One of the first steps after setting up a PC and optimizing the BIOS/UEFI is installing all the programs you need. This can include the browser, Steam, MSI Afterburner, VLC, and PowerToys, among others. While these programs are essential on any gaming PC, some users can get carried away and install performance-hungry bloatware that does little to help their PC. Whether they are first-party bundled programs or needless third-party apps, you're better off without them. After building PCs for almost 20 years, I've learned not to waste my time with 5 particular types of PC programs.

Antivirus software

I'm firmly anti-antivirus software

We're on the heels of 2026, and I can confidently say that you don't really need a third-party antivirus program on your PC. Any Windows 11 PC already has built-in antivirus protection, thanks to Microsoft Defender. Its comprehensive protection keeps your system protected from modern threats. Windows Update keeps it, well, updated, so you don't need to augment it with additional protections. Most third-party antivirus tools slow your PC down anyway, becoming a greater liability on your system resources compared to Defender. Many of these third-party programs aren't just too heavy, they're needlessly complicated and constantly harass you to download other programs, which are equally useless.

Some studies even show that solutions from McAfee, Bitdefender, and Avast lead the pack when it comes to resource-heavy antivirus programs. You might even be paying for some of these tools on top of sacrificing system bandwidth. While lightweight anti-malware programs like Malwarebytes might still be useful for deep cleaning suspected drives, keeping a bloated third-party antivirus program on your PC permanently is unnecessary.

Bundled manufacturer bloatware

Everyone has one

Motherboard and peripheral manufacturers love to bundle clunky and resource-intensive utilities in the name of customization, system optimization, firmware updates, fan tuning, and tons of other stuff that you can achieve with better alternatives. Programs like Asus Armoury Crate, Corsair iCUE, MSI Center, and Razer Synapse are essentially bloatware that are a little more than a drag on system resources. You can tune fan curves in the BIOS or by using Fan Control, download firmware updates directly from the manufacturer's website, and use better equalizers than what's present in first-party software.

I've never installed Gigabyte Control Center for my B550 Aorus Elite AX V2, or used Synapse to "customize" my Razer DeathAdder V2 X. Any CPU optimizations I need for my Ryzen 7 5700X can be done in the BIOS or Ryzen Master. First-party bloatware is one of the worst PC hardware trends that needs to end sooner rather than later, but until it does, we can all vow to avoid these programs at all costs.

Third-party driver updaters

What will they come up with next?

Keeping your drivers updated is important, but you don't need an additional tool to do it. Third-party driver updaters that claim to automatically scan your PC and download updates for any outdated Windows drivers. This might sound useful and even convenient on the surface, but these tools are unwanted programs that can do more harm than good. Firstly, you do not need to update drivers that often unless a device or component starts acting up. Secondly, Windows Update takes care of driver updates anyway. Lastly, some driver updaters are just adware dressed up as useful utilities, and can even pose security risks to your machine. Many of these tools even ask for hefty subscription fees.

Whenever I need to update my GPU drivers, I do it from the Nvidia app. In the last three years that I have had my existing PC, I have updated non-GPU drivers only 2–3 times. Any driver that I need to update manually can be found on the manufacturer's website. I don't need to put up with a potentially risky or at least needless utility just to keep my system updated.

First-party RGB software

Few things can be worse than this

Motherboard bloatware might be easy to spot, but most people still put up with first-party RGB software to customize the pretty lighting they paid for. The good news is that you have far better alternatives for RGB software than the manufacturer tools you've been using till now. I use SignalRGB on my PC since it can detect almost every device, and has tons of free effects. It's also much more polished than any first-party RGB bloatware. You can also check out other options, such as OpenRGB and JackNet RGB Sync, if you prefer open-source software.

I was fed up with Gigabyte RGB Fusion when I switched to SignalRGB. If you've been struggling with your clunky and resource-sucking RGB software, it's time to make the switch. The biggest problem that tools like SignalRGB and OpenRGB solve is the need to install multiple RGB programs to account for each RGB component and peripheral. These programs often end up conflicting with each other, and having too many of them makes your PC sluggish and cluttered. An all-in-one RGB program, specifically a well-designed one, can make your life much easier, so you can enjoy your PC's RGB lighting instead of struggling to keep everything working.

Performance boosters and PC cleaners

Leave such hacks in the past

PC performance boosters can be the most tempting utilities to install on a new PC, especially a budget rig. Since these tools claim to increase performance, optimize settings, clean the registry, and remove unnecessary files, some users consider them essential. However, most of what these programs do can be done within Windows, while other "features" can actually be harmful to your system. Simple tasks like cleaning junk files, updating drivers, and defragmenting hard drives have always been built into Windows. And things like "releasing RAM" do more harm than good, since Windows is already advanced enough to handle memory management.

You don't need to "clean" your registry or speed up internet performance using third-party boosters. Programs like CCleaner, Razer Cortex, and Advanced System Care are little more than placebos that can even interfere with the proper functioning of your PC, in the worst cases. Any performance benefits that they bring are temporary, thanks to aggressive disabling of background services. A lot of these tools also badger you to install other useless tools to "improve" your PC's performance. So, it's best to stay away from such hacks and focus instead on learning how to fix unoptimized settings on your PC yourself.

Most third-party tools are trying to sell you something

While there are always great third-party programs you should consider for Windows, many others are simply useless or downright dangerous. You don't really need bloated adware to update your drivers, improve performance, sync RGB lighting, or even protect against viruses. Windows can do a lot of these tasks pretty well, and for everything else, you have worthy alternatives that actually do what they claim.