6 ms·

> I suspect one reason for $600 devices, other than Google itself trying to reposition Chromebooks as more upmarket, is because $600 Windows laptops are still a

by skymt 8y ago

> I suspect one reason for $600 devices, other than Google itself trying to reposition Chromebooks as more upmarket, is because $600 Windows laptops are still are a mess of preloaded bullshit put there by the vendor. Microsoft has tried various ways to fix this but it only tends to protect high-end models. In the current version of Windows 10 there's a feature called "fresh start" that makes it trivial to reset to a clean OS install without vendor crap. It even automatically preserves your home directory. The only problem is that you need to know it exists, so it only benefits technical users and users with geeky friends to advise them. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-the-fresh-start-feature-in-windows-10-creators-update/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-the-fresh-st...

jenscow 8y ago
Unfortunately, this "vendor crap" is now part of the OS.
- moksha256 8y ago
  It's even worse than that. There's 2 types of crap now: vendor crap and Windows crap. You can avoid vendor crap by reinstalling a fresh version of Windows from Microsoft, but you'll still get Microsoft crap (i.e., various apps from the Microsoft store pre-installed with links prominently displayed on the Start menu).
  - ChrisSD 8y ago
    These are what Microsoft calls "suggestions" (aka adverts). I think they only actually install when you first click on them. Fortunately they're UWP apps so are easy to completely remove. Turning off the "Show suggestions" settings will stop them coming back.
    - zahrc 8y ago
      A clean install of Windows 10 (not n versions) is shipped with stupid game installers for things like candy crush, Disney magic and march of empire which you can remove easily, but not just "hide" with disabling suggestions.[1] [1] just did a clean install of win10 home
      - ChrisSD 8y ago
        Yes, I meant disabling "suggestions" stops them coming back again in the future. Although Windows has had update "bugs" whereby this setting is ignored. This is solved by delaying feature updates until at least a week or so after release.
        candiodari 8y ago
        Maybe I'm the only one here, but it seem absurd to me to count on Google, an advertising company, not advertise on Chromebooks. Not yet ... perhaps. Perhaps. Not ? No way.
        johncolanduoni 8y ago
        Since Chromebooks are very internet-forward, they get plenty of advertising opportunities without installing banner ads or something similar into the OS. Are you expecting them to start advertising on the Android home screen too?
        adventured 8y ago
        They already do something better for their ad business moat. They just push their Google Apps bloatware collection on the Android ecosystem at every possible chance they get. I use none of it, yet it still comes with my Samsung phone whether I like it or not. I would expect them to continue that approach with any operating systems they control.
        SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        Seems counterintuitive that you take such a strong stance against bloatware and yet use a Samsung phone. The preinstalled (and non-removable) mountain of crap was the reason I gave up on them after my Galaxy S3. Not that other vendors are much better, mind. But I'm quite happy with my OnePlus for now.
        canhascodez 8y ago
    - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
      Then they all come back with the next update.
      - ChristianGeek 8y ago
        Does this only happen on Windows Home?
        bananadonkey 8y ago
        This is also true for my recent numerous installs of Pro, which is absurd
        bananadonkey 8y ago
        Another fun fact is if you remove the App Installer or whatever it is called, you can't remove the "adware" apps
      - supernovae 8y ago
        I'm in the insider program, they don't/haven't come back in ages.
        slededit 8y ago
        I just had to delete "Candy Crush Soda Saga". Was it there before I did that ridiculous registry hack to prevent it? Or did they add a new one at some point... Who knows. Its clear they don't actually want people disabling the installation of them.
  - Boulth 8y ago
    Sometimes you can't even reinstall Windows easily, for example Dell has set SSD mode to Intel RAID by default (can be switched to AHCI) but Windows installation media doesn't come with Intel RAID driver by default. Installer doesn't see the disk at all (until switched to AHCI).
  - wonthegame 8y ago
    You can easily remove them. It's still annoying having to deleted Candy Crush. I would have a hard time justifying $400 for a Chromebook when a tablet+keyboard is cheaper and slightly better. Plus with Surface Go....$400 seems like a rip off for a Chromebook.
- samstave 8y ago
  True, I was using my brothers machine, which is win10 - and I havent used windows in years - and I was disgusted by the crappy UI/UX I was given - with its inbuilt notifications which even pop-up to tell you that you went into full screen mode and told it not to pop-up.... Also, the start menu looks like a freaking spyware minefield they way it takes up 60% of the screen when it is activated. Windows is absolutely a mess these days.
  - supernovae 8y ago
    Windows 10 start menu doesn't take up that much screen unless the user has configured it as such. Start menu from store is pretty clean. Go to a microsoft store and mess around with devices from there - they are "signature devices" that are clean. Windows isn't a mess these days in any sense of the word, It's just people who have a negative opinion of it speak about it with sympathy from others who have a negative opinion. The Windows subsystem for Linux is awesome, the app store is a move in the right direction (damned if you do, damned if you don't) and they're closing out a lot of legacy design elements with their annual updates. (dark mode, better high res / high dpi support, consistency of legacy/new elements. yaddy yaddy yadda) With a few minutes of trying you can all but customize the entire interface to your liking. ChromeOS has the benefit of not having decades of legacy to preserve - and Android is suffering many of the negatives you speak of with regards to Windows and iOS has completely the opposite problem being a controlled absolute dictatorship err walled garden.
    - satysin 8y ago
      My "signature edition" Surface Book 2 running Windows 10 Professional came with a bunch of crap on the start menu such as Candy Crush Saga, Twitter, some travel app, Minecraft, and advert for Office 365 and some other crap I can't remember. I had to right-click and uninstall them all manually but then a few days later a couple of them returned?! I ended up searching for a PowerShell script that actually removes them. Until a few months later when Microsoft rolled out the April 2018 update and they all magically reappeared again so I had to look up that fucking PowerShell script again. I could kind of accept this on the Home version but on the PROFESSIONAL version?! No fucking way. Why on earth should my pro version come with Minecraft and Twitter?! And this is a £2500 laptop made and sold by Microsoft! Not some £200 Acer from PC World.
benplumley 8y ago
As well as the bloatware added deliberately by Microsoft that's already mentioned, this method can't touch spyware and bloatware that's automatically reinstalled by the BIOS after reinstalling Windows. Unsurprisingly, the only company I could find evidence of actually having done this is Lenovo: https://betanews.com/2015/08/13/lenovo-bios-tool-prevents-clean-installs-of-windows-by-downloading-crapware/ https://betanews.com/2015/08/13/lenovo-bios-tool-prevents-cl...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mark_l_watson 8y ago
You can also buy a windows 10 laptop from the microsoft store and not getting any crap ware installed on it.
- hoosieree 8y ago
  Every other OS I've used recently (MacOS, Ubuntu, Centos, RHEL, ChromeOS) doesn't require special knowledge or extra work to remove pre-installed spyware/bloatware. They may well have crap installed, but at least they're subtle about it.
  - omegabravo 8y ago
    I remember Ubuntu coming installed with Amazon links. It certainly did require special knowledge to remove it. https://www.lifewire.com/remove-amazon-application-from-ubuntu-4134329 https://www.lifewire.com/remove-amazon-application-from-ubun... At least with Windows you can just right click, uninstall. That is until vendors break that mechanism too
    - inapis 8y ago
      If you are using Ubuntu, then you atleast have some knowledge about the OS and would be savvy enough to Google and run some commands on the terminal to fix it. Compared to Windows, which has a huge user base with absolutely no understanding of how the OS works and what to do if you don't like it OOTB.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      The current version of Ubuntu just has an affiliate link to Amazon. It may be overly difficult to remove and upsetting to some users, but it's nowhere near as egregious as the software many Windows machine are shipped with.
wmeredith 8y ago
The geeks could already get this stuff on their system easily. 10+ years in UX design has taught me that little is more powerful than setting something to “default”.

by skymt 8y ago

jenscow 8y ago

Unfortunately, this "vendor crap" is now part of the OS.

moksha256 8y ago
It's even worse than that. There's 2 types of crap now: vendor crap and Windows crap. You can avoid vendor crap by reinstalling a fresh version of Windows from Microsoft, but you'll still get Microsoft crap (i.e., various apps from the Microsoft store pre-installed with links prominently displayed on the Start menu).
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  These are what Microsoft calls "suggestions" (aka adverts). I think they only actually install when you first click on them. Fortunately they're UWP apps so are easy to completely remove. Turning off the "Show suggestions" settings will stop them coming back.
  - zahrc 8y ago
    A clean install of Windows 10 (not n versions) is shipped with stupid game installers for things like candy crush, Disney magic and march of empire which you can remove easily, but not just "hide" with disabling suggestions.[1] [1] just did a clean install of win10 home
    - ChrisSD 8y ago
      Yes, I meant disabling "suggestions" stops them coming back again in the future. Although Windows has had update "bugs" whereby this setting is ignored. This is solved by delaying feature updates until at least a week or so after release.
      - candiodari 8y ago
        Maybe I'm the only one here, but it seem absurd to me to count on Google, an advertising company, not advertise on Chromebooks. Not yet ... perhaps. Perhaps. Not ? No way.
        johncolanduoni 8y ago
        Since Chromebooks are very internet-forward, they get plenty of advertising opportunities without installing banner ads or something similar into the OS. Are you expecting them to start advertising on the Android home screen too?
        adventured 8y ago
        They already do something better for their ad business moat. They just push their Google Apps bloatware collection on the Android ecosystem at every possible chance they get. I use none of it, yet it still comes with my Samsung phone whether I like it or not. I would expect them to continue that approach with any operating systems they control.
        SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        Seems counterintuitive that you take such a strong stance against bloatware and yet use a Samsung phone. The preinstalled (and non-removable) mountain of crap was the reason I gave up on them after my Galaxy S3. Not that other vendors are much better, mind. But I'm quite happy with my OnePlus for now.
        canhascodez 8y ago
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Then they all come back with the next update.
    - ChristianGeek 8y ago
      Does this only happen on Windows Home?
      - bananadonkey 8y ago
        This is also true for my recent numerous installs of Pro, which is absurd
      - bananadonkey 8y ago
        Another fun fact is if you remove the App Installer or whatever it is called, you can't remove the "adware" apps
    - supernovae 8y ago
      I'm in the insider program, they don't/haven't come back in ages.
      - slededit 8y ago
        I just had to delete "Candy Crush Soda Saga". Was it there before I did that ridiculous registry hack to prevent it? Or did they add a new one at some point... Who knows. Its clear they don't actually want people disabling the installation of them.
- Boulth 8y ago
  Sometimes you can't even reinstall Windows easily, for example Dell has set SSD mode to Intel RAID by default (can be switched to AHCI) but Windows installation media doesn't come with Intel RAID driver by default. Installer doesn't see the disk at all (until switched to AHCI).
- wonthegame 8y ago
  You can easily remove them. It's still annoying having to deleted Candy Crush. I would have a hard time justifying $400 for a Chromebook when a tablet+keyboard is cheaper and slightly better. Plus with Surface Go....$400 seems like a rip off for a Chromebook.
samstave 8y ago
True, I was using my brothers machine, which is win10 - and I havent used windows in years - and I was disgusted by the crappy UI/UX I was given - with its inbuilt notifications which even pop-up to tell you that you went into full screen mode and told it not to pop-up.... Also, the start menu looks like a freaking spyware minefield they way it takes up 60% of the screen when it is activated. Windows is absolutely a mess these days.
- supernovae 8y ago
  Windows 10 start menu doesn't take up that much screen unless the user has configured it as such. Start menu from store is pretty clean. Go to a microsoft store and mess around with devices from there - they are "signature devices" that are clean. Windows isn't a mess these days in any sense of the word, It's just people who have a negative opinion of it speak about it with sympathy from others who have a negative opinion. The Windows subsystem for Linux is awesome, the app store is a move in the right direction (damned if you do, damned if you don't) and they're closing out a lot of legacy design elements with their annual updates. (dark mode, better high res / high dpi support, consistency of legacy/new elements. yaddy yaddy yadda) With a few minutes of trying you can all but customize the entire interface to your liking. ChromeOS has the benefit of not having decades of legacy to preserve - and Android is suffering many of the negatives you speak of with regards to Windows and iOS has completely the opposite problem being a controlled absolute dictatorship err walled garden.
  - satysin 8y ago
    My "signature edition" Surface Book 2 running Windows 10 Professional came with a bunch of crap on the start menu such as Candy Crush Saga, Twitter, some travel app, Minecraft, and advert for Office 365 and some other crap I can't remember. I had to right-click and uninstall them all manually but then a few days later a couple of them returned?! I ended up searching for a PowerShell script that actually removes them. Until a few months later when Microsoft rolled out the April 2018 update and they all magically reappeared again so I had to look up that fucking PowerShell script again. I could kind of accept this on the Home version but on the PROFESSIONAL version?! No fucking way. Why on earth should my pro version come with Minecraft and Twitter?! And this is a £2500 laptop made and sold by Microsoft! Not some £200 Acer from PC World.

benplumley 8y ago

As well as the bloatware added deliberately by Microsoft that's already mentioned, this method can't touch spyware and bloatware that's automatically reinstalled by the BIOS after reinstalling Windows. Unsurprisingly, the only company I could find evidence of actually having done this is Lenovo: https://betanews.com/2015/08/13/lenovo-bios-tool-prevents-clean-installs-of-windows-by-downloading-crapware/ https://betanews.com/2015/08/13/lenovo-bios-tool-prevents-cl...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mark_l_watson 8y ago

You can also buy a windows 10 laptop from the microsoft store and not getting any crap ware installed on it.

hoosieree 8y ago
Every other OS I've used recently (MacOS, Ubuntu, Centos, RHEL, ChromeOS) doesn't require special knowledge or extra work to remove pre-installed spyware/bloatware. They may well have crap installed, but at least they're subtle about it.
- omegabravo 8y ago
  I remember Ubuntu coming installed with Amazon links. It certainly did require special knowledge to remove it. https://www.lifewire.com/remove-amazon-application-from-ubuntu-4134329 https://www.lifewire.com/remove-amazon-application-from-ubun... At least with Windows you can just right click, uninstall. That is until vendors break that mechanism too
  - inapis 8y ago
    If you are using Ubuntu, then you atleast have some knowledge about the OS and would be savvy enough to Google and run some commands on the terminal to fix it. Compared to Windows, which has a huge user base with absolutely no understanding of how the OS works and what to do if you don't like it OOTB.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    The current version of Ubuntu just has an affiliate link to Amazon. It may be overly difficult to remove and upsetting to some users, but it's nowhere near as egregious as the software many Windows machine are shipped with.

wmeredith 8y ago

The geeks could already get this stuff on their system easily. 10+ years in UX design has taught me that little is more powerful than setting something to “default”.