The Joys of Bloatware!

I think I may have mentioned my computer has been lagging and freezing when I use certain programs such as Affinity Publisher. It has been a MAJOR pain in the ass and I have been looking into why it is doing it.

I noticed a long time ago after every update of Windows 10 (now there is an 11- oh joy!) that my computer was moving along slower and slower.

Well, I have been looking into bloatware which is basically all the stuff that gets downloaded onto your computer (and phone) with every update you may not be aware of. Much of this is to make you more and more interested in having the ease of buying and using what they offer and not an alternative.

So, next stop after de-fragging, emptying cashes, and all this is to get rid of the bloatware.  The thing is, some of this stuff which looks like another language may or may not be useful. For me, I like to put on and use my own apps and not the ones that keep getting downloaded into the background of my computer. Hell, I have not updated my Mac because almost half of what is filling it up has nothing to do with what I have on that computer! Thank god for external hard-drives!

Now I need to do something with this machine because it is absolutely crazy that a computer with as much storage and as good a CPU as I have (and I checked-nothing running in the background in terms of apps at start-up, etc) that is causing the lagging. I had to un-install my Affinity Publisher and Affinity Photo and re-install them back to a less recent update since when I did update them to current, my computer couldn't handle them AT ALL! Now of course, they cannot find the key I paid for that puts Affinity Photo on my Mac. That is a nightmare for another day. Needless to say, this all takes time and patience, however what do you do when you don't have a techi friend close by and you have no idea what you are doing?

I have only one suggestion; You Tube. I will just have to go on line and find out how to remove bloatware. I found one good video that I believe I can use if I follow the steps carefully. At this point, things are so bad, I will do whatever it takes!

The trick with You Tube is to go through more than one video since many of the videos on there are from folks who have only half a clue and you don't want those to be your teachers! It would be like the blind leading the blind. And check when it was made. Sometimes what they are suggesting doesn't even exist!!!

All I can say is writing and publishing a book is easy when your tools including your computer work well. If you are going to invest a lot of money in a new computer, make sure it will do what you want it to do. I did the research, however I think I should have done more!!!! Live and learn, I will never buy another Asus as long as I live!!!

Good luck and I hope your tools are working better for you than mine are. I don't give up however it takes a great deal of mental fortitude to work past or around all the technical BS. If you think your computer is your own, you are sadly mistaken. It belongs to the companies who made it (and decided what you can put on it for operating systems) and to the manufactures of these operating systems such as Microsoft and Safari. Really, at this time, you have no other recourse but use them. There are other operating systems out there that frankly even work better with less hype however these two major companies have deals with computer manufacturers to NOT allow other operating systems to work on the computers available to buy.

It would be interesting to see if a manufacturer ignored these major giant pigs and allowed Lenux on...wouldn't be hard to do really. And if they did, I think their computers would sell like hotcakes! They would have an entire movement of dis-satisfied customers who would gladly buy any computer that doesn't have the bloatware on it. Of this I am positive I would be first in line. I don't know much about computers, but I do know, as a consumer, I am not a happy camper.