How-To: Fight junkware and truly experience a Windows PC

Adware, junkware, and trialware – all possible items you may find when turning on your new Windows PC. For years, one of the aspects that have attracted consumers to “the fruit platform” has been their clean functionality out of the box. Technology savvy individuals, such as many of our readers, may simply wipe their disk and start from scratch, but the everyday soccer mom and businessman want nothing to do with technical know-how.

Why Your PC is Polluted

Selling Microsoft Windows PCs has always been a fight to create the most affordable solutions to consumers. To this day, the large majority of personal computers that are sold for over $1,000 are produced by Apple, with Microsoft making up a much smaller segment. In a race to create the most inexpensive PCs, OEMs have partnered with companies who are willing to pay to have their software installed on your machine. As a result, the price of your PC goes down.

In an ironic way, you may want to thank those junkware companies for helping to bring your PC down in price. However, many of us would rather pay a bit more and go without the trouble of our PCs being bogged down from the start.

What You Can Do About It

Despite the frustration brought forward by the pre-installed software loaded onto your computer, you have a bit of power in your hands.

If you want to buy a PC directly from an OEM (Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc.), you can usually choose between two routes of action when you receive the new machine. You can either go with the most effective solution, which is reinstalling Windows from scratch or you can manually uninstall problematic software.

If you are thinking about reinstalling Windows from scratch, you may want to check out our installation guide that we recently published. Reinstalling Windows is not nearly as difficult as it once was and there are a plethora of help tools and resources to finish the deed. This is, by far, the best solution to insure you have a fresh start.

The second option, manually uninstalling problematic software, can be useful for many people, as it requires a low amount of effort. However, it should be noted that this solution would usually leave behind ruminants of the unwanted software. In addition, it can be difficult for beginners to know what to remove.

There are a number of programs that can assist those who are a bit unsure of what applications to remove when cleaning their PCs; our top recommendation is currently GeekUninstaller, which you can download for no cost.

Think About a Microsoft Signature PC

I want to approach this possibility with caution so that it does not sound like an advertisement. An excellent solution if you don’t want to deal with any of the above worries is to simply buy your next PC from the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft Stores offer PCs that they happily label “Signature Edition”. These PCs are the same computers you find on your favorite OEM’s website, but are loaded with stock Windows – no bloat ware or trialware to worry about.

Signature Edition computers from the Microsoft Store are honestly a great option and if you are the technology guy/gal in your family, you may want to consider sending others to purchase these PCs – they will save you (and your relatives) a world of headache in the future.

Downfalls of purchasing a Signature Edition PC include the fact that not all computers are available and when an OEM has a sale on their machine, the Microsoft Store may not reflect that change.

The End Story

When purchasing a PC, there is going to be trialware and junkware, unless you pick up one of Microsoft’s Signature machines. The majority of shoppers will be visiting their local Best Buy or other brick and mortar stores to pickup their solutions, so it doesn’t look like the problem will be going away anytime soon.

If you truly love Windows and want your family and friends to experience the same joy you feel then give them a helping hand when needed. Cleaning a friend’s PC may feel like a chore, but in the end you help to share the joy of technology with others. As a result, you may even help Windows live on far into the future.