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Who Installs the Most Crapware?

Posted by timothy on from the phrase-your-answer-in-klingon dept.

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."

5 of 583 comments (clear)

  1. Re:2 Simple solutions by oldspewey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
  2. installed versus auto-start by Neil+Watson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  3. Re:Lenovo by negRo_slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, I'd say iTunes/Quicktime and Acrobat are, in fact, crap.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  4. Re:2 Simple solutions by jgtg32a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like you opted for the minimal install version

  5. Re:Lenovo by RobDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reason is mostly because the law says they can't.

    Trust me, Microsoft wants nothing more than to bundle it's own version of just about every application you can think of. But, the legal system says they can't. They were declared a monopoly and part of that has limited their ability to include things you want into the OS.

    I'm not 'Pro MS' or 'Pro Linux' or anything, I just don't care. But I do think that it's funny that, essentially, the same people who used to complain that Microsoft is an evil monopoly and is destroying small companies by bundling their own XYZ into the operating system are now the same people who still say MS is an evil monopoly but advocate Linux because it includes far more stuff you'll need than Windows.

    But yeah, it's really not that MS doesn't want it - it's that it's hands are tied. At least, that's been my understanding of it.