~Decrapify a new PC~

By Scott Mielentz

 

So, you're the proud owner of a new PC. You anxiously open the box, dumping out the contents, casting the instructions aside. You feverishly push your old PC off the desk and get the new one set up. On the floor lies a pile of plastic wrap and twist ties. Your brand spanking new PC boots up only to greet you with a plethora of pop up advertisements pestering you to pay for anti-virus software or sign up for a music service. Your desktop is littered with website links for 'special offers.' The system tray is already full of programs that continuously use your internet connection to make sure that you're 'up to date.

 

"When did I ask for this?" you ask. Well, you didn't and that’s when you have to start removing the tons of junkware, you never wanted.

 

“Why is it there?” you ask. Well your PC manufacturer gets paid for all the bloatware that is installed, along with their initial profit.

 

Remember all the bloatware is eating up hard drive space, not to mention valuable memory, and slowing down your new system considerably, so outlined below is what you should keep & dump, and how to do it.

 

Keep one antivirus, I recommend Kaspersky download it at [www.kaspersky.com], dump Norton internet security and MacAfee, it’s more of a resource hog, keep your cd/dvd burning suite, and the word processing software that came installed, usually Microsoft works, office is only a trial version, and if you want that buy it. I suggest buy it.

AOL is another system hog, if you don’t use it, lose it. As far as everything else, dump it!

 

How to decrapify

 

ADD/Remove

Go to your start menu, open control panels, open add and remove programs, select one program at a time and start removing all the unsacred software you don’t need.

 

Reboot, and your new PC should be Decrapified.

 

Till next time happy computing!

Scott Mielentz

Mac/PC TechOnCall

561-745-4822

www.techoncall.biz

 

Editors Note: Thanks to Scott Mielentz, owner of Mac/PC TechOnCall for making this column possible. The above comments were in response to a question or problem encountered by one of our Heights residents. We hope you found the information useful and informative. If you have computer related questions you can email techoncall@adelphia.net. We welcome your comments.