A common complaint that people have when they buy PC’s is “it comes with all this junk that I’ll never use and never asked for.” The junk they are referring to is “Crapware” which can be best described as the software that computer companies load onto home PC’s. They are typically trial versions of applications or simply stripped down versions of their normal applications. There is a small percentage of this stuff that is useful, but most of it sucks and most users want it off their computers as quickly as possible (usually by doing so, they gain a ton of disk space back). Why do computer companies do this? Simple. The profit on that shiny new computer that you bought is 4% or less for whoever built it. They need to make money somehow so shoving useless software onto your computer is a quick and easy way to do it as software companies pay computer companies to put this crap on your computer.
Sure you can uninstall that stuff one application at a time, but that’s a time consuming process and you sometimes miss stuff. So how do you remove this stuff once and for all in the easiest manner possible?
For this task, I use a tool called The PC Decrapifier to remove this stuff from people’s computers. It works with Windows XP and Windows Vista and removes a lengthy list of software that is typically installed on consumer PC’s as well as web browser addins and Internet Explorer home and search pages that track back to places that you won’t usually go to. It works well and results in a PC that you’ll like a lot more. The software is free for personal use, but the author has a $5 “personal use subscription” which is basically a donation, and a $20 “commercial use subscription” for Nerds like me. I highly recommend this to anyone who is sick of the crap that comes with a new computer.