“In a recent study on Windows 8 crapware, tech news site InformationWeek polled PC makers to see what software they were bundling into their computers,” Don Reisinger reports for MIT Technology Review. “The vendors were surprisingly forthright, detailing the many first- and third-party programs added to their PCs.”
Reisinger reports, “Crapware has long been a thorn in the sides of Windows users. Consumers and enterprise users buy PCs under the faulty impression that they’ll be getting a completely clean computer when they break open the box. Instead, they find a PC that’s been loaded up with junk that they typically don’t need. What’s worse, all of that software slows down boot times and performance, since the programs are usually set to load automatically and typically run in the background.”
“Microsoft is nice enough to offer a ‘Signature’ experience to Windows shoppers that improves boot times and increases shut down speeds. Best of all, the company removes all trialware before shipping PCs to customers,” Reisinger reports. “But like anything else in the land of crapware, there’s a catch: Microsoft charges $99 for Signature.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Platform o’ Crap.
Related articles:
Sony backs down, says won’t charge $50 for crapware removal – March 22, 2008
Windows box assemblers clog hard drives, bog down PCs with ‘crapware’ – April 18, 2007
I like our crap. I like it a lot.
And the point of this “study” was?
It should have been obvious what the results of the study were going to be before they started.
Nothing new here. It’s been this way since the first OEM shipment of windows 95
Windows 8 itself is the carpware.
Sorry…typo… “crapware”
“carpware” works in this case. People keep carping over how slow their PCs are.
Nice! ;p
Some is fishy here!
There’s a photo of SinOfSky standing in front of a table full of Windows 8 machines with their Fisher Price tiles all ablaze. Looks like some cheap 80s arcade or a strip mall Pachinko parlor.
(Don’t get me wrong…I like the 80s…for the music tho.)
Spend $99 to get something you don’t want ….. Normally I spend money on what I want, not on want I don’t want ….. Silly Rabbits …..
Windows 8 itself is trialware. It’s a trial to use.
Crapware is one of Microsoft’s biggest profit centers, so…
Signature is like paying the car dealer to remove the scratches from the brand new car you just bought.
It’s Ballmers fault. All of it. 😉
It’s been so long since I built and ran a Wintel Box, I had almost erased from my memory all the negative aspects of MSFT’s OS. Crapware, rebooting, reinstalling and hunting up all my other programs, blue screen of death. Thanks MDN for bringing up all the horror that is Windows. I’ll try to forget them again by firing up my new 27″ IMAC.
And the surprise is…?
Not many comments after the story yet, but here’s a particularly revealing one concerning Android:
Hador –
“These days the problem is hardly limited to Windows PCs as most smart phone users who purchased their phone through their provider will know.
Every time I get a firmware update for my Android phone I get about a dozen of crapware Apps which clog the phone and worst of all: Unlike on a Windows PC most of these Apps cannot actually be de-installed without rooting the OS….which of course can be done, but usually voids your warranty….”
This is so damning, I can’t begin to fathom it. I don’t do Android or Windows, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to start with all this crapware to deal with.
Shirley, you can’t be serious?!
Don’t call me Shirley!
all normal gadget users say that iOS is the full crap compare with Android and i agree with them 100% beeing iPad retina user and Nexus 4 ( because of wait a lot more from iphone 5) Just try to figure out what you missing using crap iOS instead of more customized Android. Apple – it’s all about the style and nothing else except ipad 3 which is still the best large retina-quality display on the market for a while. BTW you’ll pay 3 time more buying Mac for the same parameters on PC
Obviously written on a Windows device…
…By a Samsung paid troll who wrote his rant in Korean then translated it to English using MS Bingo. Hilarious.
tyme two torne de grandmar an spel chequer bak on, , mayte!!
Thanks for throwing in a couple of random periods here and there – it made that rant almost, but not quite, fathomable.
Dear Samsung: You really SHOULD look harder for your anti-Apple trolls AND pay them better. Is this the best troll you could find?
• because of wait a lot more from iphone 5
• Just try to figure out what you missing using crap iOS instead of more customized Android
• BTW you’ll pay 3 time more buying Mac for the same parameters on PC
These aren’t just lies. They’re pathetically inept. Do try harder. Samsung, you’re making a fool out of yourself, again.
Dimitrey, did you just do a direct Google Translation from Albanian to English? Whatever, your syntax blows goats.
While this is no defense of the crap that gets loaded on those things, enterprise users won’t see it. Companies will normally have their own custom image configuration that they’ll load on new systems after wiping the drive. But consumers and small businesses will certainly deal with it.
It’s just another form of advertising. The PC makers (or maybe Microsoft) get paid by third-party app developers to shove stuff customers don’t want in their faces. And the fee to “opt-out” is apparently $99, just like having to pay extra for “premium” cable channels with no commercials.
Hey, how else are the PC makers (who aren’t Apple) going to make any money on their indistinguishable commodity junk.
(Having to pay $99 to NOT have stuff you don’t want loaded on your brand new PC is essentially extortion.)
It’s plain old user-abuse, aka marketing-moron behavior.
Go for the bucks. F*ck the customer.
Windows. Pay the regular price for the full-blown crappy experience, or for only $99 more, a merely shitty experience. Your choice.