Windows and possibly Mac.
2. Buy a Mac and never worry about crapware again.
And lose compatibility with many applications, the majority of which are made for Windows. Sure, Adobe suite and some of Microsoft Office are ported, but some businesses depend on third-party apps that require Microsoft Access.
So there exists a tradeoff between compatibility and freedom from crapware. Was this your point?
I always use this first thing on new crap-loaded laptops that aren't going to get wiped with Linux.
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
Free as in beer for personal use.
These computers would cost a lot more money if they didn't have all this preinstalled rubbish on the HDD
Do the advertisements really bring in more revenue than, say, the bulk price of a Windows license?
It's not the installation that bothers me but the assumption by software vendors that their software is so important that it should auto-start.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Yep, if you want to avoid the crap build your own or order from a small business division
But does Dell's small business division sell to individuals? Or does one need a formal business entity (e.g. partnership, corporation, or LLC) before they'll deal?
But in other areas the MacBook merely mimics Windows' offerings: media software offers little functionality that isn't available elsewhere, and Apple's office applications can't compete with even Microsoft Works.
I wonder if they've ever used the iWork suite? It can both read & save as MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint for the respective equivalent applications, which is something MS Works apparently can't do. I know this by the number of students I have to instruct to save their MS Works documents as RTFs so their instructors can view their papers.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
A shame I can't comment on the subject, I just install Ubuntu...
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
First I format the drive.
Then I install an OS copy that I got from Microsoft
Then I install the drivers I d/l from the machine site.
And I make an image (in case the app install fails badly).
I install the basic applications I use.
I make the recovery image.
Once in a while I format the drive and re-image using the recovery image.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
I am baffled by this paragraph from the Apple review:
Are they complaining that the Mac can do some things that Windows can do too? Are they ignoring nice features of iTunes like the Store, Genius, sharing, podcast subscriptions, and online radio?
And how exactly does iWork fail to compete with Microsoft Works? Keynote is great presentation software. Pages is a solid word processor / page layout application. And Numbers can do common spreadsheet stuff. (Although its chart capabilities are pretty useless, at least in the '08 version I use.)
When you order a computer with OS installation media, do those CD's / DVD's install the crapware as well, or just the basic OS?
Some of them come with a "recovery" DVD that repartitions the hard drive and ghosts the preinstalled operating system and crapware back on. (In fact, that's how they're set up.)
In my experience, every Windows OEM machine is on some level its own platform.
> 2. Buy a Mac and never worry about crapware again.
Unfortunately, it does come with some crapware: iTunes
[I usually post AC, but I'm making an exception for this.]
Did anyone else get a pop-up from hardware.slashdot.org with a 100x100 image hosted on suitesmart.com saying "We are conducting a research survey on this site. You will be invited to participate when you leave. Please do not close this window."
Is that some kind of joke related to the story?
I just bought an HP laptop, and these are the observations I have to make.
Bundled software isn't entirely bad. Bundled software that runs automatically is. I will disable this, although even so I might not uninstall it. The first thing I did was make the HP toolbar not run every time the computer boots up.
If it doesn't run automatically, and it performs some useful feature (DVD burning, for instance) which I'll probably use in the future, I'll leave it installed unless or until such a time comes where I try to use it and discover it doesn't work very well or there are better free alternatives. It's just taking disk space. I'm more concerned with RAM and processor use.
If it's something I'll never use, yeah, just uninstall it now.
However, all in all, it's a new computer, and I'm not at all worried about disk space yet. So as long as it's not running, I'm not too worried about it. Sure, in a few years I may begin to run low on disk space, but at that point I'll be better able to determine whether or not I actually need the software anyway – did I use it between now and then?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
It can be said that Apples are among the smoothest running out of the box, but does that really mean there's no crap? This line of reasoning begs the definition of "crapware," and the #1 response would be "stuff you don't need on your computer." It doesn't have to slow it down, it doesn't have to have an enormous memory footprint when it's running or a huge disk footprint when it isn't, it just has to be stuff you don't need. And depending who you are, that can be quite a lot.
Have you ever used iWeb? iDVD? Some would consider the whole iLife to be crapware because they plan to get higher-end, more professional applications through which to vent their creativity. And if they're thinking about office use, they're likely to go the route of Microsoft Office / OpenOffice, so bang goes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Do you ever plan to serve web pages up from your laptop? (Well, I do, but then again, look where I'm posting.) You probably don't need that install of Apache or PHP. Not planning on doing any software development? Yes, XCode is an optional install and not part of the standard kit, but you've still got perl, ruby, python, pico, vi, emacs, and more shells, libraries, and frameworks than you'll ever need nestled down in /usr/local. Have a digital music library already? Then you might also have a preferred player, and probably won't want iTunes to re-rip it into that silly AAC format. A lot of people despise Quicktime on general principle. And a lot of people still eschew Safari for Firefox despite its HTML5 support.
It all depends on your definition of "crapware." It's all assembled and designed by the mother company, so it's integrated so perfectly that you're never bothered by it if you never use it, but if you dig, you'll find something that'll fit the description.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Sure, Adobe suite and some of Microsoft Office are ported, but some businesses
Full stop. This is about consumer grade stuff. No business is going to order a pre-crapwared laptop from Acer and use it with everything still on there. I know you tried hard to get your pro-Microsoft troll out there, but it's completely off topic.
You fail to understand how cheap some businesses are.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I was standing in Best Buy line one day at the computer desk. They were buying a brand new laptop (forgot the brand), but they got the complete upsale from the Geek Squad guy. Basically he told them that yes they could buy the laptop for the listed price, but that it would be unusable because of all the junk on it. They would need to pay geek squad another $149 to take the computer and clean up all the junk that comes with it to make it usable. And the poor people had to do it... They had no idea what to do or uninstall, and were being told that if they didnt do it then the computer would be near unusable.
Sadly the geek squad guy was close to the truth. A new computer that isn't cleaned is booting slower, using more memory, and running slower than it should be. It just was wrong that it was necessary for the unskilled user to have to pay $149 on top of the cost of the device... I thought about jumping in and telling them it was a rip off, but then I'd have had to deal with it....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's some irony in the fact that you have to hit this website over 20 times in order to read the article...
...and a partition in a shares tree...
It's true that most Linux disros come with a lot of excess apps, however, they are very rarely running by default, so its just using hard drive space, not much else.
OS X + everything inside the application folder.
New Economic Perspectives
You call up support to start a return process explaining very carefully what is on the machine that you did not order. Tech support might try and walk you through the removal process. Don't let them. You didn't break it, you shouldn't fix it. If they offer to send a tech out to fix it. Fine. Otherwise their only option is return. Don't pay shipping (either way). Don't take "no" for an answer (dispute the charge - take screen shots of your order and the crapware as all the proof you need).
The way to deal with corporations is to simply be a bigger asshole than even they could possibly imagine.
If we're addressing consumers only, it becomes much easier:
Don't buy a Mac if you intend to play games... unless you are techy enough to dual-boot your Mac.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Install Windows 7 FREE from MSDNAA and never worry about crapware again.
New Economic Perspectives
Who installs the most crapware?
My mother does.
That's what I did.
Then I installed SLED-11.
];)
Regards;
On Fedora core 8. I have installed so much crap I am afraid to upgrade my operating system!
Many common eople claiming that Apple machines never get viruses. So your chances of infection is pretty low.
New Economic Perspectives
Don't buy a Mac if you intend to play games
I thought that's what iTunes was for: loading games onto an iPodendo.
Having spent three years as the sysadmin for a high school, plenty of Dell OptiPlexen and Latitudes went through my office before being send to their final destination somewhere in the school. My procedure: physically set up, start up, and image with the school district's standard no-nonsense XP image. I jokingly referred to Dell's base image as a "massive Dell advertisement".
I had one user who snubbed her new school-owned laptop from the mailroom before I could get to it, then refused to let me install my "crap" [the image] on it. Needless to say, she was begging for an image within a month or two...
Hijackthis. http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/
Nuff' said.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Sounds like you opted for the minimal install version
I think this thread really needs a geek version of the twelve days of Christmas. I'll start:
On the first screen of install Linux gave to me ...
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
My Samsung netbook is the only computer I've ever purchased which did not compel me to reinstall Windows due to pre-loaded crapware.
The only stuff that runs by default is useful power-management software and a trial of VirusScan. I really hope Samsung continues to make netbooks and other mobile devices. They are a breath of fresh air.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
http://www.debian.org/distrib/
A bare Windows install isn't like Ubuntu or a Mac. It comes with only one browser, no way to play DVD's, no audio editor, no productivity applications. It doesn't even have an antivirus that we need Windows users to have from the start so as to delay their inevitable pwndom. It doesn't have shared repositories with thousands of free applications for every need. The poor users need some help bootstrapping from that to a useful platform, and the OEMs are driven to serve that need.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Apple for my laptops, and Linux for my servers.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
HP installs so much crap our machines often stop booting entirely, take well over 5 minutes to reach a desktop, and perform poorly once they are up. And they install so much junk it's almost impossible to properly remove and clean it out. I've stopped buying *anything* HP because of that. It just isn't worth the frustration.
-Matt
In the past year I have bought two Dell Studio 1737 laptops from http://www.uklaptops.co.uk/
(no relationship other than a happy customer)
The refurb industry is pretty much based upon new laptops "distance sold" that are returned to the vendor unused for various reasons.
The refurb companies of course do not have any deals with Adobe / Google etc, so you get a vanilla install of Windows (Vista Ultimate on both of my Studio's) plus of course the appropriate Dell drivers, and that's it.
The first thing I did was re-partition and do an dual boot install of OpenSuse (OpenSuse handles the 1920 x 1200 screens on the Studio better than any other distro).
This methods has got me two basically brand new Dells, with zero crapware, for slightly less than half Dell price, what's not to like?
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Crapware is just as useless, and even more frustrating, when it's something that's actually desirable. My Sony VAIO, for instance, came with the excellent (if a bit old) game Age of Empires II pre-installed amidst the Quicken trials and proprietary desktop-managing garbage. But hopefully you don't get too attached to the game -- since you never installed it, you can never reinstall it, so if the installation gets corrupted you can't fix it without nuking your whole system and using the factory restore disc. And if you need the disk space temporarily, good luck uninstalling it and then reinstalling later. Hell, you can't even move it to a different partition. You might as well not even have the game.
I bought a 600-dollar-is Dell Inspiron this week with Windows 7. It had about 3 full pages of factory-installed crapware. Took a good amount of time to uninstall all the garbage. Most I've seen in a long time.
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
Autorun, by Mark Russinovich at Microsoft, gives you a complete checklist of everything that's started at bootup or login. With checkboxes that turn it off. This is worth running just to see what's in there. You may turn too much off and break something, but you can run Autorun again and turn it back on.
There's plenty of stuff worth turning off, like those useless programs that keep polling to see if Adobe Acrobat or Sun Java came out with a new version. Some of those programs are too aggressive, too. Adobe's poller seems to try to re-associate PDF files with Acrobat, after I'd changed the ".pdf" association to launch Sumatra PDF.
It's annoying that even legitimate updaters seldom schedule themselves as periodic tasks, which Windows does well and which have no overhead when they're not running. No, they have to have their own little executable in memory.
two desktop environments, three word processors, four web browsers, and a whole bunch of image editors, system utilities, file managers
And I still can't run Internet Explorer.
Seriously, navigating that story was absolutely painful. Would it have been so difficult to add "Next" or an arrow or something so you could read it like, oh I don't know, an actual piece of news?
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats explained.
I usually use Linux, but I have a Windows PC and have had to install the drivers for an HP printer/scanner on the Windows PC (in fact, I had to do this for someone else with an HP printer/scanner and Windows PC as well). I know how to install a printer driver on Windows but know little about scanners, so I just let the HP CD install the drivers. It literally took more than half an hour each time, I don't even remember how long it took, and I had to keep coming back and clicking "OK" for this or that. It installed a ton of crap, photo-albums and other junk I will never use - I just use Gimp. You'd think I was hooking my PC up to a satellite dish on the roof or something for how long it takes to connect a damned printer/scanner.
...and a partridge in a pear treeeeeee!
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
No buttons AND mobile phone quality games?
Who needs a computer or console now!
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
s/newer/older/ and you might have a point. Maybe.
and exploitation of others.
I guess it has never occurred to you that those "exploited" people are actually happy to have a job making laptops and clothing, because it sure as hell beats working in a field and farming rice.
Developing nations work this way - they start out as agricultural. Eventually they get around to building enough infrastructure to be able to educate their population and move them around. Usually the next industry to move in after agriculture is textiles, since it requires relatively little skill. But eventually since the economy starts picking up (because all those women being "exploited" by the textile industry now have take home pay that can be added to hubby's income that he gets driving trucks around (no one wants to work in the fields anymore) and too much money starts chasing scarce commodities. Standards of living rise, but inflation sets in, and suddenly no one can afford a textile mill anymore. But by that time a whole slew of other industries have arrived - construction, communications, technology, healthcare. And suddenly your undeveloped country is a developing nation, and eventually a developed one that can no longer afford to produce basic things, and has to import from elsewhere.
This is called economics. Something a communist like yourself can never understand. There will ALWAYS be regional differences in price, and thus there will always be profit to be had in making something where it's cheap, and selling it where it's expensive.
If I offer you a glass of water or a diamond in the middle of the desert, which one will you chose? How about next to a clean freshwater lake? There's nothing WRONG with this. It's human nature.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Macs aren't immune from this problem. They're just better than PCs in this regard overall, but there's a handful of services and upgrades that Apple's always trying to push on you--the most notable are Quicktime Pro and Mobileme. They historically have done things like (a) cripple the regular Quicktime Player to push you into buying the Pro version, like by only allowing full-screen playing on Pro; (b) build a bunch of minor convenience features into their OS that can only be used if you have .Mac/Mobileme (e.g., Keychain synchronization).
Are you adequate?
Masonux is a Ubuntu mod with minimal stuff - but has Synaptic on it so guys like me can install just what they want. Small image, small HD footprint. Crap free!
BIGstan!
As someone had already pointed out in a different thread, the key problem is autostart. Disk space is cheap and having a few extra apps here and there can be ignored. But the crap-ware loads itself into memory! And on the desktop, and into the System taskbar, and into the Quick-start menu that puts up some bubbles with some notifications/offers and then there is software that auto-registers itself for extensions that it does not know how to handle! Oh, am I ranting?
The last one really gets me. I can understand why software wants to stuff itself into the system task menu and bombard me with ads (I am not going to tolerate it, but I see their motivation). But why would you register your software for an extension only to start automatically and tell me that "This program does not support this format"?
Don't buy a PC if you intend to play games (at least games from Infinity Ward), buy a console.
I bought many brand name laptops and never saw any crapware at all... that's probably because I have a simple rule: I make sure to have an OS install disc in the drive the first time I boot-up the computer. (or an OS install USB in case of Netbooks)
No one likes unwanted software being uninstalled, but have you considered that this inconvenience (and yes, perhaps, increased security risks in some cases) is saving you money on the hardware? These third party companies pay a significant amount of money to these PC vendors to get their software installed by default.
The Acer Aspire One I got recently was loaded with crap, but the biggest source of problems came from Google and especially McAfee. Every time I started that thing up from hibernate mode I had to wait for the Google apps and sidebar to load. Then McAfee anti-virus starts grinding away trying to scan the entire system. Even when I thought I had disabled automatic scanning I still found it cranking away.
So every time I started it I'd spend a minute or so in the OS just waiting for it to be responsive. Eventually I'd get something like a browser open and would spend several more minutes for the computer to perform at a speed that was even remotely functional. The best part was how McAfee was only available for a 60 day trial.
So I went through and uninstalled every last unnecessary bit of garbage and performance improved dramatically. In place of McAfee I installed AVG which doesn't seem to be nearly as taxing.
It would be nice if the OS prioritized apps on start up, giving priority to the user, instead of this apparent mad dash to see who can get started first. And even better, it would be nice if these computer companies stopped cramming all this crap on these machines and at least paid some amount of attention to the performance capabilities of the machine. I realize this stuff helps subsidize some of the cost of these computers, but at least offer the option to get a machine with a clean OS.
I thought that was what iFunbox and the /var/mobile/library/downloads folder was for. ;)
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Adobe Flash player is not crap ware it is need for most of the web sites out there.
I've installed Linux on every computer I've owned for the last 9 years. Since about 2004 I've never had a peripheral that wasn't found and configured.
Here's a thought: Build your own. It's really not that hard, people.. and you'll save a heap of cash. You can install whichever OS you like. OSX, Windows 7.. heck, Windows 98 SE!
By the way, to say that OSX doesn't install crapware is just plain silly. I can't tell you how many widgets I've removed from my dock..
Generally speaking a computer that has (Windows + Crapware) != (Windows clean). And many arguments can be made that (Windows + Crapware) is less valuable than a clean Windows install.
Has anyone sued a manufacturer for false advertising and/or fraud, because they advertise that the computers come with Windows, when in fact they're hobbled by coming with (Windows + Crapware)?
Although having a PDF reader on any platform is a good idea. Having one that is removable is a good Idea. Personally I want the real option for IE and WMP.
Meanwhile, ASUS shipped the eee with a linux desktop that booted in 20 seconds...
I do!
I dunno ... I installed Linux and ended up with two desktop environments, three word processors, four web browsers, and a whole bunch of image editors, system utilities, file managers, and other stuff.
And it still took less disk space and less memory than on windows.
some businesses depend on third-party apps that require Microsoft Access.
If yours does not, why do you care? If you do need Access, how about running it on a VM (assuming light use)?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
that's one more reason to install Linux.
I hate those crapware too. Especially the ones that send you popups like "why have you still not bought the full version".
The printer software that comes with my HP printer is really bad too. It takes about an hour to install, takes 700MB of hard disk space, etc ...
On Fedora Linux, I can install the printer in 2 minutes, and it does not take extra space on disk (ok, so probably Fedora pre installed the driver in some directory, but so what?)
I don't expect Windows 7 to improve anything. Computer manufacturers want the money that comes from those 3rd party software.
This is why I love my LG laptop & netbook. 0 crapware. Heck, if you want the LG utilities beyond the basic drivers you have to load them yourself.
RoundTop
My Dell Mini 10v came preinstalled with Dell crapware including the yahoo toolbar for use inside of Firefox. Firefox includes a search bar with Yahoo as an optional search provider. Simply chaning the default search on their config would have been fine and gotten them cash from Yahoo, but NOOOOO, they installed the whole toobar. On a netbook, an additional toolbar is pretty irritating. I wiped the whole system and installed a clean Ubuntu Netbook Remix on it. Now I am happy again.
there is some truth in this, but you have to understand that most things that don't work well under Linux is when the software maker uses proprietary data formats.
This was the case for microsoft office, and still is with their 2007 file formats.
It still is the case with outlook PST
It still is the case with exchange mail protocol
it's also the case with Skype network protocol.
When those companies publish their file formats and network protocols, you find an alternative to be compatible with it in Linux.
You need to blame the right person when complaining about Linux and lack of some software.
You see, when 2 things don't work well together, you have to ask yourself who is trying to work with the other, nd who is refusing to work with the other.
Autoruns has nothing to do with"cleaning crapware".It lists everything that starts with your computer.Disabling the autorun feature of crapware doesnt make it vanish.PC Pro should have known that,since they are "Pro".
There's no patch for stupidity
I bought a Samsung N130 netbook a week ago and it came with Windows 7 Starter edition, a free trial of the anti-virus software, Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, and very little else. (There was a thing that asked if it could install Google Toolbar the first time I opened Internet Explorer; I just said no and it hasn't bothered me since).
I will probably do some more configuration on this netbook before I really try to use it (I disabled a couple of services, but I can probably disable several others such as all that ipsec crap). However, I am finding it very usable so far, and performance with its 1 GB of RAM to be very decent. There are several little auto-start apps related to the touchpad, realtek sound drivers, etc. but Task Manager shows them to be using very small amounts of memory (a few hundred KB each) so I am not too worried about them.
Anyway, good job Samsung!
thought you were going to say that they installed a dual boot with windows.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm not sure if Toshiba has the most crap, but the percentage of things starting with "Toshiba" that are crap must be pretty high.
You get both Toshiba Online Product Notification and Toshiba TEMPRO, to inform you about driver releases which turn out to be older or the same as what you've already got. TEMPRO is supposed to also give performance enhancing tips, yet somehow it never suggests uninstalling itself.
Of course the out-of-box registration program couldn't remove itself from startup once you've done it, it must run every startup, and check to see if you registered it, then (surprisingly), exit.
Dell works very well in my book when I order from the Small Biz website and specify at order time to install no AV, no trials, no tools, etc. I just received another laptop today and it had only 1 Dell-branded backup program to remove. There were several Windows features I went ahead and killed (Live Essentials, Search, etc.) but I can understand not excluding those things. It literally took me 15 minutes to strip the unnecessary, join the machine to our domain, install a couple of company-specific apps (AV, Citrix plugin), activate Office and it was good to roll out the door.
My HP laptop came with the worst crapware of all... Vista.
The ironic thing about this story is their website provides a seamless experience for the user by mimicking the behavior of PC crapware on their website. I appreciate the sentiment of the article and many of the other like minded articles on the internet. Now if only those content providers would look to their own products (their website) and rid them of at least some of the crap that they bundle with their products. All the obtrusive advertising, animations, and especially the full page or layered adds are just as bad in almost every way that the crapware installed by PC OEMs is. And likewise, there are tools for removing or blocking this garbage, a process which degrades the user experience. In addition, the excuse is the same, the product wouldn't be possible or free without ads. Fine but have some restraint. The homepage alone has at least 6 animated adds and the entire background is a Dell add.
Evince is better that Acroread?
Maybe. But I have books which are simple bitmap pages. An example is the SNOBOL4 Griswold "Green Book" (google for gb.pdf). It takes FOREVER to render pages in Evince, whereas Acroread displays them at an acceptable rate.
Just sayin' Here is the run-time data. The test is simple: 512MB 1.6GB netbook (Acer Aspire One, Linpus dress, Acroread as installed by Acer, Evince installed from Fedora 8 repository), load and render the first five pages (only), and then exit to the command prompt.
Using Evince
[user@ariel SNOBOL]$ time evince gb.pdf
real 1m27.401s
user 0m6.532s
sys 0m1.980s
[user@ariel SNOBOL]$
Using Acroread
[user@ariel SNOBOL]$ time acroread gb.pdf
real 0m29.512s
user 0m8.789s
sys 0m1.044s
[user@ariel SNOBOL]$
Note that the timing data isn't particularly accurate -- it has to include my "click time" (actually, page-down), And, I accidentally did 6 pages in acroread (so the time is definitely over). I clicked ahead on the exit button for Evince. So, the timing advantage is actually to Evince!
Now, I'm not claiming that Adobe Reader is the cat's meow, but your rather blanket statement is very easily debunked. Evince takes 3x longer than Acroread. If that is "significantly better than Adobe's offering", I would like to see something you consider worse.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Since about 2004 I've never had a peripheral that wasn't found and configured.
Then you don't own, say, a Microtek ScanMaker 4850 USB flatbed scanner.
Seriously though, is Linux to the point where I can just buy any PC peripheral off the shelf at Walmart* or Best Buy and expect it to work?
If you do need Access, how about running it on a VM (assuming light use)?
For one thing, I wouldn't characterize it as light use. I'd need a copy of Windows and a copy of Office to run in the VM anyway, and I'd need to keep the virtualized Windows updated anyway. Since we started rewriting parts of our software stack as a web application to short circuit around the limitations of this commercial VBA app, my employer has been deploying Ubuntu on every PC that doesn't need direct access to the VBA app.
You need to blame the right person when complaining about Linux and lack of some software.
Then I blame almost every single home PC and peripheral manufacturer because none of them announce "supports Linux" on the U.S. packaging or include detailed technical manuals with the machine. But even once I have accurately placed the blame, that still doesn't help me get work done.
It's different from Windows. Those applications don't run automatically. And it's just choice. Use whichever one you think is best. You can uninstall whatever you don't want. It's not that hard. Or just do an advanced install and spend a few hours filtering out what software you want and don't want on linux.
My new laptop came with some strange apps. Like, there's a "Frog Exaggerator" and a "Sarcasm Detector".. the frog exaggerator is kind of cool, but, a sarcasm detector?? Yeah, that's a REALLY useful program!
Sony VAIO is the slowest laptop? Not exactly a shocking result to anyone who has used one of their bloatware infested machines. The only test a VAIO laptop scores fastest on is the wind tunnel.
i got a new laptop 6 mos ago, its an hp, i bought it because i liked the specs, the first thing i did was partition it for win7 and ubuntu dual boot.... it was a little work but i got 30 second cold boot times to either os
On the first screen of install Linux gave to me,
a download link in FTP.
On the second screen of install Linux gave to me,
One swap partition,
and a download link in FTP.
Yes, because VMWare Fusion hasn't been out for ages now. I do web development on a Mac, and I keep an instance of Ubuntu and an instance of Windows running on my previous-generation Mac Mini running at all times to test performance and rendering in different browsers.
There's no tradeoff any more whatsoever.
No comment.
Don't buy a Mac if you intend to play games... unless you are techy enough to dual-boot your Mac.
This isn't 2004 any more. Plenty of developers release native ports of games for the Mac. And with VMWare Fusion 3, you can play any DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 game directly in a Windows box running on your desktop.
No comment.
an instance of Windows
I addressed this in this post. How much did this instance cost you? And how much will it cost someone who has already graduated but is using it for something other than a full-time day job?
I don't mind the installs, disk space is cheap, but it wants to start a bunch of crap processes on boot up, and good luck killing them without mucking about in the registry. Slower boot times and a performance hit, thanks a lot, Apple!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Your argument was that you lose compatibility with applications. I called bullshit, and you're still wrong on that.
But for your current point, practically speaking, the total cost is $80 for a VMWare Fusion license. Because anyone switching from a Windows computer will already have a license for Windows, and can even bundle up their existing box and run their existing software in a VM by bundling their box over WiFi or with a spare Ethernet cable.
No comment.
nt
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Also, your original argument is that you lose compatibility with "many applications, the majority of which are made for Windows", which is a bit like saying picking a Toyota loses you compatibility with Ford parts.
Third-party Mac software is, in my experience, generally (an important distinction there) far better designed and well-written than third-party Windows software. Mac developers, by and large, care about their craft, and care about their platform. The vast majority of Windows developers are clueless, incompetent, or don't care. (Note that there are still many, many good Windows applications and Windows developers out there; I'm simply stating that proportionally speaking, Windows developers are incompetent tools).
No comment.
Because anyone switching from a Windows computer
I'm also including people buying their first computer, people replacing a hopelessly obsolete system, and companies that need to buy more computers for more employees to use.
will already have a license for Windows
A license for Windows applies only to one machine. When one sells a used Windows PC, one ordinarily transfers the operating system license along with it.
I never understood why computer sells found it necessary to make the computers they sell crappier before they sold it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
There was absolutely no crapware on the AOpen computer, which I purchased about 2 1/2 years ago. I was very pleasantly surpised to discover that it came with just the plain Windows XP Professional installed, and almost nothing else. I had never before seen a Windows computer, which did not have lots of annoying unwanted crapware installed. There were not any unwanted demo programs that stop working after a short period of time. It did not have any extra unwanted stuff that would automatically start up, while booting up.
The AOpen computer is a very small desktop computer that is just book sized 6-inch x 6-inch x 2-inch box, that uses an external keyboard, monitor and mouse.
I have somehow managed to keep it reasonably free of unwanted crapware, even after hooking up to DSL and installing several commercial programs. I also installed some free open source software, which of course did add crapware. Even now, the computer boots up and shuts down in a fraction of the time of most other Windows computers that I have used. It boots up and shuts down about as quickly as my Linux computer and it feels just as clean and free of crapware. I am also happy that ESSET NOD anti-virus/firewall, which I installed, does not seem to affect performance noticeably.
There was some unwanted crapware that was added during my original DSL Internet setup. But, that was done on an older computer, which I no longer have (not the AOpen computer). The fact that my main computer is a Linux computer, has also helped keep my Windows XP computer in such a wonderful pristine clean condition. The AOpen Windows XP computer was used much less, than the Linux computer.
Linux distros, such as Ubuntu, do not ever come with what what I would consider to be crapware, despite the fact that many programs and utilities are installed by default. None of it is advertising demos or unwanted toolbars or that type of thing. Besides that, I can quickly easily install or uninstall whatever I want with the Snyaptic package manager. There is never any advertising related stuff on a Linux installation CD.
The article had the worst navigation I have ever seen. No next at the bottom of the screen?
In the desert I would take the diamond, then pull out my gun and claim the glass of water too.
I'm surprised the PC Decrapfier didn't make it on their list of cleanup apps. I haven't used it in a while (haven't had the money to buy a new computer), but it has served me well in the past.
two desktop environments, three word processors, four web browsers
Fiiiive gooolden riiiings!
Er...Christmastime already is it?
Many consumer notebooks and desktops are sold at very thin margins (and occasionally, at cost), so vendors are compelled to install crapware, regardless of whether they degrade performance or irritate their customers.
I cleaned a Compaqard box for a friend recently (cleaned=re-installed from the restore drive after they downloaded some malware) and that installed swags of HP trial stuff. Which AVAST promptly identified as spyware, leading me to delete it.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
On the first screen of install Linux gave to me,
a download link in FTP.
On the second screen of install Linux gave to me,
two swap partitions,
and a download link in FTP.
On the third screen of install Linux gave to me,
three net configs,
two swap partitions,
and a download link in FTP.
I used to call them hippies, now I'm holidaying on an island full of hippies and that an insult.
Hippies in no way deserve to be thrown in with a bunch of Mac users, when is the last time a Mac user offered you a toke.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
and buy ASUS or maybe one them from Sony
HP is full of bullshit software qhich is useless and slows ur PC
You do not need to. I know of no distro that installs two heavy desktop environments by default, although I think some install a lightweight alternative by default. This uses a minimal amount of hard drive space, and no other resources. I can think of none that install that many word processors and web browsers by default/
a whole bunch of image editors, system utilities, file managers, and other stuff
Would you never find a use for all that. Crapware, is stuff you do not want, like toolbars, limited tiem trial software, etc.
Linux does eveything I want, and everything lots of other Linux users I know want. I have a smaller range of apps available, but no crapware, no malware, a choice of desktop environments, easy software installation, easy security updates, no vendor lockin, etc.
Sounds a pretty good trade off to me. Was this your point?
On the fourth screen of install Linux gave to me,
four beta drivers,
three net configs,
two swap partitions,
and a download link in FTP.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
What are you doing with those Linux CDs Dave?
Linux does eveything I want, and everything lots of other Linux users I know want.
Including high-quality games other than M-rated FPS, without having to buy a copy of Windows and run it in a VM?
no vendor lockin
People who consider switching from another operating system are locked in if the manufacturers of the peripherals they already own refuse to provide full protocol specs to the developers of Linux, X, CUPS, SANE, etc.
on the twelfth screen of install, my distro gave to me:
Twelve GPL's
Eleven code compilers
Ten packet sniffers
Nine reptile wallpapers
Eight source code tarballs
Seven sudo commands
Six bootup options
Compiz Fusion
Four different web browsers
Three word procs
Gnome and KDE
and a partition in a shares tree!
On the fifth screen of install Linux gave to me,
Five goddamned dependencies,
four beta drivers,
three net configs,
two swap partitions,
and a download link in FTP.
I noticed some manufacturers are installing even Windows on their machines
I stumbled on this gem a week or two back and it seems to work well. http://flowplayer.org/ It's a GPL3 replacement for flash player on websites. Never heard of it till last week.
My nomination would be IBM's internal image, the "Windows Client for eBusiness".
Sounds like you opted for the minimal install version
Scary how this got modded as Insightful and not just Funny!
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
Who Installs the Most Crapware?
My father in law
"Adobe Flash player is not crap ware it is need for most of the web sites out there."
Only because people are to stupid and lazy to write real HTML and conform to real standards.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.