Google is Shoving Its Apps Onto New Windows Laptops (theverge.com) 25
Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP. From a report: The Essentials app lets you "discover and install many of our best Google services," according to Google's announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google's announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers).
HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.
HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.
carp adware not as bad as norton! (Score:2)
carp adware not as bad as norton!
Google is Shoving? No... HP is. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not one to rush to Google's rescue, but that headline is proven false by the summary.
HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.
HP is taking money from Google to include their bloatware on new computers. Not only is this practices as old as that eMachine you're keeping in the garage for some reason, but it's entirely HP's choice to allow it.
Re: (Score:3)
When I worked at Google, around 2007, I released Toolbar to be embedded in the browser. IIRC HP was one of the companies that would bundle it. Definitely nothing new here.
Re: (Score:2)
HP is taking money from Google to include their bloatware on new computers. Not only is this practices as old as that eMachine you're keeping in the garage for some reason, but it's entirely HP's choice to allow it.
Indeed. Thank goodness corporate monopolies have learned their lesson. Apple payola was naughty but HP's payola is worth a try.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not one to rush to Google's rescue, but that headline is proven false by the summary.
HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.
HP is taking money from Google to include their bloatware on new computers. Not only is this practices as old as that eMachine you're keeping in the garage for some reason, but it's entirely HP's choice to allow it.
TBF it's pretty hard to shovel something into Windows and make it completely unresolvable. Especially if you're not Microsoft.
/. just Install Linux (OK, jokes aside, I st
Google do seem to be pretty good at making it easy to remove their stuff, even from Android (I know that it wasn't like that to begin with, but Google learned).
As far as bloatware goes, this is far from the worst offender... and I mean the worst offender on a HP machine, there are worse offenders than HP. Besides, doesn't everyone on
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not one to rush to Google's rescue, but that headline is proven false by the summary.
HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.
HP is taking money from Google to include their bloatware on new computers. Not only is this practices as old as that eMachine you're keeping in the garage for some reason, but it's entirely HP's choice to allow it.
HP systems are already so full of shovelware I'm not sure how Google managed to convince them to add more, unless there's some big bucks involved behind the scenes. I've found any new HP system I've gotten ahold of for decades now has needed a full system wipe and fresh install of base windows, without the HP shovelware, if it's going to run Windows long-term. It's certainly quicker than trying to sort the necessary (driver packages and the like) from the unnecessary when trying to de-bloat the system, and
Re: (Score:2)
but it's entirely HP's choice to allow it.
Just as long as it's entirely my choice to reformat that sucker upon purchase and never use it nor see it nor take up space on my storage again.
HP is famous for this (Score:2)
HP has always historically been one of the biggest pushers of preinstalled crapware on their systems. Wild Tangent games anyone. A whole industry sprouted up around this, PC Decrapify and Tronscript are two programs that come to mind that removed the known HP crapware from systems.
Another reason (Score:2)
to stick to Macs
Re: (Score:2)
Candied Apples are sticky.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, given the choice between Apple and Micros~1, I'd take a mac in a heartbeat.
But I vote for none of the above. These days I get Thinkapads with Linux preinstalled.
Apps (Score:2)
Surprising... (Score:2)
That Google is making anything Windows OS oriented and even reaching out to PC makers is a bit weird. I wonder if they think that the Chromebook market is just not going to grow anymore and that it's worth the cash to get more hooks in everywhere.
Granted, I just reinstall Windows Pro from a boot drive for any new machine, so I don't even know what comes on most laptops these days. Build my own desktop machines.
Don't blame anybody here. I mean, Microsoft occasionally plays with ads in the OS and it needs to
Re: (Score:2)
That Google is making anything Windows OS oriented and even reaching out to PC makers is a bit weird. I wonder if they think that the Chromebook market is just not going to grow anymore and that it's worth the cash to get more hooks in everywhere.
We're in peak LLM territory right now. Most likely Google just wants to get data-collection on as many systems as possible.
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
I never booted a new or used computer for myself on the installed OS, always began with a clean Windows or Linux installation.
I have had to deal with new computers for customers often enough to have noticed what a difference a clean install makes.
I only wish I could do the same with my new phone, but there's no Lineageos image yet for the Xcover 7. At least it seems I can disable unwanted software from running as user through adb but I haven't tried it yet.
Re: (Score:2)
I never booted a new or used computer for myself on the installed OS, always began with a clean Windows or Linux installation.
I have had to deal with new computers for customers often enough to have noticed what a difference a clean install makes.
For me it is a 50/50 proposal. Which is easier on a given machine - cleaning all the bloatware installed from the vendor OR a clean install then deal with missing drivers and unknown devices?
Many people that do a clean install don't bother to see what devices didn't get the correct drivers from a generic installation. Many motherboards have custom USB bridges, sound chips, trackpads, and such. With Dell computers I can download the entire driver bundle, then go through every device in device manager and
Re: (Score:1)
Crapware/bloat vs security/privacy/control (Score:3)
>"Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops"
I am ever so glad all my machines run Linux, and have for decades. Zero crapware. Zero adware. Only installs what I select, and then happily keeps it regularly updated without any drama or surprises. It doesn't try to forcibly screenshot my sessions, show pop-up "suggestions", phone-home to some mega corp, try to force me to create some stupid cloud account, break my machine or change its behavior with [slow/intrusive] updates, arbitrarily dictate what hardware I must use, nag me to use some browser I don't want, fill up half my drive with nonsense and "restoration" junk I didn't ask for, require I agree to some license that prevents me from using it for X or Y purpose (or how I use in a virtual machine or not, or by how many people, or in what way), or lock me into a rigid UI.
Unfortunately, the last machine I bought was a laptop that didn't have the option to buy it without an OS (or an OS of my choice). So I was forced to be counted as yet another MS-Windows sale (and I guess now some would be counted also as "Google-installed" machines), even though the entire drive was immediately formatted/overwritten with Mint.
Typically, in the time it takes for someone to turn on and "activate" and "update" an MS-Windows PRE-INSTALLED machine, I can have an entire Linux distro installed and already be logged in and using it. In the time it takes them to try and uninstall the crap (if they can) and dismiss all the "suggestions" and "helpful guidance" from both MS-Windows and whatever the vendor ALSO shoved on there, I have already selected/installed most of the end-user software I want and am running it.
If you are tired of these huge corporate overlords controlling you, then do something about it. Take back control of your machines. Take it back from Microsoft (or Apple) with Linux. And take it back from Google with Firefox. And if you aren't tired yet or have other reasons to stay, be thankful the alternatives are there and waiting for you :)
Do these apps run on Linux? (Score:2)
No? They don't run on Linux? SCORE!
Linux desktop usage ticks up another little bit...
I see a lot of people blaming Google for this. (Score:2)
Finally breaking the Microsoft monopoly! (Score:2)
oh wonderfull (Score:2)
My first step when buying a new Windows PC (Score:2)
Is to download a clean version of Windows from Microsoft and install it. I do *not* want the crapware from Dell, or HP, or Google.