bloatware

(blōt'wâr')
n. Informal
Software with large, often unused additional features.

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(1) Applications that are overloaded with features. See software bloat and wares.

(2) Myriad applications pre-installed on a PC by the vendor. Many PC manufacturers are paid by software vendors to pre-install lite versions of their products on the PCs they sell. In addition, some of these applications load at startup, wasting memory and providing a potential for conflict with other applications. For a fee, some retailers offer to rid the new PC of bloatware for their customers. See wares.

MAINGEAR PCs are "Clean"

Prominently displayed on MAINGEAR's Web site, this high-performance PC vendor builds PCs with no pre-installed software the user never asked for. For more information, visit www.maingear.com.

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[common] Software that provides minimal functionality while requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory. Especially used for application and OS upgrades. This term is very common in the Windows/NT world. So is its cause.

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