“Well, a screen came up saying something about my antivirus program expiring, but, I didn’t know what it meant, so, I forgot about it. That was about 6 months ago.”
I’ve heard this story too many times lately, as an explanation as to why a client’s almost-new computer had suddenly become filled with viruses and spyware. It’s the old, “Your trial version of Norton (or, McAfee, or, whatever) antivirus is about to expire” scenario. Many people, especially new computer owners, simply don’t know what to do with such a warning screen. It’s as if they were driving down the highway in their new car, and a warning light on the dash started flashing, “Your trial version seatbelts are about to expire.” How could such a vital piece of safety equipment “expire?” Unable to process such strange information, they ignore the warning, and disaster strikes.
The sad fact is that most new computers, in a scam to entice customers, are loaded up by the manufacturer with oodles of trial-version programs, known as “trialware.” Unfortunately, the words “trial version” are usually buried in a mountain of fine print, or otherwise downplayed. Still, it looks great to the buying public, who think that they are getting Microsoft Office, WordPerfect, QuickBooks, Norton Antivirus, McAfee Security, etc., all for “free” with their new computer.
Actually, trialware is nothing more than crass, paid advertising, where software manufacturers pay computer manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Sony, Gateway, etc., for the right to pre-install their crippled trialware programs onto your computer. When the trialware expires and the customer pays for the “real” version of a program, the advertising has succeeded. Regarding trialware antivirus programs: if you don’t know how to download and install any of the excellent, free antivirus programs that are available, such as Avast or AVG, then you absolutely must renew and pay for your antivirus program subscription. A working and updated antivirus program is a requirement for safe computer use. All other trialware is optional.
When asked to work on a newly purchased computer, I’ll usually spend at least an hour or two deleting all of the trialware, and replacing it with functional programs that will not expire. For example, if a customer needs Microsoft Office functionality and doesn’t have $400 to spend on the “real” version, I’ll install the extremely compatible and free OpenOffice suite from www.openoffice.org. I’ll also remove all of the pre-installed, resource-hogging “junkware,” such as “free” AOL, Earthlink, Netzero, MusicMatch Jukebox, Wild Tangent, Corel PhotoDownloader and garbage adware programs from eBay, Yahoo and Google. Removing this junk usually makes the computer run much faster.
Frustrated by this state of affairs, enterprising programmer Jason York has written a program that simplifies these junk-cleaning chores. Originally aimed at cleaning up computers from Dell, his “Dell De-Crapifier” achieved almost overnight acclaim. Under pressure from Dell, he changed the name to “PC De-Crapifier.” An added bonus is that it now works on HP computers. I like it.