Greetings
I have recently restored my laptop back to factory setting and thereby forgot all the software that I installed and disposed of. My question regarding bloatware is ,which one do I get rid of?
There are quite a few pieces of bloat ware on there for sure...
The trouble is, removing them all may end up destabilising your system so it's hard to make a recommendation.
And maybe some of the things on there you actually installed.
But things that do not exist in a plain windows install include anything that starts "HP", "Cinema Now..." "Cyberlink ", (/may/ need this to play DVDs, but I am pretty sure that windows plays DVDs by default now. Maybe leave this one installed anyway) "DVD Menu Pack", "Java", "hulu desktop", "Label Print", "MS office home and student" (That may only be a trial if it came for free), "Microsoft Works", "Movie theme pack", "Firefox", "MSN tool bar", "Norton..."(Replace with MS Security Essentials for free) "Photo Now" "Power to go", possibly "Power director", "Windows Live"
ALL of those things are added. Others too but are more useful like flash and adobe reader, hardware drivers etc and would probably be installed anyway.
But like I said, you may have installed some of those already and uninstalling any one or number of them has a chance to cause problems so I can't say that any one or more are "safe" to uninstall... Course if you do break something you can start over again :)
Some of them you may even find a use for. (i.e. Windows live is your only mail program installed, uninstalling it you will have no mail till you install something else)
Cyberlink is usually used for Blu-ray support now-a-days. If you have a blu-ray player, keep it. Everything with HP in it can usually be removed, but I would be more concerned with just keeping them from running at start up. The one for web cam might actually be needed. MSN toolbar, CinemaNow, PhotoNow, Power2Go, and Power Director are pretty much worthless junk. Hulu Desktop, HP Netflix, and Norton all depend on if you actually use their service. If you don't use it, get rid of it. Everything that I did not specifically mention you should keep. Also, make sure to make a restore point before delete a bunch of software just in case you need an easy way to get some of it back.
Bloatware is in the eye of the beholder - it depends on what you like and don't like for software. Some people consider AV's to be bloatware so.....
Anyway before you arbitrarily start removing stuff you'd best find out if other programs/hardware is tied into them. I was going to do this with my daughter's laptop until I found that some of the "bloatware" was essential for her laptop.
This is another reason why I like building my own PC's. Yeah I know notebooks are different, but....
My two cents.
Acrobat.com - This is just a shortcut linking you to the acrobat.com website.
CinemaNOW Media Manager - You could use VLC Player or another alternative (for example CyberLink).
All HP Software - Personally I would remove everything except the Wireless Manager but just remove what you don't use.
Hulu Desktop.
LabelPrint.
Microsoft Office Powerpoint Viewer - Microsoft Office Home can do that.
Java Update 18 (old update).
Microsoft Office Suite Activation Assistant.
Microsoft Works - Same sort of thing as MS Office but free.
Movie Theme Pack for HP MediaSmart Video.
MSN Toolbar.
Norton - Norton Removal Tool
PhotoNow!
Power2Go
PowerDirector
Validity Sensors SDK
Windows Live.
Unless you need what I stated, feel free to remove but make a backup before proceeding,.
Well, solid answers finally. I'm on another forum and I haven't been able to get much in the way of concrete and specific direction. I'm on an HP and I'm trying to slim it down before I get back to work. I already ran the decrapifier, but I needed to identify what was truly crap. Just for form, I'll post the decrapifier's checklist. For information's sake, I'm just starting as a game publisher (yes, I'm a gamer, just table-top though or online on virtual tables; don't do video gaming or computer gaming) and in internet marketing. Speaking of games, I'll strip all of them off of here, but I broke this thing once and went back to a factory reset. I've already done a backup and system image for that, now I'll need one for the stripped down unit before I start adding software again.
I would not delete Norton. Use it for the 3 trial months and decide then. In my book, it is the best AV program around.
Dennis, I don't want to hear about MSE. Caught 2 nasties when it was on guard - or what they call 'on guard'. And I had it only for a couple of weeks. Thought I could save some money. I quickly signed up again with Norton for 3 years and 3 systems. Had been using Norton for years without any problems.
The wife still uses MSE. But all she does is AOL (even the browser) and Word.
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