Unregister Default WordPress Widgets

To remove the widgets that come by default with WordPress, add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:

// Unregister all default WordPress Widgets
function unregister_default_wp_widgets() {
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Pages');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Calendar');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Archives');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Links');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Meta');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Search');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Text');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Categories');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Recent_Posts');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Recent_Comments');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_RSS');
    unregister_widget('WP_Widget_Tag_Cloud');
}
add_action('widgets_init', 'unregister_default_wp_widgets', 1);

This uses the widgets_init action. Learn more in WordPress Hooks Explained.