Crapware

[Marc v E]

I'm personal IT support for my wife's Dell laptop PC. I made the McAfee mistake too. IMO, McAfee is a virus company. A pox on them.

I finally got so annoyed with the Dell crap and various other malware she had unknowingly stumbled into, I backed up the files she wanted to save to an external drive, used Win10 to reset the PC, installed Win11 from MSFT, and copied her files back to the SSD. As it turns out, Dell doesn't support Win11 on her particular laptop (though MSFT found it acceptable), so no more Dell crap. It didn't occur to me until then that lack of vendor support is plus. I turned on Windows Defender and the Win11 firewall. I ran a full scan of the SSD after it was restored and Defender found nothing of concern. Since then the Dell has been as solid as a Mac.

Her next laptop is a Mac. No question. I am so tired of PC vendors. I've heard from several people who need Windows for the apps they use, if you want a really clean Windows client get a Surface.

The same thing happened to me. My wife's laptop was an Asus. Now she has a mac.

 

[Ron Texas]

I had two Mac's. There's no bloatware but I often found it difficult to find free substitutes for programs I had been using in Windows. Do Mac's still need some third party driver to write to NTFS volumes, or has that been addressed?

 

[chelgrian]

I had two Mac's. There's no bloatware but I often found it difficult to find free substitutes for programs I had been using in Windows. Do Mac's still need some third party driver to write to NTFS volumes, or has that been addressed?

Yes they still need 3rd party drivers to write to NTFS. For commercial reasons this will likely never change.

This is one reason most external storage is delivered formatted to exFAT.

On Windows laptops the basic rule is never to buy a consumer laptop always go to the business section and buy something marketed to business.

Then wipe the delivered windows image completely and reinstall from clean image downloaded from MS.

 

[blueone]

Yes they still need 3rd party drivers to write to NTFS. For commercial reasons this will likely never change.

This is one reason most external storage is delivered formatted to exFAT.

On Windows laptops the basic rule is never to buy a consumer laptop always go to the business section and buy something marketed to business.

Then wipe the delivered windows image completely and reinstall from clean image downloaded from MS.

Or get a Microsoft Surface, if you can tolerate their limitations. A friend just confirmed a few weeks ago on his Surface acquisition, no bloatware at all. Like my wife, he had a Dell, and claims "it's a revelation" to experience Windows without bloatware and aftermarket anti-virus crap. I don't know about a revelation, but one thing I have noticed with my wife's Dell laptop I mentioned in an earlier post and upgraded to a clean Win11 distribution, we don't ever hear the fan anymore. Her Dell has an obnoxious fan, and not having it run, especially during Zoom calls, makes her very happy. Of course, I took credit for all of the improvements.

 

[Ron Texas]

I better be careful about the next computer I buy because if it gets returned the thread I start will be epic.