Plus, manufacturers make it ridiculously difficult to remove them and most consumers aren't comfortable enough digging through Windows to figure out what's good to keep and what's not. They see those strange applications, but just believe they are part of the system they bought and should be left alone. They unbox, make connections, power on, and if Facebook loads, the task is done. Whenever I've acquired a new PC over the years, I spent the first few hours removing the crap I didn't want. I can do it, but I can't honestly say I know anyone in my family that could do it successfully. I would never (ever) hand those instructions to my Mom. But, that doesn't work for the majority of people that use Windows. I've read, even recently, articles outlining how to walk through long processes to take a PC that contains crapware, wipe it clean, and then install a pristine copy of Windows. Eliminate the crap and Windows runs great.

Crapware is one of the primary reasons why Windows gets a bum rap. There are very few that have ever experienced a completely clean Windows environment – and that's sad. So, in reality, customers never got a truly clean Windows experience. Even the recovery CDs (and later just recovery partitions on the hard drive) had the applications embedded, so that if you ever needed to restore a clean PC due to problems, those applications would reappear. Then, the situation took a sharp spiral downward and manufacturers would just go ahead and build the PCs with images that already included the application installed. The installation bits were included on the PC hard drive, and when you clicked on the desktop shortcut the application would allow you to opt-in to install or opt-out to have it removed. At first, it was in the form of desktop shortcuts. But, somewhere along the line, manufacturers started preinstalling those applications. I think that's where most of the AOL CDs ended up. Who remembers when it started exactly? In the early days, the software would come in the box on CDs and you could install them if you wanted. Thanks to the recent Lenovo debacle, more of the consumer industry has become aware of the unwanted applications that come preinstalled on almost every available PC.

Pc decrapifier review