Sony Charges and then Removes Fee To Provide “Crapware” Free Notebooks

You know those irritating small applications or games that come pre-installed whenever you buy a notebook or a PC, that’s what is known as “crapware” or “bloatware”. These “crapwares” slow down our new PC’s just so it can entice us into buying all kinds of new services or software programs.

Sony came up with the clever idea to launch a program called "Fresh Start" and convince customers to pay $50 to get a computer without the unwanted and unnecessary software.

Sony was asking buyers of the Vaio TZ2000 and Vaio TZ2500 notebooks with the Windows Vista Business OS to pay $49.99 for the removal of the extra software. The computers already have starting prices of $1,900 and $3,050, respectively.

However, Sony soon realized its folly and announced on Friday that it would drop the $50 fee. Sony has now decided to offer this service for free starting Saturday.

The Japanese electronics giant said in a statement, "We want Vaio users to have the best experience possible with our PCs, and we believe Fresh Start will help ensure that happens right out-of-the-box."

The fee-based service had been launched only for the two Vaio notebooks but Sony had plans to extend the fee-based service also to its other notebooks.

Customers who opt for Sony's Fresh Start program could miss out on some good software like Microsoft Works which comes bundled with a trial version of Microsoft Office ; Sony's Vaio Creation Suite Photo Software with a Corel Paint Shop Pro trial version and the Click to Disc video editor WinDVD.

However, Sony has a bad reputation among reviewers who claim that the company is worse than others in pre-loading unwanted software.

PC manufacturers are often paid by software publishers to include trial versions on computers they ship. These “crapwares” can reduce system performance, available hard disk space, and take away system resources. It could also affect office productivity by introducing security vulnerabilities, and “crapware” games can distract workers.

It must be mentioned here though that Dell offered the removal of “crapware” from its Vostro line of PCs last year. Everex is also among the few vendors that offer PCs with the option to remove “crapware”.