Your next PC may come with the Google Essentials app - what you need to know
Many PCs come out of the factory with third-party apps installed. Companies pay the manufacturers for the inclusion of their apps.
A good percentage of PC users does not like these and the term bloatware has been coined to describe apps that are installed on the PC this way.
Soon, your desktop PCs and laptops may come with another third-party app. Called Google Essentials, it has been created by Google to advertise its products and services.
Google announced a partnership with HP to distribute Google Essentials on HP's PCs.
What is Google Essentials?
Google Essentials is an application that is going to be preinstalled on HP devices. Google says that the app is making "it easier for you to discover and install many" of its services. Examples given in the announcement are Google Play Games, Google Photos, and Google Messages.
The app is preinstalled on HP Windows consumer and gaming brands, including Spectre, Envy, Pavilion, and Victus. Users may launch the app from the start menu according to Google.
Google says the app includes shortcuts to popular products, including Google Docs, Drive, and calendar. It also includes a 2-month trial option for Google One, which comes with 100 gigabytes of cloud storage. After that, users have to pay a subscription fee to continue using the storage and the other benefits.
Users may uninstall Google services or the entire app at any time, according to Google.
Lack of information
Google did not post a single screenshot of Google Essentials. The provided description is vague.
What is clear is that Google is paying HP for the inclusion and that HP customers will see the app soon on their devices.
It is unclear if this applies to new devices only, or if older HP devices will get the app installed retroactively as well.
Google revealed plans to increase the reach by entering partnerships with other PC manufacturers. The company expects to reveal new partnerships -- it says to more laptops and desktops -- in the coming months.
Closing Words
Google Essentials is an attempt to get a stronger foothold on PC. The app advertises Google services, some of them are in direct competition to Microsoft products.
Users who use the app need to be careful about the 2-month trial of Google One baked into the app as an offer, as it will result in a paid subscription if not cancelled.
Whether the app is going to convince PC users to give Google services a try remains to be seen.
It should be easy enough to remove the app if you do not need it. A right-click on the application's icon in the Start menu should be enough according to Google.
Other options include uninstalling it from Settings > Apps > Installed Apps, or using a third-party solution like O&O AppBuster.
What is your take on third-party apps that come preinstalled on your devices (PC or mobile). Do you find these useful or do you remove these from your devices immediately? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
Windows is much more better than linux. For blocking ads in start menu, just use a firewall. Even windows update can be stopped with firewall.
Firewall is fundamental for pc security but linux does not have a good one.
More ineffective shortcuts to web pages instead of native apps. If they were true apps, it would be fine, but they are not. Keep that garbage off people’s new computers.
Now Google and Microsoft will fight for supremacy, right on the user’s PC! lol
Google: “Stick with me! I want to be your default search engine and browser!”
Microsoft: “You think my behavior towards competitors like Netscape was bad? Don’t make me laugh. Today, I straight-up uninstall competing products. Don’t bother complaining to the government either, because I have them in my back pocket now. If you doubt this, just look at my acquisitions in the video game industry, soon I will own all of it. BTW I have reset your browser to Edge, and defaulted all of your file associations again. And just to show you who really owns that PC, here’s some more unwanted advertising in your start menu and on your lock screen, this time with sound!”
The best part as a Linux user, is knowing exactly how all of this is going to play out.
But what about downloading it on PCs that people already have?
Not everyone is going to be buying a new PC
More junk, essentially. Nothing to see here.
Bought 3 HP laptops this year. Full of MS and HP garbage. Stripped them of everything I could. Use O&O Shutup too. Occasionally with a MS upgrade the garbage is reinstalled. I read ghacks to stay on top of new developments that I can use to block corporate garbage. Thanks, Martin.
I do not like or want any of this non default OS stuff
being installed. I purposely build my own systems because of this. It is bad enough that Microsoft adds so much unnecessary junk to the OS, why put up with extra junk from the PC vendor.
Extra stuff from the vendor was not always garbage. I have an acer all in one I got in 2009 which came with a genuinely OK camera app (windows used to not come with a camera app), a nice screensaver made with flash, and even a games suite, plus some beautiful work of art wallpapers, and a custom login screen.
Getting the vendor stuff is part and parcel of purchasing a new laptop in a store, reinstall windows has always been the advice if you want a clean system without all that.
I recently got an HP laptop with Windows 11 already on it.
My first step was to wipe (erase) the entire hard drive and install Linux Mint Cinnamon from a thumb drive. No issues, very slick installation.
That pretty well took care of any Windows bloatware. What a load of manure that was.
Enjoy having Chrome as default virus browser, lmao.
My take on third-party apps that come preinstalled on your devices (PC or mobile) : removed systematically.
Now, that’s more an intention than a fact given I’ve never had a PC over-populated with third-party apps given Windows 7 is the latest OS I’ve ever had installed on the PC.
Not to mention the OS’s very own preinstalled apps when I discover the number of users who remove what they can of Microsoft garbage apps and desperately try to when it comes to persistent, hard to remove native craps.
What is amazing is an OS whose developer gets funded by companies to install their apps : that’s no longer an OS, it’s becoming a department store.
Do we realize what has become of Microsoft with its latest OSs, saturated not only with advertisement, trackers but as well with 3rd-party applications?
And now Google’s ‘Essentials’. Good Lord. Google has always been here an intruder so having any of it per-installed on a PS is the final straw.
This is just HP scraping for some easy money. I wouldn’t recommend an HP product today due to management’s bad decisions reventlyy. Our shop sees more problems with HP machines than other brands over the past year. It could be a local phenomenon. But, I think not.
Buy a new laptop. Insert a Linux live usb stick. Press the power button. Run the Live linux system, find the partition manager. Remove all partitions from the laptop. Shut down the laptop. Insert usb stick containing a Windows .iso, created with Rufus. Press the power button. Install Windows.
This if you really must use Windows. Otherwise just install Linux.
The biggest headache in this will be how your particular laptop let’s you into UEFI to change the boot order so you can boot from the usb stick.
I have a health condition called ‘essential tremor’. This sounds equally essential.