crapware
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.31 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Unwanted software that comes pre-installed with personal computers or mobile devices.
Informal; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Can it download and execute dangerous code, including viruses and really buggy crapware? No problem."
- "MS [Microsoft] “crapware,” as some call it, is widely disparaged as inelegant and buggy."
- "Malware distributors will often use them to try to con you into downloading their crapware."
- "We suspect that its extra pound of heft is made up entirely of crapware—the Vaio ships with a ludicrous number of useless preinstalled applications. We understand the economic necessities of subsidizing inexpensive PCs with third-party crapware, but there's no excuse for whoring out a notebook of this price."
- "Big-name system vendors typically install software on their consumer PCs at the factory. These "extras" go by many names: bundleware, begware, bloatware, and my favorite, crapware. That's because a lot of it is just that: useless crap. […] A few vendors, like Sony and Dell, offer some options to avoid crapware, but usually just for small businesses. Boutique manufacturers, like Velocity Micro, do a better job of providing a clean system."
- "All crapware programs can be useful—but each program is likely to be useful to only a few of the people the PC manufacturer inflicts it on. The PC manufacturers claim they install crapware to provide useful software, but the real reason is that the software companies pay them to include it."
Etymology
Etymology tree Old Dutch krappender. Old French crappe Middle French crapebor. Middle English crappe English crap Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Germanic *samþuz /*samftuz Proto-Indo-European *-yos Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Germanic *-jaz Proto-West Germanic *-ī Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī) Old English sōfte Middle English softe English soft Proto-Germanic *warō Proto-West Germanic *waru Old English waru Middle English ware English -ware English softwarebf. English -ware English crapware From crap + -ware.