8 Windows 10 programs you should uninstall right now

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Inconvenient, useless, outdated, sometimes even harmful. Get rid of these programs as soon as possible.

Open Add or Remove Programs in Windows 10, and you will probably see something from this list there. At best, you don't need these apps. At worst, they not only take up space, but also add vulnerabilities to the system. Remove them without hesitation.

1. Flash Player and other legacy technologies

Once upon a time, web pages required plugins such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, or Java to play videos or display a variety of applets. Now that most modern websites have switched to HTML5, these things are no longer needed. Moreover, security holes are constantly discovered in Flash or Silverlight.

Adobe plans to completely end support for Flash by 2020. Silverlight support will last a year longer. And Java may have been a revolutionary technology when it was released in 1995, but a lot has changed since then.

So uninstall Flash Player, Shockwave Player, Silverlight and Java. They will no longer be needed.

Alternative: not required. Nowadays, most sites display videos perfectly without third-party plugins.

2. "Amigo" and other junkware applications

If you install a lot of programs and inattentively study what they offer to install in the appendix, you will find yourself having a lot of uninvited guests.

First of all, these are panels and browser extensions. "[email protected]", "Yandex. Elements", panels from Yahoo, Bing … All these gizmos not only clutter up the interface, but also strive to replace your home page and default search engine.

This also includes "Amigo", "[email protected]" and other programs. It is simply a crime to slip this into users. Erase everything to the devil and carefully look from now on what the installers are trying to shove you.

Alternative: normal browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Vivaldi. Download applications from trusted sources and prevent unwanted software from being installed. will help you with this.

3. CCleaner and other system cleaners

Many people cannot imagine life without programs like CCleaner or IObit Advanced SystemCare. But they don't do anything that the built-in "Disk Cleanup" of Windows 10 is not capable of. In addition, many cleaners, tweakers and optimizers settle in the tray and take system resources.

Do you really need to clear cookies from your browser every few days? And by deleting "extra" keys from the registry, you may well harm the system. Yes, CCleaner can help you remove some programs that cannot be removed by Windows, but you can do without it. The same applies to other optimizers.

Alternative: standard system tools. If you want to free up space, use Windows Disk Cleanup. If you want to defragment your disk, run Disk Defragmenter. There is no need to climb into the registry once again and delete keys with obscure names from there. The system knows better what it needs.

4. Pre-installed software

Whichever laptop you buy - HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo - you will find in it a set of preinstalled software from the manufacturer, which is of no use at all. For example, my HP laptop showed HP Lounge, HP 3D DriveGuard, CyberLink YouCam, HP Support Assistant, and HP Windows 10 taskbar panel.

All these applications are designed to update something and protect from something, but in practice they only consume system resources and take up space. Remove preinstalled software.

Alternative: not required. Windows 10 itself is capable of installing updates and drivers.

5. Windows 10 Metro Apps

Microsoft painstakingly imposes many so-called Metro apps on us. These are 3D Builder, Xbox, Maps, Weather, OneNote, News, Sports, Finance, Mail …

Metro apps have very limited functionality and a peculiar interface. They may be appropriate on a Windows 10 tablet, but on a laptop or desktop computer, they look just superfluous. You can easily find a more suitable replacement for them. Fortunately, they can be removed.

Alternative: it is more convenient to read news in a browser or RSS-client, to check mail - in Gmail or Thunderbird. And 3D Builder and Xbox are completely useless if you don't have a 3D printer or console.

6. Edge and Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer 11 is the latest version of this legendary browser. Nobody has been using it for a long time, nevertheless, Microsoft is keeping it as part of Windows 10.

To disable Internet Explorer (completely removing it will not work), type in the search "Turn Windows features on or off", open the found one and uncheck the box next to Internet Explorer 11.

As for Edge, it certainly looks like a normal browser … but only against the background of Internet Explorer. Microsoft is genuinely trying to make Edge popular, but so far it hasn't been very successful. As with many of Microsoft's new apps, Edge's interface is more suitable for tablets than for regular PCs. So you can delete it too. However, as is the case with the pre-installed Metro apps, this will require some extra gestures.

Alternative: a lot of them. Most users only use Edge and Internet Explorer to visit Chrome, Firefox, or Opera sites and install a decent browser. Do this too.

7. Skype Click to Call

A pretty useless browser extension that comes with Skype. It allows you to call telephone numbers that appear on web pages. Often, Skype Click to Call takes for phone numbers sets of digits that are not numbers. Delete it, Skype won't do any harm.

Alternative: most likely not required. And how often do you make Skype calls to landline numbers?

8. Windows Media Player and QuickTime

Still using Microsoft's standard media player? There are many more convenient and functional alternatives. You can disable Windows Media Player through "Turn Windows features on or off".

QuickTime may have been installed on your computer if you are using iTunes for Windows, but iTunes no longer needs QuickTime to work. QuickTime for Windows was discontinued by Apple in 2016. All media formats supported by QuickTime can be easily opened by third-party players if needed.

Alternative: other players for playing audio and video such as AIMP, foobar, KMPlayer and VLC. They support many more file formats and have a nicer interface.

And what applications do you have on your "hit list"?