Article about PCs shipped with adware preinstalled

[ron_1]

Interesting article from gHacks says Lenovo PCs shipped with preinstalled adware. The article also says that the adware installs a root certificate that makes the computers vulnerable to man in the middle attacks.

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/02/19/lenovo-pcs-ship-with-preinstalled-adware-and-root-certificate/

[Night Wing]

Lenovo must be run by some greedy head honchos with zero common sense. Since they like to put Superfish on their computers they sell to the public, I will not be recommending this brand of computers to anyone looking to purchase a computer at the computer shop where I help out at.

[Moonchild]

Lenovo statement on Superfish:
http://news.lenovo.com/article_display. ... le_id=1929

[LimboSlam]

I have an Lenovo desktop and it's running fine, no adware/bloatware or any pups when first purchased. Though I got it in 2011 so I don't know when they started including shitware/adware. Well just to make sure there's nothing on it still, I'll go ahead and install The PC Decrapifie.

[LimboSlam]

I'm in the clear, I have H Series and checked the Certificate Manager for Superfish Inc and I don't have it. That's good!

[Night Wing]

Lenovo statement on Superfish:
http://news.lenovo.com/article_display. ... le_id=1929

The info in the above link is what I call............."damage control".

[Moonchild]

Lenovo statement on Superfish:
http://news.lenovo.com/article_display. ... le_id=1929

The info in the above link is what I call............."damage control".

And I call it "informing the public in a clear and concise manner about what happened when and what is done about it"

[superA]

I do think that Lenovo s machines are top-notch,but trust,has been gone..
Maybe its a brand war,who knows..

http://arstechnica.com/security/201...u ... -tell-you/

[Night Wing]

Lenovo statement on Superfish:
http://news.lenovo.com/article_display. ... le_id=1929

The info in the above link is what I call............."damage control".

And I call it "informing the public in a clear and concise manner about what happened when and what is done about it"

Hypothetically speaking. If you were just a plain ordinary user (not a power user) who didn't know about Superfish and who had bought one of the infected models built by Lenovo and then found out about Superfish, would you use the link above which actually removes the Superfish certificate from Windows or would you use the link below if you were a Firefox user since Firefox doesn't use the system certificate store in Windows?

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02 ... -tell-you/

BTW, since this seems to affect Firefox, does this affect Pale Moon in the same way?

[TwoTankAmin]

I am not very tech savvy at all. But I got so fed up with pre-built boxes loaded with all sorts of crazy software I did not want or need that the last pre-built box I purchased was A Packard Bell Windows 98 machine last century. My last two boxes I put together myself with a bit of advice and the only software on it is what I put on it.

I do not trust either hardware or software manufacturers to do the right thing. All they want is to capture as much information about users as they can so they can monetize it.

Here is a perfect example of how much companies, even ones which are basically involved with something as innocuous as pet products (I am an avid fish keeper) do things,

How We Respond to Do Not Track Signals

At this time, our Sites do not support "Do Not Track" preferences that may be available in your browser for letting websites know that you do not want them collecting certain kinds of information. Specifically, if you turn on the Do Not Track setting on your browser, our Sites are not currently capable of following whatever Do Not Track preferences you set. For more information about Do Not Track, visit donottrack.us.

from PETCO PRIVACY POLICY- Last updated: February 2, 2015: http://www.petco.com/petco_page_PC_privacypolicy.aspx

At least if one bothers to read their notice of updated privacy policy page and then follows the link there to the full policy itself, you can at least discover the above.

[lyceus]

I prefer buy computers without any OS, so I can install what I like and avoid bloatware. Sadly this is a luxury that I cannot find in these android phones, half of the memory is taken by bloatware/adware.

[LimboSlam]

Here's another article on how to remove the deep and embedded Superfish adware, also Lenovo's bloatware I found on "Should I Remove It."

Link: http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-remove-superfish-adware-from-your-laptop/
Link: http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/Lenovo-oem-bloatware.aspx

[Antonius32]

If you want to have full control over the software that's installed on your PC, another option would be to burn the drivers to a DVD and to download a clean copy of Windows from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery. Just my two cents.

[Joel Cairo]

If you want to have full control over the software that's installed on your PC, another option would be to burn the drivers to a DVD and to download a clean copy of Windows from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery. Just my two cents.

I didn't know Microsoft did that! Not that it affects me (any more), I've built my own for some years now. Ironically the last pre-built desktop I bought was a Lenovo, which was also the first home build (in the Trigger's Broom sense). That was when I first encountered bios-locked installations - when I replaced the mobo.

What I had been doing for quite a while by that point though - and again when I got a laptop - was, while the original copy of Windows was still on there, search the registry for the installation key, which is not the one on the sticker but the Volume License one the factory installs, thus doesn't need to be activated. Whether that VL key is bios-locked would remain to be seen and probably isn't very useful for he average user anyway, beyond eliminating the hassle of the activation sub-system playing up, which I'm sure it still does from time to time (after all, just a few months ago I thought Windows Updates had evolved to trustworthy stability and now we seem to be back where we were more than a decade ago where they're concerned!).

Anyway, if you despise Windows Activation, get the key from the registry before you format and you never have to deal with it again (at least, if you don't change the mobo for one you can't download a bios image from the oem for).

[Antonius32]

If you want to have full control over the software that's installed on your PC, another option would be to burn the drivers to a DVD and to download a clean copy of Windows from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery. Just my two cents.

I didn't know Microsoft did that!

Never mind. I just found out the Software Recovery service does not apply to OEM licenses.

[Joel Cairo]

If you want to have full control over the software that's installed on your PC, another option would be to burn the drivers to a DVD and to download a clean copy of Windows from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery. Just my two cents.

I didn't know Microsoft did that!

Never mind. I just found out the Software Recovery service does not apply to OEM licenses.

Yes, actually reading it one can see that is the case!
What I used to do - and probably will again (if I don't already have it) - was download the iso as a torrent, searching for the SHA1 given at MSDN Subscriber Downloads. Once downloaded, verify it (obviously. I use Hashtab, excellent little freeware prog), burn to disc, install it, install the necessary drivers from the oem site, then activate by telephone, which it almost certainly will, though not via Windows. You can also often get an oem-specific iso, though not necessarily the hash to verify it with.