


Wiping run-of-the-mill crapware off your PC is fairly straightforward, assuming it doesn’t sneak in deeper, more dangerous hooks like Superfish did. Cleaning up the messĪll’s not lost if you buy a standard bloatware-filled PC, however. Their PCs tend to be a bit pricer and focused on gaming or business-ready workstations, however. Don’t worry! It’s not as difficult as you may think.Īlternatively, boutique system builders like Digital Storm, AVA Direct, and Origin can build you a custom rig with nary a whiff of shovelware installed. If you want a proper bloatware-free desktop with a bit more firepower, you’ll need to build your own machine and install Windows yourself. The Signature Edition lineup focuses on notebook and all-in-ones, however. Microsoft’s visualization of a Signature Edition PC, and a bloatware-filled cousin. Microsoft puts its money where its mouth is, too: The company’s Surface laptop-like tablets are similarly bloatware-free. (There’s a reason pricier premium laptops often contain far less bloatware than budget PCs.) That extra revenue often makes all the difference for vendors between taking a bath on competitively priced PCs, or eking out a small profit. The developers of bloatware pay hardware makers cold, hard cash to pump your PC full of this crap and get in front of your eyeballs. PC makers don’t really believe that short-lived antivirus trialware is the best security solution for you, or that adding browser toolbars will make your life easier, or that a “visual discovery tool” like Superfish truly adds to the user experience. Superfish injected ads in action on the Apple website. There’s simply no real money to be made on dirt-cheap hardware. PC vendors make little to no money on such slim margins, which is a core part of the reason HP is splitting off its PC division (again), Dell took itself private, and Sony and Samsung have bowed out of the PC industry to varying degrees.

Mainstream personal computers are a cut-throat business prices have been racing to the bottom for years now. While that sounds good on paper, deep down it’s actually troubling news for the PC industry. The NPD group says that the average selling price of Windows computers fluctuated between just $415 and $430 in October 2014-10 percent lower than prices a year earlier, and a new low watermark for PCs. But good news! Prices are plummeting in the wake of dirt-cheap Chromebooks and Microsoft’s resulting counter-attack. Money’s tight, and even the cheapest PCs are a major, multi-hundred dollar investment. Sony sold off its Vaio PC line and exited the computing industry completely in early 2014.
