This is awful behavior, and I'm not trying to diminish that in any way, but... Who sticks with the OEM software? One of the first things I do with any x86-based system is wipe the drive and install a fresh copy of Windows or a distro of choice.
Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
21–30 of 321 posts
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#22I wonder if the ad bombardment we are suffering for some years now will eventually reach a critical point to trigger mass exodus or protests. TV got annoying with ads and viewership greatly decreased but that was caused by the emergence of the internet I think, what new technology options we have to escape the current ads to? The only other hope is that the massive amount of money in ads and data collection is actual…
Digital TV in Belgium now includes unskippable ads, including in recordings of those shows. The reason why people switched to digital TV subscriptions, of course, was to be able to skip those ads in the first place.
Apparently Netflix can afford to offer a wide variety of content for a small monthly fee, without any ads, and spend money on content creation; but digital TV stations somehow don't make enough money off of subscriptions which are an order of magnitude more expensive. Economies of scale, perhaps?
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#23And again it's the normies that suffer this abuse from these companies and it's not going to stop. Yes we can use custom roms, esoteric ADB hacks etc. to stop this abuse but your average consumer? They can't. Their devices they trust a significant part of their life with gets invaded by these sick marketing people thinking it's somehow conceivable for this to be OK. And there are developers out there that comply with that, that indeed help them. It takes decades for legislation to fix these issues, until then it is our duty to stop this where ever we can.
Please stop helping these sick corpo fucks. Do not implement this shit, do not help them abuse their customers against their will. Remember all those ethical dilemmas presented in Star Trek? Remember the evil Admiral ordering Captain Picard to do something against his conscious? "There are times, sir, when... men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders."[0]. Remember these lessons when they ask you to abuse the privacy and freedom of their customers and DO NOT COMPLY!
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#24Lenovo left a sour taste for me after they pushed a BIOS update through Windows Update on my daughter's Flex that bricked the device (in the middle of a school-week, while she was doing online school).
There were dozens of reports of the same problem from other owners of that model, yet they refused to acknowledge the issue was theirs or offer any self-serve option (I remember most laptops nowadays can re-flash the BIOS from an attached USB with specific format and layout, but I presume they saved a couple of cents by removing that feature from the Flex models). Luckily the laptop was still in warranty and I got it "fixed" after 6 weeks, but will never purchase another Lenovo product again.
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#25This is awful behavior, and I'm not trying to diminish that in any way, but... Who sticks with the OEM software? One of the first things I do with any x86-based system is wipe the drive and install a fresh copy of Windows or a distro of choice.
It's an Android tablet.
Also, in terms of who... most non-technical people take it out of the box and start using the device with the software on there.
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#26This is awful behavior, and I'm not trying to diminish that in any way, but... Who sticks with the OEM software? One of the first things I do with any x86-based system is wipe the drive and install a fresh copy of Windows or a distro of choice.
The vast majority of people who buy a laptop expect the laptop they paid money for to work without having to "wipe the drive and install a fresh copy of" anything
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#27Same with my samsung tablet forcing itself to update. "You can dismiss this 1 more time" - why? It's my device I paid for it. It's very tiresome. What device can I buy that's just mine to do as I please. On desktop I'm already on Linux Mint. Looking for alts for phone and tablet.
I somewhat understand Samsung a bit. The amount of never updated Android devices that could be updated is immense, and support calls for long-banished issues that could be solved by a simple update are pointless and a waste of resources.
The problem is that users suffer from "update fatigue" because they have to be (rightfully) afraid of entire UI overhauls or even more bugs after updates since no one does QA any more but follows the "bananaware" principle instead - software ripens at the customer's home.
And app stores don't exactly make things easy because there is always only one version that can be updated to - no app store, including F-Droid, has an easy way to have one app with multiple concurrently available versions.
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#28You can use adb to remove this kind of crap without having to root the device, can't you? pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.spam.bloatware
For that you need to know the offending APK ID in the first place, and you need to enable ADB access, and install a piece of software on your computer. Seriously, this shit is inexcusable.
Right - there's no good way for a non-technical user to avoid being exploited like this.
I personally think hackers have a moral responsibility to make fixes like this more accessible to the average person. Tech corporations have made it clear they have no qualms about attacking their users in increasingly creative ways, and it's up to us to reclaim control over the devices which, in an ethical sense, are rightfully ours.
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#29Gentle reminder that Lenovo jumped the shark quite a while ago. The whole Superfish debacle, the spyware, the crapware, the endless stream of shitty decisions. Year after year, the hardware gets worse. Customer support gets worse.
The sad thing is that they're still better than everything else out there. Which says a lot about the laptop industry in general.
Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications
#30I wonder if the ad bombardment we are suffering for some years now will eventually reach a critical point to trigger mass exodus or protests. TV got annoying with ads and viewership greatly decreased but that was caused by the emergence of the internet I think, what new technology options we have to escape the current ads to? The only other hope is that the massive amount of money in ads and data collection is actual…
Digital TV in Belgium now includes unskippable ads, including in recordings of those shows. The reason why people switched to digital TV subscriptions, of course, was to be able to skip those ads in the first place. Apparently Netflix can afford to offer a wide variety of content for a small monthly fee, without any ads, and spend money on content creation; but digital TV stations somehow don't make enough money off…
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