


The situation has improved in recent years, but even today you can open up a brand-new Windows laptop and find yourself running trial versions of a half-dozen different apps, utilities, antivirus, and office tools. The term was originally used to refer to Windows computers, which could come with a long list of third-party utilities and software suites on top of Windows itself, depending on who you bought the computer from. They're often used by manufacturers to push their own apps and services on top of (or instead of) what the smartphone offers by default. Bloatware doesn't sound pleasant, but it's a fairly mild condition: It's those apps that come preinstalled on your smartphone that you definitely didn't ask for and probably don't want.
