I bought a Dell that came with so much awful software (buggy, time limited and invasive) that I had to reinstall the OS.
That's a waste of my time.
Manufacturers argue that margins are so thin that they need the extra revenue. Fair point.
But if they have to vet the crapware before installing (and they should) and they have to deal with complaints via customer service from people and they have to deal with the fallout from PR disasters such as Lenovo.. that must erode those margins.
Offering customers the option to buy a crapware free PC must be a viable option. Even if many people don't take them up on it, they should offer it to those of us who do care.
Every few years I think about buying a new Windows machine (for the kids to play games) but this puts me off. Having to deal with the rubbish (and it's always rubbish) that they install is simply depressing and I just put off the decision. I have two Dells that are 9 and 7 years old respectively. I've put new disks in, maxxed out the memory and put new Graphics cards in to extend their life.
So Dell lost two sales from me and that far outweighs any additional revenue from the crapware they would have installed.
I am pretty sure I would never buy a Lenovo now (unless it came as a Signature edition). How could I trust them? I mean, installing software that could bypass my Bank's certificates? Who thought that was acceptable just so that they could inject ads (that no-one ever wants) into a secure shopping experience? That's just greed and stupidity in one indivisible package.
I bought a Macbook for myself and installed Windows in a VM. Lovely experience. The VM starts up quick (and VirtualBox with Windows 10 on a recent Macbook Pro is a wonderful experience).
Microsoft can help manufacturers by reducing the margin on OEM Windows installed without crapware.
Apple are far from a perfect software company (I have a long list of gripes about OSX, iOS and their own software) but they understand what makes a great user experience.
Why can't other manufacturers learn from this experience?
