Why Does Bloatware Exist?

There is one thing everyone should understand and that is all these free programs we use would not be there if the provider could not try to propagate things with their installs that make them money somewhere. While employed have you ever considered working out of the goodness of your heart for nothing? You would have to be a philanthropist to do so which means quite wealthy and willing to give back.

No one hates that bloatware more than I do but I do but here is the problem. Years ago there were two ways for software to propagate the internet. One was to sell it, the other was to give it free and if you like it you throw them some money. Today we have a 3rd way, “freeload” and ignore suggestions for contributions to help pay for use. The simple fact is now that the internet is for everyone and not just entrepreneurs, no one ever contributes anything but probably me and and my friend Dan, because we think about the fact that these folks have to make a living and we do not want to take something from a stranger. It’s the “free loaders” that actually created the environment and if rather then rag on the people who try to buy bread any way they can, we instead rag on the “free loaders” who are the real cause and encourage users to contribute a few $ to help the guy who gives them the good thing for nothing, the whole thing would change. I am not talking personally here about anyone here as I have no idea if any of you ignore “contribute” mentions but I know from many of the companies they get about nothing from those postings in so many cases. That is one of the reasons I have always had issue with users who expect to find free programs to do everything and who have no idea how much harm that really causes to the system….again nothing personal here, this just needed to be said.

 

Why Rich have you got issues with what someone else does? As long as your concience is clean that's all you should be concerned about. You telling me what I should or should not do.I think not.
Probably thousands of times you have advised member's to get the free version. Speccy comes to mind.
Do you send Mozilla a monthly check for using their browser?
Even PC manufactures load their laptops with Bloatware/ crapware we didn't ask for. It's part of life.
If a company offers me free sofware and I wan't that free software then I will accept it.
If they offer free software and they really can't afford to then they should change the way they do business. The Paid version normally covers the cost of their free version they give away.Of course if I like the freeby software then I have donated. Most free versions are scaled down paid for versions and not worth donating to. That's my choice. I have no one to answer to.

 

I have some questions about all this. How does putting the ASK toolbar and other tool bars; redirecting your home page and the other sneaky little things make these freeware programs money. Here read what MBAM thinks??. PUP's are malware and have no place in freeware!
https://blog.malwarebytes.org/malve...-persistent/https://www.malwarebytes.org/pup/

https://www.malwarebytes.org/pup/

 

One of the main reasons why I use Apple products because of bloatware. My son purchase a expensive Lenovo
laptop to do some gaming with windows 10 and it came with some intalled bloatware. You're right Rich they are free loaders,,,,,I like that!

 

"Why Rich have you got issues with what someone else does? As long as your conscience is clean that's all you should be concerned about. You telling me what I should or should not do.I think not."

First of all I say in several places this is not personal so you can't come back and say I have issues with what you do. But let's say I let you do, then you have it backwards if you are saying all you use is free programs and you never chip in to help pay for development, it's what you don't do I am taking issue with.
In a purely ideological world, which of course does not exist, you pay for what you get. If the writer puts a box in there asking you to contribute if you use the program and will continue to do so, he isn't telling you how much is he? If 500,000 people all contributed $1 to Spywareblaster, think of all the support the program could have and how many other programs the software developer could afford to make! I never meant to suggest you should give him $50 but would it break you to give him $1 to show you appreciate what he did for you? You would tip a coat check woman more than $1 for retrieving your coat, a job they are paid to do by someone else whether you pay them or not, that is called respect. So if you don't give a $ then I can reasonably say you use a program freely from someone you don't respect? But wait that doesn't make sense unless you say you will only buy programs from someone you respect, but that makes less sense. In that case if it screwed up your whole system as "Ccleaner" did to 2 of mine a few years ago, I guess I got what I deserved as so did Piriform?



"Probably thousands of times you have advised member's to get the free version, Speccy comes to mind."

Actually I have never recommended anyone to use "Speccy", but I do "SIW" and "Cpu-Z" but I see nothing on their sites asking for contributions for using free version either so they do not count. I see nothing on the Piriform site asking for a contribution but I do see plenty of paid versions of their same programs. What do you want to bet they used to ask for contributions but now they simply try as hard as they can to load you up with "bloatware" since no one ever gave them contributions in the past and instead will take contributions in the form of paid dividends from the "Bloatware" promoters instead? You see you are making my whole point here, except this is not, I repeat not and should not be personal!




"Do you send Mozilla a monthly check for using their browser?
Even PC manufactures load their laptops with Bloatware/ crapware we didn't ask for. It's part of life."

Now we add in the PC mfgrs and they are the biggest offenders of all. They are making more than enough money selling computers where they do not have to load you up with "bloatware" in addition except they are greedier than the rest of the offenders and there is no limit to what they will try to get away with. They sell you a pc and load it up with "scumware" and then hide behind their warranty only covers hardware (even though they gave you all the software issues that maimed your computer) and were paid to try as hard as they could to infect your pc by others, even though you were really the client?


"If a company offers me free software and I want that free software then I will accept it.
If they offer free software and they really can't afford to then they should change the way they do business. The Paid version normally covers the cost of their free version they give away.Of course if I like the freeby software then I have donated. Most free versions are scaled down paid for versions and not worth donating to. That's my choice. I have no one to answer to."

Again you prove my point. If the old way of doing things was to either sell you the software, or let you use it and suggest a contribution if you intend to keep using it doesn't work, then there are only 2 other possibilities they can use. Stop eating, or try as hard as they can to make commissions from bloatware makers to load you up with enough "scumware" to sink a battleship and then reap the rewards that you made them go after.

 

Hi guys! I'm probably confused about this topic. Are we talking bloatware or PUP's? Is it installed by the manufacture or is it installed by a low life down load company's like CNET. There is no excuse for doing these things to PC users.
A PUA / PUP (potentially unwanted application / potentially unwanted program) is a software that may be unwanted on the PC and sometimes comes bundled with freeware software. You can use the software at no additional costs but it will display pop-ups or install a toolbar in the default browser changing the homepage or the search engine. Some of them will also run several processes in the background, slowing down the PC or will display numerous ads. These programs can be installed without your consent (also called adware) or will be included by default in the express installation kit (ad-supported). In order to avoid installing such PUA / PUP, you have to always install the main software by choosing the advanced/custom options

 

The overall category is "Bloatware" to me and I would say that "pups" are a type of "Bloatware" so Iguess I look at them as the same.

 

Good read at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2477704,00.asp

That was posted last march Talked about his father buying a PC..

 

Many talk about what we used to call "the Dell Decrapifier" whioc is now " the PC Decrapifier". I have never used it but maybe its time I try it.
https://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download/free
Of course all of this is a great ad for either building your own pc or buying a custom built one.

 

PC Decrapifier is in my toolbox. I've used it years ago and like it! Now I use an Ipad and chromebook that will be replace with a new labtop I'll use it to remove Bloatware or crapware.

 

New Laptops come with so much crapware it's a wonder they even boot.
Last new Laptop HP I bought for my wife I wiped the drive and done a clean install the second day.
The speed difference it made to the laptop was amazing.

 

Good to know.

 

Yeah, now you got me thinking. I'll probably going to go that route thanks for the advice!

 

That is what I used to do with all client oem purchases, especially for businesses. Open the box, f-disk and install Windows without even looking at what was on before.

 

Reminds me of a real eye opener in my past. I had a Dell desktop, and this was before I was building and it is so long ago I forget the model number
but it was Windows 98. On the radio show when someone called in and asked when it was time to upgrade and the answer we always gave was "when it becomes so slow you are ready to throw
it away". So I had a friend help me I was going to take the guts out because I liked the tower and replace the board, cpu and memory. We bought everything for this removed the Dell hardware and then discovered that we could never connect the motherboard to the power button because the power jumpers were all in 1 plug and there was no schematic as to what was what so we bought a new case. Then after being all done I decided to put everything back in the Dell case as we had used none of it but I thought I'll just install Windows and programs. Put it all back together and installed Windows and programs and made a dramatic discovery. This unit was so fast I now wanted it and what was the real difference? Obviously having a pc with Windows and programs and none of the Dell software on it was way faster than buying the unit and then uninstalling all the Dell software. So having none of the bloatware there in the first place made it much faster than simply removing whatever I didn't want and the unit wasn't old enough to have the hard drive wear out or have Windows to be really corrupt because I had used it barely a year before doing all this. From then on I would unbox the unit, f-disk it and install Windows and programs and that behavior carried on for all clients where I did not custom build which I started to do shortly after that experience!

 

That is all good and well, but do consider if you get a laptop and find it full of crapware, and you then clean install another copy of windows (with the same key of course) it will default to Windows drivers, and some of them especially with laptops it's crucial to get the OEM specific drivers for something (audio-SATA-Touchpad-Bluetooth etc) so be sure to google the model number of the product and get the official support page for the device and get all the drivers you can for the appropriate OS and stash them on a thumb drive. After replacing 52 workstations with memory recently I had the pleasure of reimaging some I5 HP Elite books yesterday to clean images of windows for resell. The pleasure is in the fact that there is no "bloatware" for the end-user

 

Oh right the next step after install is oem site to download proper drivers from mfgr. Then do all Windows Updates and that is the full process I do.
I make image files with Macrium after each step as well so in case something goes wrong I don't have to start over.

 

Very good idea Rich I do the same on my personal rigs/laptops.

 

In fact I make an image of the OS directly after bootup and I have turned off auto-updates to notify, and then I make another after specific drivers, and then another after rudimentary software etc.