Just bought a new PC for home (general picture and music management / surfing duty mainly) so nothing fancy.

But WTBF is it with loading them with third party software? It took me about three hours just uninstalling various ad blockers, spam filters, virus checkers etc which were, in truth the spam in themselves.

I switched the computer on for the first time, launched Explorer (now deleted) and straight away I was getting voice over messages, video etc popping up ‘selling’ the benefits of the various crap they had pre-loaded onto it.

Then I tried to install Chrome and the machine tried to tell me it was *&$%ling malware!!!!!

I don’t know my way around them that well but well enough to deal with this crap, but if you didn’t know what to do with it all, you’d be pretty hacked off surely?

Ohh, and then when I uninstalled, it launched browsers telling me not to do it, that my laptop would be eaten by tigers if I did. Just let me do what I want FFS.

(Hewlett Packard from EBuyer BTW)

I ^&(*ing hate ’em

HP (like every supplier) make money from companies to install their software on PCs sold to the public. Sadly most people don’t know how to take the stuff off or install the stuff they actually need/want. There is very little margin on hardware these days and every penny matters

But this makes for a pretty shocking user experience for users – I can’t imagine my mother-in-law having a clue what to do when some stupid pop-over starts telling her about some virus she has ‘got’ on her machine, although it is just a panic ad to make you subscribe to their service.

Hardly a PC problem is it, it’s an OEM problem.

I’m surprised that it’s HP giving you problems though, they’re usually pretty good. Or at least, used to be.

Yeah but I blame it on PCs because I buy a Mac for the office, switch it on, click a few buttons and it’s running.

It’s like buying a new car and finding that the dealer has already installed furry dice, UV lighting and a bitchin’ sound system without asking. Probably.

That’s the windows/manufacturer selling model unfortunately. FWIW I would keep IE as not all websites run properly on the others.

If HP PC’s are anything like their printer drivers and associated apps, I’d expect them to have a bluray’s worth of cruft that deserves to be deleted.

Hp PCs are goddamned awful, I paid £800 for one 2 years ago, within a year, the computer felt like it was on its last life, battery done for, heating up so much it shuts down, researched it, apparently it was a major design flaw, dust accumulates inside the graphics card, nowhere for it to go. Decide to clean it out, open it up to find that pretty much everything is glued inside with **** plastic brackets, total POS, the hardware was utter crap along with the software you mentioned.. On the flipside, got my sisters 10 year old (at least!) Toshiba, runs good as ever, battery’s just shit, been passed down to 3 people, now me working good as ever, feels really really solid, has some actual weight to it unlike the HP, put in an SSD and it’s perfect 🙂

FWIW I would keep IE as not all websites run properly on the others.

really? most seem to work best on anything other than IE.

I would keep IE as not all websites run properly on the others.

Don’t be daft. I haven’t used it in years and have never had an issue (on Macs and PCs)

Microshite won’t go near it. Once you’ve gone Mac you won’t go back.

My Acer wasn’t too bad, with regards to bloatware, which I was quite surprised about. There was some on there, but nothing too obtrusive.

I found a good little program that scanned your computer for commonly installed ‘bloat’, highlighted it all and gave you the option of deleting it.
Not much help though, as I can’t remember what it was called.

Once you’ve gone Mac you won’t go back.

well you certainly won’t be able to afford to after you have paid twice the price to have some residual value etc…..
The issue has nothing at all to do with microsoft, it’s about OEM suppliers loading machines up with extras to try and make money rather than just charging 2-3x what it actually costs for no real reason. I loaded Win7 from scratch last year on 2 machines, set up in under an hour and running smooth.

Microshite won’t go near it. Once you’ve gone Mac you won’t go back.

I use Macs all day every day in the office, just want something cheap for home that will hold all the music, films and pictures (Around 500gig worth). Won’t get a Mac to do that for £360.

EDIT: Just looked at £2k for a 500gig Pro (largest they do) – so I would be using external drives straight away so no thanks to that. (The PC I got has a 1TB drive)

There really should be a Godwin’s law equivalent for any thread that mentions a specific issue with PCs or Macs (or I guess Chromebooks) as to how long it’ll take to degenerate into muppetry.

Suggestions on a name for it? Job’s Law? Bill’s Law?

Once you’ve gone Mac you won’t go back.

I did.
although it was M$ to M$+Linux to Linux to Mac to Linux.
Shame about the # being in the wrong place, and 2 mouse buttons missing.
Just bought a Chromebook for fractionally more than the RRP for a 3rd replacement Macbook battery that I was quoted.

Bought a zoostorm from ebuyer…plain vanilla win8…no crapware.

@johdoh – you can run a Mac Mini headless as a server (ie controlled remotely via another Mac and/or connected the tv as the screen), still will be £500+ though and won’t do the web browsing duties. FYI external drives via USB3 are as fast as internal ones I understand.

Anyway as we said and you know you just have to keep on top of all the nonsense software which tries to load itself.

@mike you pay more for a better quality product which works better, stays current and thus lasts much longer

Recently bought a Win 8.1 powerhouse from PC Specialist

No adware, no trial software, nothing

Boots from the SSD from cold in about 10 seconds. Oarsum

@mike you pay more for a better quality product which works better, stays current and thus lasts much longer

Hmmm not really though, you pay a hell of a lot more for something that is the same on the inside running a different OS in a shiney case. They make models obsolete with software changes and won’t allow you to update certain models. It’s hardly Utopia is it. Posted from a 4 year old windows laptop that is running just fine, other windows desktop is an evolution that has been upgraded over time and is as powerful and stable as it needs to be and overall still cheaper than buying a mac.

Yeah but I blame it on PCs because I buy a Mac for the office, switch it on, click a few buttons and it’s running.

You’re comparing apples and oranges, tho. Completely different selling models.

@mike you pay more for a better quality product which works better, stays current and thus lasts much longer

But as I said above, for £360 I got something that the largest capacity Macbook Pro can’t do – handle all my files. It isn’t brilliant and build quality is nothing like a Mac (I wouldn’t expect it to be) but I could get get a new one every two years and still have something that cost half the money of the Pro over six years and I doubt a new Pro now would be still running very well in six years time anyway (especially with the meagre 500gig SSD drive).

You’re comparing apples and oranges, tho. Completely different selling models.

Agreed, but I just think loading them with crap is a particularly bad selling model – especially as the crap they put on tries to stop me from downloading legitimate applications. As I said before, it doesn’t bother me but it is no wonder some people get flummoxed by it all.

better quality product which works better

Bout the same really

stays current

Depends what your policy is for checking for updates, applying updates. XP PC kept reverting my choice from “requires user to hit OK” to “auto update”. Thus actually was more upto date than Mac, which required user to check for updates. Linux PC I had set to check daily.

and thus lasts much longer

My cheap eeePC outlasted my Mac. As did my last desktop PC. (edit: both electomechanically, and OS)

I wouldn’t run a PC with all the pre-installed rubbish on it. They even sell PCs for business like that.
You just gotta put the install disk in and reinstall Windows as you want it. And set up the partitions in a sensible way too.
S’what I’d do anyway.

This was from EBuyer (not specifically B2B but it is their main market) so I am very surprised it arrived with all this on, just like it was fresh from PC World.

Won’t be partitioning it or anything, just bung the stuff on, keep it well backed up and buy another in three years when this grinds to a halt/gets broken by the kids 🙂

We all have our different preferences, my 2009 Mini is still my main computer runs Mavericks with 99% of the features (missing only full AirPlay screen mirroring via Apple TV as the hardware is too old). I never had a Windows machine which lasted more than 3 years and 2 was more like the norm. Software patches to fix dodgy MS OS are not the same as new versions of the OS which these days are free and when they where chargable cost £15 not £100’s like MS. I think Mac OS works a million times better than MS, I am not interested in Windows 7 is great, but 8 is rubbish as I was totally fed up with their garbage having used it for 25 years.

I am a little ashamed to admit it, but I quite like the Win 8 interface already. Have been popping apps on (Dropbox and the like) and customising the homescreen to my liking and it’s quite fun. I bet it works very nicely with a phablet (or whatever they call laptop/tablet devices.

Is this the same Apple that can’t make a charger worth a damn?

Also, I love Windows 8.

yes, it’s awful.

I purchased a legit windows 8.1 license and installed fresh. You shouldn’t have to but hey ho.

Just run PC Decrapifier on a new PC. Easy.

Just run PC Decrapifier on a new PC.

Is that pre-loaded?

And another thing, one programme was trying to tell me that another one was unnecessary and should be deleted! Bloody warfare on my computer. I wonder what would happen if I started it up, opened all the apps and let them fight it out?

PC Decrapifier

Choose what you want to uninstall and the software does it for you, saves uninstalling everything one by one.

So is that any good then? There are a couple of bits in there I wasn’t too sure about so left on.

SooperCooper – Member
Just run PC Decrapifier on a new PC. Easy.

That’s what I was going on about in my first post up somewhere near the top. Couldn’t remember the name…..

Once you’ve gone Mac you won’t go back.

well you certainly won’t be able to afford to after you have paid twice the price to have some residual value etc…..

You won’t want to after experiencing a Mac. I’ve used PC’s since school. Well, BBC Micros, upwards. Got a MacBook earlier this year and have had zero issues with it, not one, not a single bit of malware or third party software installed, not a single blue screen or reboot required. And I use it a lot (most of the time).

Twice the price for infinitely less trouble…I’ll certainly save and buy one again!

Regarding residual value, I had a 2 year old Sony Vaio,rrp £1000, went back for a new motherboard, endless crashing, rubbish battery life. Eventually sold it for £120. A 2 year old MacBook Air would fetch way more money, and it rrp’s for the same price. Spec? On paper the Sony was better, side by side the mac is 20 times quicker.

I’m now an Apple fanboy I guess…or maybe just a disgruntled (20+ years) PC owner who finally thought “there must be a better way”.

OP – I sympathise with your problem. My parents don’t know better (or anything) about computers. It’s taken me many visits to uninstall and disable loads of rubbish on there’s that made it unusable. No wonder so many people get hit with viruses and scams, it’s hard to tell what is genuine or needed and what isn’t. I’m seriously thinking that my parents could get by with an iPad for what they do and it would be far less hassle for me!

Just run PC Decrapifier on a new PC. Easy.

That sounds dangerous. I might have a play with that at some point.

Personally, i’d be doing a fresh install.

I’m not a fan of Apple; in my experience you pay well over the odds for last years’ hardware packaged in a shiny white box. I’m sure they work great, but i’d much rather have a PC. Keep on top of the admin, and you’ll be fine.

In my opinion, obviously!

A Macbook Pro is definitely worth the extra money, I’ve had windows PC’s up until last year and after running my Mac I would never go back, different class altogether in my opinion.

These threads are great. In this case it’s clear the OP is a victim of HP, not PC’s or microsoft.

My twopenneth, out of all the computers I use every day from £20k servers to massive grunt linux arrays to a ten year old laptop running XP or my macbook pro, my favourite is my old windows 7 PC. Ultra reliable, never ever had a problem with it, ever. Comes out of sleep in a couple of seconds which compared to my macbook which can take over a minute, it’s excellent. The macbook is a nice bit of tin but it’s really nothing special, just a computer, it goes wrong sometimes.

If you know what you’re doing you don’t buy Apple anymore. The built in planned obsolescence in the post Job’s era is the worst in the entire electronics world.