Battling Bloatware, Trial Programs and Time Bomb Software

Scott Blake is a Senior Network Engineer with Tech Experts.

The day has finally come. You’ve saved money for what seems like a lifetime to purchase a new desktop or laptop. You’re all excited to get it unboxed and powered on… only to find yourself confronted with loads of bloatware, trial programs and time bomb software you will never use and never asked for. You quickly find yourself spending hours removing all the preinstalled programs instead of enjoying your new device. Why is that?

The sole intent of a vast majority of the programs you find already installed is to track your presence on the web. Some programs, such as Superfish (which Lenovo was installing on their computers), also change your search results so you see different ads than you would from normal browsing habits. This can also affect your computer’s security.

Some of the more common programs that tend to get overlooked are browser toolbars. Several of the most common toolbars you will find are Yahoo, AOL, Google and Ask. These are so common that most computer users think they are part of their browser.

The purpose of a browser toolbar is to gather information on your browsing habits such as popular search words or phrases and sites visited. This information is then sold to advertising companies or used to place custom targeted ads on the sites you visit. In most cases, you will also start to see an increase in spam messages in your email inbox. It’s recommended to properly remove all browser toolbars from your Internet device.

Just when you think you have removed everything that needs to be removed, look again. Most likely, you will find trial or time bomb software installed as well. These are programs that offer you their fully functional features for a predetermined amount of time.

Two of the most popular software programs preinstalled in this way are Microsoft Office and anti-virus programs. Office programs will give you full functionality of the Office suite for usually about 30 days, then features will become unavailable to the user after the program expires. In some cases, this has little to no effect on the user, but in other cases, it can have a severe financial impact.

Trial versions of anti-virus programs can be the most devastating to the user. A user will power on their computer, see there is an anti-virus program made by a large and well-known company already installed, and they think they are fully protected against the evils that await them. This may be true for the first 30 to 90 days. However, after the trial period ends, most users either ignore the pop-ups warning that the program is going to expire or they are not notified. This leaves the user in a state of vulnerability. After the program expires, they no longer receive regular security definition updates.

Let’s say you have taken the time to fully clean and remove all the bloatware, trial, and time bomb bloatwaresoftware from your computer. The only things you need to watch for now are third-party programs piggybacking on the installs or updates of other programs.

Two of the most common programs to pay attention to when updating or installing are Adobe Flash Player and Oracle’s Java. You need to pay close attention to the installer windows or you will end up spending more time removing unneeded security scanners, toolbars, and/or browsers. For more information about bloatware, trial programs, and time bomb software, contact Tech Experts at (734) 457-5000.

Removing Unused Programs Will Speed Up Your Computer

If you’re wondering how you can make your computer run a little faster, removing old and unused programs might be the best place to start. It’s simple to do, low risk, free, and doesn’t involve much time.

When you have programs on your computer that you don’t use anymore, they are taking up your hard drive space and they could also be running in the background.

This consumes memory and resources. Removing the programs frees up resources and memory, making the PC run faster.

Before you start removing programs from your computer, make sure that you really don’t need them. Double checking everything before you start will prevent you having to reload something you thought you didn’t need.

You don’t want to remove a critical system program, or some other application, and find yourself in a bind.

Uninstalling programs is easy – but you want to make sure and use the system option in Windows to clear them out.

Deleting the programs directly, instead of using the Add/Remove Programs function, can damage your Windows installation and cause a lot of problems.

Windows XP
If you are running Windows XP, click on start, click on control panel, then click on the Add/Remove Programs icon and wait a brief second for the list to be generated.

If you have a large number of programs installed, it might take a few minutes – just be patient.

Now all that you have to do is to click on the program that you no longer need and select Change/Remove and follow through with the removal process.

Windows Vista
Windows Vista users will click on start, Control Panel and make sure that at the top of the window that you have “Classic View” selected.

Double click on to the Programs and Features button (wait a brief second for your list of programs to come up) and select the programs that you do not need anymore and select Uninstall to remove them from your computer.

Remember: Only remove applications that you’re absolutely certain you don’t need.

After you’ve removed all of the programs that you don’t need, it would be best to restart the computer. After the machine is restarted, you should notice an increase in speed. It probably won’t be dramatic – but it should be a marked and noticeable improvement.

If you’re still not satisfied with the speed of your computer, we offer a System Tune-Up service. We’ll go in an clean out any programs you don’t need, and fine-tune Windows to give you the best performance possible.

For a limited time, the system tune up is priced at just $69. Give our office a call at 734-457-5000 to schedule your appointment. Or, email support@expertsmi.com.