PC manufacturers have been loading "trial application" on the PCs they sell for years. We took a look at three of the more common bloatware titles to get a view of the historical trends. The titles identified for our analysis included the WildTangent Game Console, URL Assistant by Google (aka Browser Address Error Redirector) and Microsoft's own Activation Assistant for the 2007 Office Suites. Our research shows that the prevalence of these applications have more than doubled in the past year. Vista systems especially seem to a target for this software. Over 35% of Vista systems running PC Pitstop's on-line tests in May 2007 had a least one of these bloatware application installed.

Note that our analysis is based on a snapshot or sampling of the installed base of PCs during the month reported. The resulting prevalence figures would not show bloatware applications that might have been uninstalled by the PC owner prior to the reporting month.

• Rob's 'Bloatware' Interview with national public radio show Future Tense.
• Bloatware Video.

Bloatware Applications Attach Rate Trends

Prevalence of Bloatware by Operating Systems

Top Bloatware Titles