Last night, I was the guest for the second hour of the Computer America show (check out the archive, if you want to hear it). I'm on the show every month, to talk about the latest issue, but this month the guest before me was promoting a piece of software he wrote, called PC Decrapifier. PC Decrapifier does just what you'd think it does--removes all the free and trial software that your PC vendor puts on your PC, in one easy step.

Just the other day in the Maximum PC offices, we were bitching about the plague of shovelware--software that PC vendors install on all the new machines that you purchase, whether you want the software or not. We're talking about things like McAfee, Norton, AOL, and dozens of other "exclusive offers" and "bonus software". While some of the software is useful (Norton Ghost, we like you OK), for the most part, it's nothing more than overpriced junkware and ISP offers that you don't need.

PC Decrapifier will let you easily nuke all the crapware that comes preinstalled on your Dell, HP, or other machine.

I just tested the Decrapifier on my Dell laptop, and it took about the same length of time as it would take me to manually remove everything--a half hour or so. The difference is that I didn't have to manually select each app to uninstall and babysit the rig the entire time. Not only that, it also managed to pick out a few pieces of software that I might have missed.

The software is free for personal use, and costs just $20 per technician if you're using it commercially. If you want to give it a test uninstall, there's an unlimited free demo. If you install a half-dozen PCs a month, it will pay for itself by the time it finishes decrapifying the second PC, so I highly recommend you toss the author a few ducats.