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That's part of why I keep pointing new PC buyers to the "Signature Edition" program [1] where Microsoft does forbid pre-bundled AV on PCs sold through that program (at Microsoft Stores and participating Best Buys and other stores if you know to ask).

[1] https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/categor...

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I can't wait until retail stores start trying to charge more for signature edition. Pay more for less!

To be fair, many internet business models operate on the principle of paying to get less garbage (such as ads). And it makes sense from an economic perspective that if you're not being bribed by crapware vendors you'd want to recoup the opportunity cost.

It's hard to compare Signature Edition models directly to OEM direct models (because OEMs don't want you comparing store-to-store in most cases), but from what research I attempted it did seem like the Signature Edition builds I was examining cost roughly $50-$100 to their direct equivalent the last time I tried to do that math, which seems about what I'd expect crapware vendors are throwing at the PC OEMs to get their stuff installed. (It says a lot about the long term revenue expectations of the crapware vendors if the potential value of a single "trial install" might be worth as much as $100.)

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