Nice one, ZX. Took me a while to twig to it - I'm slow tonight. Put it down to the lack of sleep. Or possibly just old age. Which is, when you think about it, just a matter of time.
(If Tea was here, she'd tell me to shut up and get on with it about now. And she would be right.)
So, as I was saying ... er ... what was I saying? Yes, about Dell and spyware. I don't think they can afford to maintain that policy, you know. Spyware has become such a crippling burden on many systems that you simply can't afford to ignore it. It's much worse than even the plethora of performance-robbing junk you get on new-build vomit boxes. Compaq, I guess, are the champions of this crud, but most of them do it.
You know, it makes me wonder: when PC magazines do performance tests on new systems, do they test them with all standard software installed? They really ought to, you know. That way, the sluggsville Windows installations of the HPs and Compaqs of this world would be shown up for what they really are. Are performance tests not supposed to be truly representative of the system as experienced by the customer?
And perhaps they should extend this rule to testing Dell systems in the fairest possible way too - i.e., with 117 copies of Bonzo Buddy running and three different cursor bars.
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