Bundled installers: how to decline the extras you never asked for

Toolbars, trial scanners and changed homepages usually arrive with consent you gave without noticing. Slow down at these screens.

You install a free video converter. A week later the browser has a new homepage, an unfamiliar "system optimiser" asks for payment, and the search engine has changed. Nothing broke in. In most cases the extras were offered during installation, and the offer was accepted by clicking Next.

What these extras are called

The industry term is potentially unwanted program: software a user may perceive as unwanted or unnecessary, often installed alongside a program the user did want. A frequent variety is adware, software that generates revenue for its developer by displaying advertisements. Bundling exists because it pays: the distributor of the installer is paid for each extra that gets installed.

Where the consent hides

Bundled offers rely on habit. Installers have trained people to click Next until the progress bar appears, and offer screens are designed to look like one more routine step. Watch for these patterns:

• Pre-ticked boxes. The extra is selected by default and you must untick it.
• "Express" versus "Custom". Express, labelled as recommended, accepts everything. Custom or Advanced reveals the list.
• Accept and Decline buttons on an offer page. Decline refuses only the offer and installation continues, but the wording can suggest you are cancelling the whole thing.
• A licence that is not for your program. A second end-user licence agreement in the middle of setup usually belongs to an extra.
• Greyed-out refusal. The "skip" link is styled to look disabled although it works.

A routine for every installer

1. Choose Custom or Advanced whenever it is offered, even if you change nothing.
2. Read each screen's heading. If it names a product other than the one you are installing, it is an offer.
3. Untick every box you do not understand. A program does not need a browser extension to convert a video.
4. Decline changes to homepage, search engine and default apps.
5. When setup finishes, untick "launch now" extras and "visit our partner" boxes too.

Reduce the problem at the source

Where you get the installer matters as much as how you click through it. Third-party portals sometimes wrap a clean program in their own installer that adds offers the developer never included. Fetching the program from a store, a package manager or the developer's site, as described in where to download desktop software, avoids many bundles outright.

If extras are already installed

• Open the system's list of installed programs, sort by install date, and remove anything that arrived on the same day as the program you wanted and that you do not recognise.
• Check the browser's extension list and remove unknown entries.
• Reset the homepage and default search engine in browser settings.
• Run a scan with your security software, many of which can be set to flag potentially unwanted programs.

If a removed item returns after a restart, or you cannot remove it at all, treat that as a sign of something more serious than a bundle and seek help from someone you trust with computers.

Screens and wording vary between installers and change over time. The principle stays the same: an installer should install one thing, and every additional thing deserves a deliberate yes or no.

written by Bram Oosterveld / last revised 2026-11-12