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Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

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Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#51

Post by jmiserez »

simonh wrote: post #43
freediver wrote: post #24

IBM Thinkpad t43p was my first heavy duty laptop. In 2005 IBM made a mistake that someone in their management must regret to date, selling Thinkpad laptop line to Lenovo. Things went downhill for Thinkpads and I lasted 3-4 more generations before finally giving up. Thinkpad had a shot at being the world's most loved laptop, by developers and businessman on the go. Passion for great products and great user experience…

Thinkpads were actually manufactured by Lenovo right from the start, they were only badged by IBM. But even then, why should anyone at IBM care what happened to the brand after they sold it? I know some creators love their product lines and such and care about posterity, but, IBM!

Did Lenovo really manufacture them back in 1992? From what I gather they only started in 2005?

Even then it's like saying iPhones manufactured by Foxconn are only badged by Apple. The original IBM Thinkpads all the way up to the T43 were developed by IBM and built/designed significantly better than the ones today. Also a large selling point of the old models was the software (!), which made some things easier.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#52

Post by isostatic »

jhoh wrote: post #37

I recently was asked by my girlfriends sister to help her choose a laptop. After finding a model that looked good spec-wise I searched for that same model but without Windows pre-installed. It was 150€ cheaper. Then I got a 10€ Windows 10 key from ebay, installed O&O ShutUp and Winaero Tweaker and now it almost feels like a great system that you can actually work with. Vendor-bloatware has been bad since Windows 7 bu…

Vendor bloatware has been bad since 95

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#53

Post by isostatic »

tjr225 wrote: post #27
freediver wrote: post #24

IBM Thinkpad t43p was my first heavy duty laptop. In 2005 IBM made a mistake that someone in their management must regret to date, selling Thinkpad laptop line to Lenovo. Things went downhill for Thinkpads and I lasted 3-4 more generations before finally giving up. Thinkpad had a shot at being the world's most loved laptop, by developers and businessman on the go. Passion for great products and great user experience…

To this day I want an older 16:10 thinkpad to run xubuntu on. Happy with my 2013 mbpr, however.

I have a 2010 t410s which runs fine, could do with a new battery though.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#54

Post by simfoo »

dx034 wrote: post #49
simfoo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no legitimate Windows licenses that only cost 10€. They may activate but successful activation does not imply that you are not breaching Microsofts license agreement and they may decide to deactivate those licenses at any time

Wasn't the ban on resale of licenses declared illegal at least in some countries? In that case, second hand licenses would very well be legal, even if Microsoft doesn't like them.

I don't know, but I would be surprised if such a ruling applied to licenses that were never intended for the country they are resold in.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#55

Post by cbzoiav »

Rjevski wrote: post #23
35345dfgd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No enterprise is using the base windows image that came from Lenovo with the superfish malware. They all build their own standard operating environment image that would not include the Lenovo bloatware. I would be surprised if Lenovo enterprises even realized they were shipping this way and have no reason to react negatively. Their competitors also live in glass houses and so cannot throw stones.

No enterprise would use the factory image, but a lot of small businesses would and they were put at risk as a result. We can of course say they shouldn't have trusted it, but honestly, should it be normal to expect the manufacturer of the machine to be malicious? Not to mention the other commenters pointed out that they used the firmware to reinstall the malware even on otherwise clean images, so even enterprises cou…

If you don't trust the manufacturer then the OS is the least of your worries.

You can't trust the hardware, microcode or firmware either.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#56

Post by bildung »

ekianjo wrote: post #29
paranoidrobot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This descends pretty quickly into politics, but Nationalised infrastructure should be managed by a government organisation who's goal is to deliver a quality product at (or slightly above) cost. These organisations in turn report to the executive government of the day, who's interests should be aligned with that of the citizens they were elected to represent.

Nationalized infrastructure is a good way to create poor service, and a long lasting debt. Look at pretty much every country in Europe with national railtracks and rail lines: massively bleeding money, with worse and worse service and low levels of investements because there is no incentive to do so.

Actually the opposite is true. For example the UK was at the forefront of modern railtrack privatization, and it went horribly wrong: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/09/why-britains-...

There are countless examples in Europe were privatized infrastructure actually has been bought back by the public because it has been neglected by the private holder.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#57

Post by Double_a_92 »

dx034 wrote: post #49
simfoo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no legitimate Windows licenses that only cost 10€. They may activate but successful activation does not imply that you are not breaching Microsofts license agreement and they may decide to deactivate those licenses at any time

Wasn't the ban on resale of licenses declared illegal at least in some countries? In that case, second hand licenses would very well be legal, even if Microsoft doesn't like them.

Those licenses are mostly from education institutions or from company MSDN subscription. I.e. from rogue IT admins that abuse their power.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#58

Post by dingaling »

dawnerd wrote: post #14
gniv wrote: post #13

So, somewhat offtopic. I'd like to buy some tablets as presents and the Lenovo ones seemed well rated for the price. Are there others that are made by a, umm, nicer company? I'm looking for cheap and reliable rather than performant.

So what's your price range? Ipads were down to 249 which I'd consider pretty darn cheap.

Amazon Fire 7 were down to £30 ( $40 ). That's cheap.

$249 is still serious money for most families.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#59

Post by bildung »

ekianjo wrote: post #39
Joakal wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a private train company that has good service, regularly invests and is profitable without government assistance?

Yup. Numerous private train companies in Japan.

In Japan the government kept essentially all the companies' debt, and incurred the cost of the 80k employees that were fired. And even now the profitable companies seem to get their profits from shops at the train stations.

And from the 6 companies the public railroad was split into, not all are successful: "JR Hokkaido expects to incur a record pretax loss of ¥23.5 billion in the year that ended in March [2017], with the company’s president likening its loss-making business structure — due to loss of passengers caused by falling local populations and the expansion of expressway networks — to “a bucket with holes in the bottom."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/04/04/editorials/p...

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#60

Post by raxxorrax »

namdnay wrote: post #47
jhoh wrote: post #37

I recently was asked by my girlfriends sister to help her choose a laptop. After finding a model that looked good spec-wise I searched for that same model but without Windows pre-installed. It was 150€ cheaper. Then I got a 10€ Windows 10 key from ebay, installed O&O ShutUp and Winaero Tweaker and now it almost feels like a great system that you can actually work with. Vendor-bloatware has been bad since Windows 7 bu…

> Then I got a 10€ Windows 10 key from ebay A rather unfair comparison, don't you think? That's like saying "I got a really good deal on a Macbook, all I had to do was pick it up and sprint out of the Apple store!"

Considering the quality and the fact that Win10 actually serves you adds and sells telemetry information, I think the price should be even lower.

The consumer has the responsibility to check the validity of the product, sure, but this is ridiculously unfeasible for digital licenses. A lot of companies actually do buy these 10$ keys and I don't blame them.

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