Thank god someone had some sense over there...

cute puppy.

power of the press right there

Hmm, like they should have done in the first place, and offered all along... Seriously, how much blame does MS get because of the OEMs loading up the PCs with instability-causing crap that smells (and works) like ass....

Way to stick up for the little guy, Giz.

i think my puppy is cuter

I love how the smartest move Sony has made in a long time is un-fucking-up a royal fuck up. They didn't do anything good (well, ok, offering clean OS installs is good) they just stopped doing something bad.

Dang Adam, you got da power!

The sh_t they put on their PCs is unreal. Worse than Google crapware you get with Dell, Sony bundles AOL toolbars and search.
Who in their right mind would use these?

lol people kill me......ever wonder why dell computers are so cheap? they sell them at a loss, money by computer manufacturers is made off warranty(96% never make a single call).

Wonder why there is bloat ware? to furhter bring down the price point(for example google paid dell "$x" a box to have google desktop preinstalled).

People want more for less, who doesnt? Unfortunately, in regards to this topic, this is not a possibility. If you go to the site dell ideastorm, one of the most requested things was to offer a "clean" os for a premium. People are too stupid/lazy to simply reinstall the os after receiving the system. Unless you make $50 and hour, it is worth your time to save the money and let them install the crapware, then once you recieve the pc, wipe it with the provided media and start fresh(keep in mind that most major distributors provide a driver disk as well as a OEM OS disk, installing an OS is a cakewalk these days).

To criminalize sony with sensationalist headlines for offering customers the ability to opt out, forgoing the discount the software brings,is, for lack of a better term, irrational.

On an unrelated not, Sony raises prices on all computers by $50 effective tomorrow.

While this may seem like the first smart thing Sony has done in a while, I can tell you from experience, it's not. Take a look at the NWZ-A818:
[www.crutchfield.com]

That little player works amazingly well, second to none sound right out of the box, compatible with Rhapsody To Go, simple to use, great design. I'm no Sony fanboy, but was thrilled that they finally got something right (including their business savvy approach to win the high-def media battle).

In fact, I'd say that historically, Sony's biggest problem was never the competition, it was Sony themselves! The rootkit fiasco, not making MiniDisc and Betamax available to more manufacturers earlier, forcing proprietary media types on its customers, etc.

YAY!!!!! thats is pure awesomeness, maybe Sony does read Gizmodo(and all those crappy crappy blogs)
GIZMODO FTW

Can you do anything about health care now, Giz?

Good on them.

Good on them, they realized their mistake.

I bet you they don't expand this Fresh Start to any other PCs, in fact, I bet they slowly kill it off. Think about it, how can they make extra money off you if you don't install the free crap people pay them to install on your computer, and you don't pay them not to.

For a second there sony was like lets stop doing good things like winning format wars and selling ps3s and be assholes again. But looks like they ran out of crack and theyre back to rolling through 2008.

Why not today? Suckers that don't put off till tomorrow are suckers today?

Now that that's resolved, can someone shame them into honoring their extended warranties / accidental damage policies with less hassle and attitude?

@jackbling: I reinstall every OS on every computer I get regardless, just to start fresh without stuff I don't want, but I don't see why Dell/Sony didn't just turn it around and make it opt-in, instead of opt-out.

"Save $39 by adding 'Super-Happy-Fun' utilities. These add such and such search features, weather gadgets, and blah blah blah. Powered by AOL Spyware."

This way, people can accept a little inconvenience to save a little money, or people who care can pay a bit more for a clean system.

Either way, Dell's bottom line doesn't change, and customer's don't have to "add" something and pay more to get less.

Power users can game the system by paying themselves $39 to wipe the crap themselves.

With an opt-in system, you can make the ad-ware a bit more custom, a bit more invasive, with a more encompassing EULA, which makes it more valuable to companies that are doing user analysis and targetted spyware ad-related stuff. Everybody wins.

Thanks guys... I think consumers owe you for this one!

The apple overlords are not impressed...

@nutbastard: For Sorny that's a start.

For instance, I understand they had the hit on that dog canceled.
Nice.

Sony really deserves much more credit than they have been given. Ever since that rootkit crap they've done lots of great things like making the HDD on the PS3 user replaceable, letting you download savegames onto a USB stick etc.

They're finally realizing the memory stick model worked against them, especially that 2x128MB select crap.

Meh, beats having to buy a $200 120GB HDD, $70 wifi adapter and $40 memory card for my 360.

Too late Sony! Caught looking like a boob again. We can't wait to see how you are going to stiff the Blu-Ray consumers. Say what? You've already started? Figures.

Awww, poor puppy. You didn't do anything wrong! Don't be sad!

Free bloatware omission. How much for rootkit omission?

Sony VAIO laptops do not come with recovery disks. None. There is a recovery partition instead.

It's these shenanigans from Sony that make me wonder why the fanboi's fellate Sony so much. I just don't get it?!?! How do you fanboi for a company who tries to charge for the removal of something that shouldn't have been there in the first place?

Unbelievable. Wait it's Sony, it was completely believable.