Crapware Alert: Microsoft and HP Partner Up With Live Search Toolbar

Give me a break.

Microsoft and HP are announcing that beginning in 2009, HP’s consumer line will ship with Microsoft’s Live Search Toolbar preinstalled in the browser. The toolbar is Silverlight based, which is cool, but c’mon folks don’t shove this down our throats.

The HP tx2000 model I’m evaluating already has enough CRAPWARE built into the machine and the browser to make you want to pull your hair out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I realize the supposed benefits that this offers from a marketing and cost perspective, but here’s the deal I’ll make. If the HP brass and the big brass at Microsoft will use this for one month before releasing it, and document their usage for all to see, I’ll quit complaining about this as CRAPWARE.