In west europe PCs were riddled with crapware if you bought a prebuilt windows machine in the 90s and early 00s. Wipe and reinstall windows was first thing I would do with a new PC, it was a necessity.
I don't know about intervening 20 odd years, I used linux, but I recently installed win 11 home and had zero crapware. Windows ISO from microsoft, harder to install than garden variety linux (not hard, just more annoying and takes way longer), but no tiktok, roblox, disney etc.
Maybe it's an EU thing that stopped all the preloaded crap, no idea.
Maybe it's an EU thing that stopped all the preloaded crap, no idea.