Technology Ticks

New laptops and phones often come with "free" or "trial" software that are unfortunately inefficient, ineffective, space-hogging and unnecessary -- like a bad case of relatives who just won't go away.

Luminaries include: McAfee (which burns memory), MS Office 2007 (which isn't too bad but the UI sucks big time) and Norton Antivirus (the grand-bugger of Memory hoggers).

So why does it happen?

It boils down to marketing new software and convincing owners that they need more expensive hardware to make up for their new toy's "slowness" and other inadequacies. As Afterdawn says, "Space and memory are so cheap and plentiful that developers have seen a way to turn this into a marketing feature and are often put as a priority. (source: Afterdawn)."

Good thing some folks have created an app to de-bloat your PC. The aptly-named PC Decrapifier (free for personal use) "can be used to clean off most of the annoying software that is typically shipped with newer PCs."

Give it a go, spin, twirl and whirl.

Also laptop/phone makers should happily de-bloat your new toy for free/peanuts/gratis. But if they charge you good money to remove Bloatware that they've put inside in the first place... well, raise hell!!!