Who Installs the Most Crapware? 583
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."
Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this marked as troll? He is answering the stated question to the best of his knowledge. If anything should be marked as troll, it is the question itself. What do you expect when you use such a subject term such as "crapware?"
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh who am I kidding, it's because he flamed iApple iSoftware or whatever and the mods are furious.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
Actually he was flaming Abble products. A very reputable brand, just like Magetbox and Panaphonic.
Safary and iToons are great programs. I don't know what his problem is.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
He probably has popsi in his refrigerator...
"Where do these people do their shopping?!"
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
Well, gee, there's your problem!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is possible he is a native Arabic speaker. In Arabic, the b and p are the same thing, in many of these countries, you buy a bebsi instead of a Pepsi.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'd say iTunes/Quicktime and Acrobat are, in fact, crap.
Depends.
iTunes and Quicktime are crap on Windows as Microsoft Office is crap on OS X.
Reverse the two and not so bad.
Of course Acrobat is crap on any OS.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
iTunes for Windows is by far the most bloated bit of software I have ever seen. The shear amount of crap it installs in unbeliveable:
* iTunes itself
* Quicktime
* Apple Mobile Device service
* Bonjour Service
* iPod Service
* iTunesHelper startup task
* QTTask startup task
* Firefox plugin
* iPod Classic drivers
* iPhone drivers
* Apple Software Update
Grand Total: 276MB
Actually, they removed the DNS Resolver service from iTunes 8 (wtf - Windows can already resolve DNS).
On top of all that, iTunes itself contains half of MacOS. OSX font rendering and associated fonts, graphic rendering elements etc.
You also have every supported language installed, and support for every Apple device (iPod Classic, iPod Touch, iPhone, AppleTV), network sharing and streaming... The list goes on.
I could just about forgive all this if there was an alternative, but if you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch there isn't. Apple decided to encrypt the iTunes database and make it impossible for 3rd party software to work with their hardware.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
On top of all that, iTunes itself contains half of MacOS. OSX font rendering and associated fonts, graphic rendering elements etc.
So why is everyone so excited about installing Mac OS X on non-Mac computers? Just install iTunes and you're half way there.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's actually a secret plan to make people think Windows is slow. Look how much faster iTunes runs on MacOS!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple 'encrypting' the iTunes database has nothing to do with anything.
The fact you can't install Apple Mobile Device service without iTunes, and you can't connect your iPod or iPhone without that, is the problem. There's plenty of third party software that will do almost everything iTunes will, like put your own music or videos on there, or syncing address books. And for the rest, like buying software and music for the phone, you can use the device itself to do it.
But you can't, in any way, communicate w
iTunes for windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
Just in case anyone is actually curious, Apple was the top pick for the lowest memory usage, and it was crapware free. Not much of a surprise. I totally agree with the HP and Sony results. I own laptops from both and they are full to the rim with shovelware.
From TFA:
The Verdict: The Crapware Con
Posted on 29 Oct 2009 at 14:53
It looks like crapware is here to stay, so what’s the best way to deal with it?
Over the course of this feature, we’ve uncovered two important facts: first, no big-brand laptop (aside from Apple) is free from crapware, but it’s possible to buy a machine that’s noticeably faster and less cluttered than many of its competitors.
We also found that several manufacturers were more guilty than others when it came to adding unwanted software – with Acer, Sony and HP being the worst offenders.
The Acer, for instance, offered an unnecessary Windows Media Center clone and 19 games with only 60 minutes of play, while the Sony VAIO VGN-NS30E/S took more than three minutes to boot. HP’s Pavilion dv6 was little better, with a poor boot time, sluggish performance and flawed applications.
The Dell and Asus machines both included genuinely useful applications and also offered swift boot times and good performance elsewhere
Other machines, meanwhile, proved far more palatable, offering the holy grail of decent software that didn’t prove too taxing on hardware. The Dell and Asus machines both included genuinely useful applications and also offered swift boot times and good performance elsewhere.
Further analysis reveals that, when it comes to performance, it’s the proprietary software that does the most damage. McAfee Security Center, for instance, is present on five of the machines we’ve tested – and their boot times and performance figures spread the gamut from the Dell’s speed to the Sony’s sluggish excess.
Likewise, Norton products sit on both the quick Asus and slow HP machines, and Roxio Creator is present on the relatively nippy Lenovo as well as the Sony VAIO.
The three slowest systems on test are those that cram in proprietary software. The Acer was stuffed with games, media applications and other tools, and the HP system contained children’s desktop software, games and HP’s own Total Care Advisor.
The Sony VAIO, this month’s slowest laptop, boasted a desktop dock, VAIO-branded utilities and the all-encompassing Me & My VAIO media suite.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
Call me biased - I only work on machines that freinds, family and acquaintances bring me. I believe the summary, and TFA to be pretty much on target. IMHO - if the vendor won't include a clean MS installation disk with your purchase, there's a reason for that. Always insist on that clean installation disk, NOT a recovery disk. Dell, in general, is the cleanest machine to work on, and they don't install tons of crapware. Maybe half a ton, but not tons. There is no introductory software, or free software, or whatever else that is worth bothering with. Whatever it is that you want, you can download it straight from the source, without Lenovo, Compaq, or any of the others deciding what you need.
Crapware - anything on the system that I didn't specifically ask for and explicitly consent to.
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Interesting)
My brother bought a Sony laptop from one of those electronics and furniture and white goods all in one stores (Harvey Norman for people in Australia to reference), and they didn't give him any sort of discs at all. They simply said that when he needed a reformat or a service to bring it back in. I do believe I warned him repeatedly and gave him much better options, but then if there is something that every IT nerd knows, it's that family members will ask for advice on IT related issues, and then consistently go and do the exact opposite thing. No doubt Harvey Norman charge a tidy sum for running through the reformat/install on a recovery disk for 15 mins.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why not go into the registry and kill them for good? Or do they re-register themselves?
After killing the process and removing the registry entry, it should be gone for good.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
You know who installs the most crapware?"
Teenagers.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
I can speak from experience that some of the Thinkpad software is not crap, but actually improves the operating of the computer.
Under IBM the battery and power scheme setups were a lot better at maintaining battery life. Some of these hardware manufacturers actually know what their hardware does and the best way to manage it!
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
It would let you set up profiles to turn off your firewall on certain networks, start printer sharing, and start file sharing.
It also let you setup static IP's VPNs, etc on certain networks....
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, and it also updates the adware on your laptop [gizmodo.com].
(This hit me too - I updated the software on my T60 and up pops some Lenovo ads)
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
Adobe Reader, and Adobe FlashPlayer isn't crap where. It makes sure you can actually do things that for some reason windows doesn't do nativly. Such as Read PDF files and open Flash WebSites. Relatively common things.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
Adobe software = Defective by Design. Just ask anyone who has to use CS3 or CS4 for any length of time.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Insightful)
Or anyone in the security community. MS used to be the industries' vulnerable software whipping boy, but they've cleaned that up to a large degree and outsourced the job to Adobe...
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Interesting)
So you are saying the GIMP is superior to Photoshop.
I don't know what he's saying, but I'm saying PSP9 is superior to Photoshop.
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Informative)
43.5 megabytes for Adobe Reader just to read PDFs while an alternative [wikipedia.org] like Foxit is just 5 megabytes to download, has a smaller footprint with minimal to no bloat. I've never had an issue with the latter and will use it to open PDFs that were unavailable with Adobe's products.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
Foxit is evil with its crapware installer and explorer extensions. It's fat when running too. Try SumatraPDF.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A question for anyone here, which if any of those PDF readers works properly with PDF forms?
*** I'm not flaming, I really want to know. I would love to not have to install Adobe Reader as its big and slow but we use a lot of PDF forms here and so far the alternatives I have tried just don't work with them or don't work right/well.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A question for anyone here, which if any of those PDF readers works properly with PDF forms?
I was going to complain that none of the free Linux programs did this, but apparently both Evince and Okular support this now. Arch forum link [archlinux.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that I don't care whether it's free or not, it's that usefulness outweighs ideology in some cases.
/Mikael
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
I love PDFs, but not so much Reader. It's more of a necessary evil... although for most purposes I could probably get away with using an alternative PDF viewer.
I always install a PDF printer (PDFCreator [sourceforge.net] is a nice one, but if you just want something vanilla then CutePDF Writer [cutepdf.com] usually does the job). Then I use it for anything that says "print this page for your records". Digital, indexable copy of whatever it is, arranged by the date I printed it, with no wasted paper or ink.
Short of PDF, I don't know what else you'd use... XPS? XPS is just as bad as PDF, except it's from Microsoft instead of Adobe. Wait... does that make it as bad, or worse? Nobody uses XPS.
What I do hate, with a fucking passion, are protected PDFs. Especially since CutePDF tends to crash (prints an error message document) when you try to print a protected PDF through it to remove the protection... this is, in fact, one of the only uses I've ever had for the MS XPS Document Writer (sometimes it'll succeed where CutePDF or PDFCreator fail, then I can reprint the XPS as a PDF).
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Interesting)
Compare the performance of something like FoxIt PDF Reader ( http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ [foxitsoftware.com] ) against Adobe Reader, and then tell me with a straight face that Adobe's version is better. And if you leave Windows-land and get to Linux, then there's options like evince which are also significantly better than Adobe's offering.
And honestly, the only reason that Flash is installed on my computer at all is for YouTube. If I had a choice in the matter, I wouldn't have that load of crap at all... more often than not, it's used for intrusive ads on websites, not anything of actual value. (gawd, I hate surfing at work, where I am in serious hock if I'm caught using anything other than MSIE 6.0... *shudder*)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Last time i checked Foxit was bundled with some crapware
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if someone could come up with a PDF-conform editor that allows annotations, that'd be great. PDF is an ISO standard, is it that hard?
Re:Lenovo (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.
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Insightful)
But, RobDude - several other people have pointed out that there are alternatives to Adobe reader, that are lighter to download, lighter to install, and lighter on system resources, not to mention being faster AND better. Let's suppose that Adobe really is the end-all, be-all, ultimate shitzls for reading a PDF. Why does it autostart at system startup? Joe Sixpack might look at two PDF files a MONTH, but Adobe is loaded on his box at each startup and/or logon. Why? All he wants to do is play a game of Doom, drink his sixpack, and pat the wife on the ass, but he's forced to sit there watching the startup screen for 2/3 of eternity. By definition, crapware. Adobe can get in line, and wait for the user to call it.
The OEM's need to install fewer of these apps, they need to find the fastes, lightest weight app to do the job, and they need to configure those apps properly. And, DO NOT add things in that EVER "phone home" - even for updates - without the owner's explicit permission.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen FoxIt render stuff incorrectly on occasion. It also seems to have more problems with PDF forms. Thus, any OEM pre-installing it risks running into a problem where one user (out of 10^n) finds a PDF that won't open correctly.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Funny)
Why the hell is the parent modded as +5, Funny? I don't think it was meant as a joke and I was going to make the same comment myself.
Like it or not, most end users in the business world need to be able to open PDF files and use websites that have Flash interfaces, neither of which Windows will do on its own. Installing Acrobat Reader and updating Flash Player to the latest version is one of the main things I do on any office machine I hand out. Sure, they are minor security risks, but I don't understand why anyone would call them crapware, as opposed to all the bizarre manufacturer-specific pop-up control panels and buggy trial security software that is constantly running in the system tray. That's the stuff we're talking about as crapware, not common add-ons like PDF and Flash that are just applications that run when you need them. And like the parent said, PDF and Flash are pretty common things, regardless of anyone's opinions on the need for Flash for any specific purpose.
The modding of the parent as funny makes absolutely no sense to me.
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Interesting)
Adobe Reader is crapware.
There are two well known alternatives of decreasing footprint, FoxIt Reader (which is about as bloated as Acrobat Reader 6), and SumatraPDF, which is tiny, fast and, feature light.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Informative)
When I bought a Lenovo R-series computer with Vista Professional, I didn't notice a lot of crapware that they'd installed. Was it because it was a "professional" computer?
I installed Linux in a few days, so I might not have noticed everything that was there, but I actually liked some of the stuff they installed--like a driver for my hard drive's accelerometer (that would park the heads if needed) and a driver that let me configure Windows not to overcharge my battery.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Informative)
IMHO, if it has a real uninstall script - that really uninstalls the damned program without magic incantations and four downloads from the manufacturers web site - then it's mostly harmless and I don't care. I can't for the life of me figure out why these companies don't do that....
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Interesting)
It's one of three reasons:
1. The release engineer who coded the installer is clueless about the registry, about windows standards, and is a void.
2. They want to make it so difficult to uninstall that you decide to keep their scumware installed rather than go through the bother of removing it (or paying someone else to remove it)
3. Product management refuses to let the release engineer do things the right way (see below)
I've designed many installers, and I've inherited spaghetti-coded installer projects that had to be nearly completely rewritten (Installshield pro). I was always blocked by management from completely redesigning it but every time I had to add new functionality to a module I would completely rewrite and comment the code. The first release after I took on the project included fixes which made it clean up after itself on an uninstall (mostly hacks to work around code I wasn't allowed to rewrite). At one point I was so fed up with maintaining the shitty code that I wrote a whole new installer in Installshield Developer on my own home computer on my home time and brought it in and demoed it. I FINALLY won everyone over - except marketing, who put a stop to it. Why? Because "it's different" - the thing is, I made it compliant to Windows Logo program standards, had it self-repairing and everything. They (marketing) were so put off by the fact that it was different that they didn't care that it was modern and MORE marketable because the installer didn't look like it was for a 16 bit OS any more (keep in mind this was in 2001, and last I heard they were STILL using the same crappy old installer). So, I deleted the code. (justice was served though: months later they offshored development, I was let go, thank GOD - I was the only one they retained through the end of the year, and a few months later they gave me a generous offer to come back, and also asked if I happened to have the installer. I said hell no to coming back because it was DISGUSTING how they laid off all my friends the day before thanksgiving, and I also told them there is no way I am giving them work I did on my own equipment on my own time.)
Speaking of which I really miss release engineering. I really ought to go back to it.
Re:Lenovo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lenovo (Score:4, Funny)
He's a "responsible IT person" -- you know the sort. I imagine his Microsoft rep told him that Chrome wasn't Enterprise-Ready(tm).
I know who has the least... (Score:4, Informative)
Apple.
Even better (Score:5, Funny)
You can remove *all* your crapware just by installing Snow Leopard and logging in as guest!
Re:Even better (Score:5, Informative)
Well played sir, well played.
I'm not a Mac, I'm not a PC... I own both, and I use Linux and Solaris for servers. I see my computers are tools, but I am not.
As for the crapware, I tend to agree with TFA: My Macbook Pro had little (though, I'm an amateur photographer so I kind of think of iPhoto as a crapware version of LightRoom and PhotoShop). Dells that I've ordered through Small Business division (both for work and personal) have been free of it. Sony Vaios, HP Pavillions have been kind of loaded with it, and my Samsung netbook really wasn't too bad.
Wow, I've got way too many computers.
What.. have... I ... said? That's just the crazy talk right there!
Define "Crapware." (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
By that definition, the "crapware" winner would have to be most Linux distros. With the exception of machines that are set up for development / produ
no wonder people are switching to Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:no wonder people are switching to Mac (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Dell's business computers can be ordered plain vanilla or without the OS loaded, if you wish. I always recommend their business line, whether the person asking is a business or home user.
Business lines can be expensive though and hard to justify to a home user who surfs the web three times a week.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. Dell's business stuff is great. In founding my current company, my partner and I actually purchased $10,000 worth of Serious-Business-Level rackmount equipment as individuals. Dell doesn't care, which is just the way it should be.
Re: (Score:2)
Here we say "just build your own" but to most of the world that is not an option. They have no choice but ot buy a pre-build system and manufacturers have realized that. People will be pissed off if you laden their machine with malware but they will not stop buying it.
Link to the latest crapware cleaner (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Link to the latest crapware cleaner (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu w/o added crap - Masonux (Score:3, Interesting)
Masonux [google.com] 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!
Re:Link to the latest crapware cleaner (Score:5, Funny)
With Gentoo on the other hand, the shit on your system is handpicked ;-)
Tough discussion.. (Score:2, Interesting)
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 installati
Good recent experience with Asus (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ironically, some high-school gets paid $100 to remove the crapware that resulted in the $100 discount.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Insightful)
Reinstalling the OS? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Recovery DVD (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org] the preinstalled operating system and crapware back on. (In fact, that's how they're set up.)
PC Decrapifier (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PC Decrapifier (Score:5, Insightful)
In Store Techs (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, he had a point... it is hard to do yourself. Do you have a vanilla Vista install disc with a valid OEM license code for it? No? Okay, then have fun removing the crapware manually... ;)
Actually, that's one of the nice things about Vista. If you do have a vanilla Vista disc, it can reinstall every other version of Vista. For example, you can pop in a (boxed copy) Home Premium DVD, type in a Vista Business OEM key, and it will install the right version.
Sometimes you'll have to phone Microsoft's (auto
Just use decrapifier (Score:3, Informative)
I always use this first thing on new crap-loaded laptops that aren't going to get wiped with Linux.
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/ [pcdecrapifier.com]
Free as in beer for personal use.
installed versus auto-start (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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
This cannot be stressed enough. Not everything needs a systray icon. Not everything needs to be so complicated to remove from startup without asking me in advance. Apple is a guilty party of this, even moreso with Itunes. Going to system.msc to try to remove a startup item(which is hard to read) is going to give you a guaranteed "access denied".
To this day I sometime
Try to remember (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not exactly that they think their software is that important... it is a way of cheating.
When they "auto-start" the app when the operating system loads, they are pre-loading some memory and executing some initialization. So then, when you go to start their program.... BAM! It pops up so quickly! What a great piece of software, it is so fast!!!
And yes, this trick works on about 99% of users.
iWork vs. MS Works (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
I just bought an HP laptop (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Geek Squad Ripoff (Score:3, Interesting)
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....
I'll tell you who (Score:5, Insightful)
Who installs the most crapware?
My mother does.
Re:I'll tell you who (Score:5, Funny)
*cough* Er, sorry. I'm putting the chainsaw down now.
Samsung has it right (Score:3, Informative)
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.
HP is the worst of the big brands (Score:3, Informative)
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
Download Microsoft "autorun" and turn stuff off (Score:5, Informative)
Autorun [microsoft.com], 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.
Acer is pretty bad... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
roundtop-vjas (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:2 Simple solutions (Score:5, Funny)
Why yes, I am an apple fanboy. How did you guess?
By the way that you pretended to defer to Linux first.
Re:2 Simple solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
Why yes, I am an apple fanboy. How did you guess?
You're a self-described bum.
Re:2 Simple solutions (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.
;-)
Re:2 Simple solutions (Score:4, Funny)
...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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:2 Simple solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2 Simple solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
You fail to understand how cheap some businesses are.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't buy a Mac if you intend to play games
I thought that's what iTunes was for: loading games onto an iPodendo [apple.com].
Re:Apple crapware? (Score:5, Insightful)
> And how exactly does iWork fail to compete with Microsoft Works?
By not being bug-for-bug identical (and if it was it would be dismissed as "a mere clone"). To these people to "compete" is do exactly the same thing in the same way. They'd claim Ford and Chevrolet don't compete because their cars have gas caps on opposite sides.
And the fact that there is a vast amount of software available for Linux and the Mac that is not available for Windows is irrelevant to them because they can't imagine anyone ever wanting to run any software not available for Windows.