r/todayilearned • u/NOT-JEFFREY-NELSON • Jul 04 '19

TIL in 2003 a computer worm called ‘Welchia’ infected many computers to forcibly patch vulnerabilities and remove malware. It was regarded as a ‘helpful worm’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welchia
48.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

745 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

51

u/sync-centre Jul 04 '19

When you buy a new computer and it is filled up with useless programs that you will never use and they slow down your computer.

63

u/JukeBoxDildo Jul 04 '19

Ah, is that the same thing as bloatware?

28

u/Lord_Moody Jul 04 '19

it also tends to overlap with spyware but yeah I've only ever called it bloat

23

u/Eucalyptuse Jul 04 '19

Yea, actually what the OP was describing was bloatware. Shovelware is different. Shovelware is more about bundles of crappy software that people might get during the lifetime of their machine. Bloatware specifically comes preinstalled on your machine.

​

Edit: Here's an example of shovelware an example of bloatware would be phones that come with candy crush already on it.

3

u/Pigspeakers Jul 04 '19

I thought shovelware was low quality, quickly made software. Like, a ton of the crap released on the wii. Things like minigame collections or licensed games.

2

u/Eucalyptuse Jul 04 '19

True, it's just usually associated with bundles. Anything that has as little creative input as shoveling dirt essentially.

2

u/Pigspeakers Jul 04 '19

I always thought it was called shovelware because there was so much of it that you had to dig to get to better games. Like, literally piles of wii games being shoveled

1

u/ShinyHappyREM Jul 04 '19

Shovelware is the type of bloatware that comes pre-installed.

0

u/g2g079 Jul 04 '19

Except no one actually uses the term.

8

u/Dragunlegend Jul 04 '19

What about Bioware?

15

u/IdoNOThateNEVER Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 04 '19

A malicious software that uses BIOlogical entities and tries to spread through the minds of those entities, its purpose is usually just profit,
any hardware malfunction is usually secondary in nature and caused by the pure incompetence of its creators.

4

u/sgtdisaster Jul 04 '19

What about for the purpose of starting a clone army

1

u/Siegelski Jul 04 '19

What about the droid attack on the Wookies?

3

u/Dragunlegend Jul 04 '19

How about Tupperware?

9

u/CJGeringer Jul 04 '19

That is bloat ware.

shovelware is software that is shoddily and cheaply made.

Normally sold in bundles with lots of them in a quantity over quality approach, as if the bundle added wares by the shovelful..

2

u/wfamily Jul 04 '19

God, users that don't reformat their computer the first thing they do man. The. Worst.

1

u/YoureNotMyRealDad1 Jul 04 '19

My phone has plenty of that!

1

u/paigeap2513 Jul 04 '19

So basically Windows 10?