Talk:Utility software

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Editing the Definition

Hello there,

In my opinion, the definition presented in the Utility software section is more about what is Utility software' than for 'what purpose it is made. Hence, I would rephrase it and put it this way: "Utility software is a program specifically designed to help manage and tune system or application software." While it is a short description it gives a general idea of the utility's software purpose as well as the ability to expand its description further by integrating specific functions or tasks performed by the aforementioned software.

Best regards, Vitas Lithuania — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.197.169.162 (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That does sound like a better definition, and I'll be happy to implement it. My own opinion is that both questions stated above should be answered as clearly as possible in the article.

InsideLine 12:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe “are programs” Peter Flass (talk) 18:33, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A utility need not be a program per se. A program may provide multiple utilities; consider BusyBox. A utility could be implemented as a library or a service. A utility is software. Stevebroshar (talk) 14:36, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

utility software

Can you please make your research more understandable, with many facts that it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.126.29.46 (talk) 11:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read the revised defination of utility software, I recommend addition at the revised defination "which benefit both technical as well as non-technical users" The reason behind my recommendation is inclusion of system and application software terms.

Regrds

Aizof — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.223.165.82 (talk) 08:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very happy to read Marko Kur (talk) 21:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Marko Kur (talk) 21:38, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

citations needed

I feel this is more of a list-class article, and doesn't need additional citations. Peter Flass (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree. Perhaps the introductory discussion could do with another cite or two, but the current banner recently added by Hildeaof implies that each bullet point requires a ref - which is Just Silly, as all of them are existing articles. -Snori (talk) 21:42, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a list, then it should be named as such. I do agree that the content is for the most part a list. But, the intro is not list-like. Maybe there should be one article for 'utility' and one for list of (kinds of) utilities. Stevebroshar (talk) 11:29, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube must be mentioned

YouTube is an online video platform, however, it is used as an utility to produce content, since you can embed a YouTube video in HTML with their iFrame element. O7Official (talk) 10:47, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would not call YouTube a utility, no. It's end-user functionality which makes it not a utility. Even if it were classified as a utility, that certainly does not mean it must be mentioned in this article. Many WP articles suffer from death-by-too-many-examples syndrome. If you try to list all examples of a concept you often end up with an article with a crazy long list of stuff that in the end is arguable, OR, incomplete and ... boring. Stevebroshar (talk) 15:20, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's Utility

The term 'utility software' doesn't seem notable; not nearly as notable as 'utility'. I consider 'utility software' to be two-notable-terms-crammed-together. Utility is, in general, anything that is useful (has utility) and in the computing realm is software that provides a useful function that is not what is normally considered end-user functionality. The title should be 'utility' ... which of course requires disambiguation ... so Utility (software) or Utility (computing) are good. In fact, both already exists and redirect to the current title (utility software). IMO, one of them should be actual the article title and 'utility software' should redirect to it. Stevebroshar (talk) 11:21, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]