Here You Go, Have Some Free AIR With That...

I need to buy a new computer, (I'll rant about my old piece of crap computer another day), so I've been shopping around. One thing that really irritates me is how the computer vendors advertise included software as a product FEATURE. Take, for example, this actual clip from a Costco Dell Computer listing...

Additional Software:

• McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30 day trial
  
• Adobe® Acrobat® Reader
• Roxio Creator Basic

Well, you can dowload a free 30 day trial of McAfee SecurityCenter from McAfee directly, so that's not a real feature. Adobe Acrobat Reader is also available free online. In fact, in both cases you are probably better off going straight to the web because the version offered there will be more up-to-date.

Roxio Creator Basic, is by far, the most nefarious of the offerings because it's not something you can get for free (as far as I can tell). It's just a crippled version meant to entice you to purchase the full version of the software.

That's just the stuff they advertise. I know that once I get the computer, I will have to remove a ton of additional bloatware. I do not need an icon to sign up for Vonage, thank you very much.