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Typically, third-party utilities such as these are easy to remove. Sometimes they’re easy to remove other times, you cannot remove them at all. Sometimes these come from the manufacturer of the PC itself, other times they’re from third-parties. Many Windows PCs come pre-loaded with various utilities, from DVD burners to video editors to system health utilities that scan your system for hardware issues and software updates, for example.
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And it’s typically easy to remove without additional hoops to jump through. It wants you to see it in the hopes of prompting a purchase. While many will find this annoying, at least this type of bloatware is not hidden. Many antivirus companies use this approach on Windows computers. Trialware is software that is pre-installed when you purchase your PC but that will eventually stop working without additional action on your part, such as dishing out some cash for a full license.
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Let’s look at some examples of different kinds of bloatware. The bloatware that steals your data and downloads malware is unlikely to cause a semantic debate. As I mentioned above, there can be a subjective element in defining bloatware (as long as it isn’t doing anything nasty). However, all operating systems include default apps – some of which you may find useless and consider to be bloatware. While there are some linux distributions, such as Ubuntu Linux, that do include some bloatware, more recent versions of Ubuntu provide a “Minimal installation” option during setup, that doesn’t install any bloatware.Īs such, we’ll provide some advice, specific to Windows 10, a bit further down. Mac computers do not include any bloatware when purchased, and most Linux distributions don’t include bloatware either. And so, to some degree, when the software isn’t doing anything malicious, whether or not it’s considered bloatware will depend on your usage.Īlso, bloatware is primarily a Windows OS issue – especially Windows 10. And at worst, bloatware will spy on you, download malware, etc.īut in the case of pre-installed software from your PC manufacturer, some people find some of those tools useful. In the middle ground, bloatware will slow down your computer.
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Bloatware consists of undesirable software on your computer that was either accidentally installed or pre-installed by your PC manufacturer, and which has a negative impact on your computer.Īt best, bloatware will simply take up space but will be innocuous.Here’s a general definition of bloatware: Still, bloat is not something we strive for in general, so bloatware is likely to be something undesirable. Defining bloatware isn’t as straightforward as you might think because there’s a bit of subjectivity involved.
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