undell

I'm a fan of Dell PCs, recently I've been buying $299 (or less) computers from the Dell Outlet. They say these are refurbished, but I think they are brand new.

Here are things I did to "un-Dell" the most recent Dell purchased, spending an hour or so going through Start->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs:

1. Remove AOL
2. Remove Dell Media Experience
3. Remove Dell Picture Studio
4. Remove Earthlink Setup Files
5. Remove Get High Speed Internet
6. Remove Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album
7. Remove Jasc Paint Shop Pro Studio, Dell Edition
8. Remove Java 2 Runtime Environment (too obnoxious)
9. Remove Learn2 Player
10. Remove McAfee Personal Firewall Plus (too obnoxious; I think it is hilarious that upon my explicit uninstall, they warn "Your computer might be at risk. Click here to fix this problem." -- excuse me?
11. Remove McAfee SecurityCenter (too obnoxious)
12. Remove Musicmatch Jukebox (prefer iTunes)
13. Remove MyWay Search Assistant
14. Remove NetZeroInstallers
15. Remove PhotoClick
16. Remove QuickBooks Simple Start Special Edition
17. Remove RealPlayer Basic (will never forgive their spyware sins)
18. Remove ViewPoint Media Player
19. Remove WordPerfect Office

It is mind boggling to find software I did not ask about which can take several minutes just to uninstall. I can't imagine how piggy these things would be if I actually used them.