Most pre-built computers you buy today inevitably come with software preinstalled. That may seem like a good thing, and indeed some of it is vary useful. The problem is that the vast majority of it is not. Proprietary media players, virus scanners, and games can eat up storage and triple or quadruple boot times.

PC pro looked at laptops from nine major manufacturers to determine which systems had the highest amount of useless software and the performance penalties it delivered. They looked at boot time, memory footprint, general performance, and HDD space consumed.

Acer ranks the worst, with 2:01 longer boot times versus a clean install and a 952mb larger memory footprint. HP was in second with 1:35 longer boot and a 1.06gb larger memory footprint. Dell stands as the worst for memory usage and hard drive spaced consumed. It's trashware consumes an additional 1.18gb of RAM and over 3gb HDD space.

Apple ranked the highest. Although it contains plenty of preinstalled software, most of it could be considered useful. There was no difference in memory footprint or boot times versus a Mac with iLife installed versus a clean install. The 13'' Macbook Pro booted in 49 seconds and used 288mb of RAM. The Acer by comparison took 2:45 to boot.

Crapware/Trashware/Shovelware has become a huge problem with prebuilt PCs due to its lucrative nature for builders. There are ways to remove it but this is time consuming if done manually. Some proprietary software will refuse to uninstall. Clean installs don't always work because often the trashware is installed with the OS, with both being on the same disc. For the most part, these procedures are over the heads of a lot of users. Keeps my a friend of mine's husband in business.

Some laptops and pre-built desktops will come with the OS and additional software on separate DVDs. You can also purchase barebones laptops and install your own OS, or request the store to do it for you. This is really your best defence against useless software.

Source: PC Pro