Isn't it time we declared our independence from bloatware?

So you've just bought the best Windows laptop, you've gritted your teeth through Cortana's obnoxiously cheery setup narration, and the above screenshot is the Start menu you're presented with. Exactly how special do you feel as you watch the tiles animating and blinking at you like a slots machine? I'll tell you how I felt as I was getting to grips with the Huawei MateBook X Pro for the first time: perplexed. Perplexed that this level of bloatware infestation is still a thing in 2018, especially on a computer costing $1,499 and running an OS called Windows 10 "Pro". Why are we still tolerating this?Before anyone assumes that this is just a rant against and about Windows, I'll happily include Apple's iOS and some varieties of Google's Android in my scorn. The blight of undesired software and prompts is all around us. If I buy an iPhone, Apple pins the Apple Watch app on my home screen, whether I have the compatible watch or not. Or if I go to Apple's nemesis, Samsung forces its Bixby assistant into everything I do with a Galaxy S.

The Windows bloatware in particular irks me, since Windows is not a free or pre-installed operating system you just kind of get for free; I purchased my Windows license and have an Office 365 subscription, and yet, I, too, got this bloatware nonsense when I installed Windows 10. I removed all of it right away, but to me, it's inexcusable.