The cost of android? One billion dollars! Muuhahahahahah!!!

[TerryE]

Something I haven't seen mentioned but that applies to all the "cr*pware" on phones and PCs ... someone pays the manufacturers to load that stuff on there. Without that stuff most PCs and phones would cost quite a bit more.

That said, I don't blame people for uninstalling what they can from their computers. I have done the same thing and I'm not sorry I did. I know what I'm doing, though: not everyone knows how to uninstall programs, and that's what the manufacturers expect. The worst offenders in my mind: free trials of anti-virus software. After 60 or 90 days it's "time's up: better pay us for a year's subscription or your computer could become infected!" - and what unsuspecting novice wants that to happen? Anti-virus software is some of the hardest to remove, too.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Something I haven't seen mentioned but that applies to all the "cr*pware" on phones and PCs ... someone pays the manufacturers to load that stuff on there. Without that stuff most PCs and phones would cost quite a bit more.

That said, I don't blame people for uninstalling what they can from their computers. I have done the same thing and I'm not sorry I did. I know what I'm doing, though: not everyone knows how to uninstall programs, and that's what the manufacturers expect. The worst offenders in my mind: free trials of anti-virus software. After 60 or 90 days it's "time's up: better pay us for a year's subscription or your computer could become infected!" - and what unsuspecting novice wants that to happen? Anti-virus software is some of the hardest to remove, too.

That's true. They would probably cost substantially more. The first time I saw OEMware I asked what kind of brain-burn p**p is this? My OS does most of this and more.

“Nurse, hand me my scalpel. We’re going in to do some surgery!” So I continued (with much care) to rip out the OEM partition. Now I have 20 more GBs on my hard drive. I also have a useless Acer ScrLk/e key on my keyboard that does what? -> Nothing but remind me of OEM brain-burning. I must say it has been a good machine, though. No problems with it whatsoever.

Then I continued to reformat the HD and performed a fresh install with Vista Ultimate upgrade from Home Premium. Why would you upgrade such a bad OS you may ask? Pure ignorance! I was much busier with other things to research it. It was reasonably priced and it did get rid of antivirus and all the other garbage, though. I was so glad that 7 came along so soon!