Lenovo installing adware on new laptops

[KansasSooner]

Can you believe this?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...re-that-hijacks-https-traffic-on-new-pcs.html

And how to uninstall it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...erfish-adware-presintalled-on-lenovo-pcs.html

 

[moxie]

Yuck. I've been looking at getting a new ThinkPad, too.

 

[WizardHawk]

FFS, and from a once trusted business oriented vendor too.

On a side note, love that I can now get an alert any time there is new content on the tech board. No more forgetting about this board for weeks at a time.

 

[KansasSooner]

Lenovo CTO admits company 'messed up' and will publish Superfish removal tool on Friday | PCWorld
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...publish-superfish-removal-tool-on-friday.html

 

[HaroldSeattle]

Shoot you beat me to it Kansas, I was reading that article at work and was going to post it here. You got to just shake your head about a manufacturer that does something like this. I say screw them, hope they go out of business.

 

[KansasSooner]

I can't believe Lenovo said they'd do it again because it's what people like. Say what?

With that said, Hortensius didn’t rule out adware returning to Lenovo PCs.

“I think you do this thing right, people like information and awareness,” Hortensius said, when asked whether adware would be used again. “You do them wrong, it’s obviously a disaster.”

 

[HaroldSeattle]

I can't believe Lenovo said they'd do it again because it's what people like. Say what?

What an idiot.

 

[HaroldSeattle]

On a side note, love that I can now get an alert any time there is new content on the tech board. No more forgetting about this board for weeks at a time.

I hear you. I keep telling Hammer I'm going to pay more attention to this forum, but once I'm here, I tend to think NFL football and forget about this tech forum.

No more!

 

[OregonDucks]

Well there goes Lenovo.

 

[night]

I saw this on reddit yesterday. I will never buy a Lenovo based on this information. Yes, I know they have decided to discontinue this practice but simply being willing to do it is enough to lose my business forever.

 

[HaroldSeattle]

It's getting hard to get away from crap ware now days. It's bad enough that it's everywhere, but the fact that they make it so hard to get rid of and are sneaky about it, is what ticks me off. Here's a article that touches on the matter.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/crapware-why-manufacturers-install-it-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

Let me close with a suggested "crapware best practices" for hardware makers. This would allow them to continue to earn revenue from installing crapware, without making life hell for their customers:

• Go easy on the crapware. If it's having a dramatic impact on performance, then there's too much crapware being installed.
  
• Don't hide crapware being EULAs and such. Make it clear if users are opting into anything. If you have to hide what you're doing under a pile of legalese then it's fair to say that you know you're trying to dupe your customers using tactics used by malware and adware.
  
• Make it easy to uninstall. If users can't uninstall the crapware from the Control Panel with a few clicks, you're using tactics used by malware and adware to try to outsmart your customers. And then you force people to go to crazy lengths to protect their systems from the crapware you got paid to install.
  
• Offer consumers a crapware-free version for a few bucks extra.
  
• Don't be evil. I can't believe that no one at Lenovo had concerns about installing Superfish adware onto notebooks. Just don't install adware. Period. If you're in this business then you know exactly what adware is and isn't. Don't try to be smart and claim it's for the benefit of your customers. You know this isn't true.

 

[WizardHawk]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to find the line between typical crapware and actual adware/malware. They knew full well what they were doing and did it anyway.

Who the hell do they think they are? What gives them the right to force people who buy their systems to weaken their overall web security and force more ads on them just because they bought their device from them?

There is NOTHING that should come on any new computer that the end user shouldn't easily be able to opt out of. You don't own my usage rights as a vendor.

While they said this was only done on consumer models, I'm still striking them off the list of approved manufacturers for machines in our company. As consumers this is the only way we can send clear messages to those companies.

This is the equivalent of 'pink slime' in McDonalds meat. Won't ever support either company again.

 

[KansasSooner]

This is the equivalent of 'pink slime' in McDonalds meat.

Well considering "pink slime" was term coined by ABC News for sensationalism that's not very fair, what ABC News complained about was a practice that had been going on long before McDonald's throughout the beef processing industry and had be shown to be safe by the FDA and USDA...

 

[WizardHawk]

That doesn't make it right. It's one thing to stretch food for animal stock, but not for human consumption. And if you are going to say it's viable, then the public should be fully aware of it and let them decide. It isn't the food industries right to also add things to our food we aren't aware of and hide it from us.

 

[HaroldSeattle]

It isn't the food industries right to also add things to our food we aren't aware of and hide it from us.

Rule of thumb for me is, if they're not open about it, they know it's wrong.

 

[KansasSooner]

An editorial from PC World about it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...d-pc-vendors-more-accountable-for-adware.html

and

Windows Defender fully removes Lenovo's dangerous Superfish malware
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...oves-lenovos-dangerous-superfish-malware.html

 

[fordman84]

Holy crap, I have been just about to pull the trigger on a T440

 

[HaroldSeattle]

An editorial from PC World about it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...d-pc-vendors-more-accountable-for-adware.html

and

Windows Defender fully removes Lenovo's dangerous Superfish malware
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...oves-lenovos-dangerous-superfish-malware.html

I get the feeling Lenovo is in for a rocky ride and they should. Heads should roll at Lenovo.

 

[fordman84]

Just went back to their site about this, and looks like the T series didn't get it. They have a tool on their site now to remove this.

For 6 months they knew it was happening and didn't say anything. Now they fix it in 24 hours. Going to look elsewhere.

 

[KansasSooner]

I get the feeling Lenovo is in for a rocky ride and they should. Heads should roll at Lenovo.

That editorial from PC World is worth the read. They really lay it out for ALL PC manufacturers how they will now look at the amount of crapware installed on PCs they review.