What is Bloatware? - ‘Wares #5
Welcome back to Josh the Aspie’s Blog for the fifth installment in the ‘Wares series, where I explain the meaning behind different terms that include “ware” used to describe software and hardware.
Bloatware is software where more and more features have been added over time, causing the storage, memory, and processing requirements of simply loading the program to grow, and grow, and grow.
Synonyms include “featuritis”, “feature creep”, “software creep” and “creeping featuritis” among others.
Bloatware intersects with Crapware in the area of Operating Systems. Some Operating Systems (OSs) come bundled with an incredibly large number of programs which are not needed by all users. These programs are often labeled as features of the mega-software (such as Windows) with which they come. Thus the Crapware is also an example of featuritis.