Bloatware

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There are several definitions, even within the context of software (ignoring hardware bloat), and even within those definitions it's still open to subjectivity:

• Pre-installed software that's not required by a system to work
• Redundant or duplicate features included on a device (physical or digital)
• Undesirable programs that were never requested by the user
• Software that has become bloated over time

While the term "bloatware" is commonly ascribed to software, hardware bloat exists. See IoT devices, for examples.

Often, bloat is a symptom of enshittification

Why it is a problem

Most bloatware tends to be pre-installed because the device manufacturer (OEM) has a contract or partnership with another corporation who's interested in "getting exposure" (actually, to advertise itself and collect user data).

Bloat, in any of its forms, raises privacy and security concerns. As a rule of thumb, every added branch of code can make a program exponentially harder to prove for correctness (ignoring the nuance that some code can aid static analysis or even completely enforce invariants), making it impractical (hopeless) to verify that a program is not malicious (such as spyware) or has an exploitable vulnerability. The problem is exacerbated if the app is not open-source (or at least, source-available), since reverse engineering is hard and (in many cases) illegal, forcing the user to be at the mercy of the developers and distributors of the app.

Bloat is known for causing sub-par user-experience:

• Slowness makes users want to exit the website or uninstall the program
• High memory use prevents users from multitasking; and even if they can multitask, the system will be considerably slow
• High power usage increases energy bills and reduces battery lifespan
• Overly relying on network connections (such as internet) prevents users from accessing data that could've been cached locally, and can increase cellular-data billing
• Big code-bases are harder to test and verify, leading to instability and unreliability issues

If an energy source isn't "clean", bloat can worsen climate change. This is true for excessive processing (CPU, GPU, etc...) and network abuse (such as AI training)

See also

• "The Thirty Million Line Problem" by Casey Muratori on "Molly Rocket" channel
• "Web Obesity Crisis"
• The Growth of Web Page Size
• Javascript bloat in 2024
• "Software disenchantment"
• uBlock-wiki counterpoint to "Who cares about efficiency, I have 8 GB RAM and|or a quad core CPU"
• Why Modern Software is Slow–Windows Voice Recorder