4 ms·
I don't think one should be surprised. At least two reasons can be given: 1) "crapware" is not well-defined for all users, some utility that absolutely is anno
by Jun8 11y ago
I don't think one should be surprised. At least two reasons can be given:
1) "crapware" is not well-defined for all users, some utility that absolutely is annoying and unnecessary to medium to advanced users may be found useful by complete novices, e.g. the prototypical "your grandma".
2) The bigger cause is, of course, affiliate money. Companies have little backlash to crapware other than perhaps some lost sales due to disgruntled users. That's hard to quantify. The money you get from an affiliate whose crapware you preinstall is absolutely easy to quantify, though. This is definitely the mode of operation for cell phone companies. My Verizon phone comes with NFL apps and other crap that I can't even uninstall.
3) In lost cases, though, it's the companies own additional software that is the crapware. Again, the cause is money, the tracking and/or usage data is worth a lot of money.
Unless there is a big punishment, large enough to really hurt these huge companies, the status quo will continue. That's why this particular lawsuit is so important.
- mikeash 11y agoRegarding (1), has any computer manufacturer ever installed anything we might call "crapware" that anyone ever found to actually be useful? Not something that grandma thinks is useful, but something that is actually useful to grandma (not quite the same thing!). The rest is totally right, though. For any behavior by a company that seems to do more harm than good, you can usually trace it back to some decision-maker who is rewarded for the good parts but is not responsible for the bad parts. If your decisions cause $1 in gain for your department and $2 in loss for another department, many companies aren't smart enough to do anything but reward you and punish the other department.
- dysfunction 11y agoI find the Lenovo battery manager mildly useful; not amazing, but enough that I installed it on a fresh Windows install on my work Carbon. It just gives me more granular control than the Windows power options.