Meanings
- informaluncountablecomputingSoftware that is packed with too many features and therefore slow or unwieldy; software that is inefficiently designed and occupies an excessive amount of memory or disk space.
Today’s software development cycle does not allow time to optimize and refine products, and that leads to bloatware.
1996 February 12, Ed Foster, “Passing the bloatware buck: Programmers finger deadlines, driven bosses”, in InfoWorld, page 582 more examples
That’s not really a surprise, considering that writing efficient software takes more time than writing wasteful code. “Bloatware” makes economic sense for software developers, if not for consumers!
2001, Glenn E. Weadock, Upgrading Your Home PC, →ISBN, page 16I’ll bet you think I’m going to write one of those boring articles you see all over the net bemoaning “bloatware.” Whine whine whine, this stuff is so bloated, oh woe is me, edlin and vi are so much better than Word and Emacs because they are svelte, etc.
2001 March 23, Joel Spolsky, “Strategy Letter IV: Bloatware and the 80/20 Myth”, in Joel on Software; republished as Joel on Software […], 2004, →ISBN, page 277Synonyms: fatware
- uncountablecomputingUnwanted pre-installed software, especially on a smartphone.
“[…] samsung should stop adding crap bloatware […] i never use such app^([sic]) and i dont need it”
2018, Shawn Mankad, Shengli Hu, Anandasivam Gopal, “Single state prediction with embedded topic modeling of online reviews for mobile app management”, in The Annals of Applied Statistics, volume 12, number 4, →JSTOR, page 22974 more examples
If consumers didn't like the bloatware that came with their phones, other manufacturers wouldn't include it, the bad actors would lose customers, and everyone would have to adjust.
2010 October 29, Nick Saint, “Opinion: Google Android is only 'open' if you're the phone company”, in CNN, archived from the original on 12 Aug 2019The problem is especially bad with Android and Windows phones sold through third-party carriers, which like to preinstall all sorts of bloatware.
2013 December 24, Heather Kelly, “Tips for getting started with your new mobile gadget”, in CNN Business, archived from the original on 07 Jul 2016Bloatware has also introduced numerous security and trust issues in smartphones. […] OEMs, third-party app providers, telecommunication operators, and malicious parties have used bloatware apps to over-collect user data.
2017, Haroon Elahi, Guojun Wang, Xu Li, “Smartphone Bloatware: An Overlooked Privacy Problem”, in Guojun Wang et al., editors, Security, Privacy, and Anonymity in Computation, Communication, and Storage, →ISBN, page 170Most phones had preinstalled Android stores and bloatware built in by manufacturers, but workers would still choose to install third-party marketplaces like Tencent MyApp, Baidu 91 Mobile Assistance, and Qihoo 360 Mobile Assistants.
2018, Luzhou Nina Li, “Android App Stores and the Appification of Everything”, in Jeremy Wade Morris, Sarah Murray, editors, Appified: Culture in the Age of Apps, →ISBN, page 46
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSoftware that is packed with too many features and therefore slow or unwieldy; software that is inefficiently designed and occupies an excessive amount of memory or disk space.
Origin
- Englishbloat
- Proto-Indo-European*sem-
- Proto-Germanic*samþuz /*samftuz
- Proto-West Germanic*samft(ī)
- Old Englishsōfte
- Middle Englishsofte
- Englishsoft
- Proto-Germanic*warō
- Proto-West Germanic*waru
- Old Englishwaru
- Middle Englishware
- Englishsoftwarebf.
- Englishbloatware
From bloat + -ware. Originally in the sense “unwieldy software”; the sense “pre-installed software” has become predominant since the 2010s.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish turhakeohjelmisto, ähkyohjelmisto
- turhakeohjelmistosoftware that is overpacked with features
- ähkyohjelmistosoftware that is overpacked with features
French obésiciel, obésitiel
- obésicielsoftware that is overpacked with features
- obésitielsoftware that is overpacked with features
- boufficielsoftware that is overpacked with features
- inflagicielsoftware that is overpacked with features
- bloatwaresoftware that is overpacked with features
Japanese ブロートウェア
- ブロートウェア (burōtowea)software that is overpacked with features
Spanish software inflado
- software infladosoftware that is overpacked with features
Cite this entry
bloatware. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bloatware
“bloatware.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bloatware. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bloatware,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bloatware.
Source: bloatware on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.