Here’s Why You Should Always Choose “Custom” When Installing Software

When you install most applications you’ll get a prompt for a custom or full install. It seems so easy to just click full and let the installer go to work–but you’re asking for a slower computer, a load of toolbars, and crapware if you do.
Over at 7Tutorials they decided to see just what would happen if you downloaded popular software applications and let the installer go to town with the “full” option. What they found is that letting an installation app have free run of your machine is a great way to turf your computer’s performance. How big of a performance hit can you expect? Here’s one of the many downsides of letting installation software make changes unchecked:

39% (13 out of 33) of installed applications set themselves to run at the Windows startup even though, in most cases, the functionality being offered is not required by the user at each Windows startup. The only exceptions to this rule are security software or drive emulators.
The end result is longer boot timings and added user annoyance with each login. All the applications added a total of 46 seconds to my system’s initial 52 seconds boot timing. To put things in perspective, this makes for boot procedure slower by 88% compared to the initial timings on my clean computer. To contribute to my annoyance, at each startup I was also welcomed by a huge number of open windows (all requesting something from me), unwanted desktop gadgets and lots of desktop shortcuts.

Hit up the link below for a full tour of the 33 apps they installed and the break down of which apps installed toolbars, startup entries, and otherwise slowed down the machine.