Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications • Hacker News Board

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#201

Post by xg15 » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

q-rews wrote: post #128

xg15 wrote: post #106

What is increasingly scaring me: This time, the vendor was "nice" enough to only force you into viewing a subscription offer. However, there is really nothing technical that would keep them from forcing you to take the subscription if you want to continue using your device. Vendors have enough control about locked-down devices that they could play ransomware and make arbitrary demands to their users without many prob…

Yeah, sure, technically any vendor can push updates to brick your device, but that doesn’t happen because of the law. This stuff often gets through because it’s small enough, gray enough, and done by smaller companies. Have Apple pull something like this and you’ll see on the NYT.

> and you’ll see on the NYT.

And then what? It might generate a bit of outrage, but at the end of the day, users have no leverage (without legal support).

No one wants to lose their device or the data on it, so for individual users, there are not a lot of options apart from doing whatever the vendor wants

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#202

Post by qwerty456127 » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

> from an app that cannot be uninstalled or disabled.

IMHO lack of a reasonably easy way to root the device, install something like LineageOS or some custom mod and get rid of the apps you don't want already is a sufficient reason to avoid buying such a device.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#203

Post by qwerty456127 » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

gigel82 wrote: post #24

Lenovo 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 B…

> will never purchase another Lenovo product again.

Even a ThinkPad?

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#204

Post by MBCook » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

ypcx wrote: post #140

As much as I'd love to have alternatives in this particular Simulation, there are none. You either use Apple and minimize your suffering, or you don't use Apple and go live in hell, provided by companies running their product design & development by teams of chimpanzees (obviously & unfortunately).

What about a MS Surface? Do they pull this stuff too? I was under the impression they were decent.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#205

Post by neogodless » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #174

neogodless wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: Over the past few years, I've owned an Asus laptop (thin/light), two Lenovo laptops, and an HP. Before that, a large Dell gaming laptop. Most recently, I had bought the HP Omen 15, but realizing that the screen used PWM below 100% brightness, I sold it and bought a Lenovo Legion 5. The previous Lenovo is a Y540. The Y540 is arguably "good but not great" build quality. If you squint, it looks kind of like th…

> realizing that the screen used PWM below 100% brightness Isn't that the normal way to dim an LED? Was the frequency too low, or what was the issue?

Some screens use DC dimming. It isn't an issue for most people, but post-concussion I've had to be pickier about screens. The HP gave me a headache with the 200Hz PWM. The Legion lets me use brightness levels other than 100% without a headache!

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#206

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #138

mishafb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it works but it just feels wrong

It feels wrong to buy a Linux laptop from the company that makes Github? The Microsoft of the 2020s is a very different company from the Microsoft of the 1990s.

The Microsoft of the 2020s is a very different company from the Microsoft of the 1990s.

It is, but in a discussion about forced updates and overtly user-hostile changes, I'll take the Microsoft of the 1990s please.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#207

Post by pier25 » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #22

ithinkso wrote: post #12

I 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…

Sorry but what is digital TV? Cable?

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#208

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #199

sergiotapia wrote: post #9

Same 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.

> "You can dismiss this 1 more time" - why? It's my device I paid for it. That's not just mobiles either.. Windows 10 does the same :( Sure it's nice for the average joe soap not turning their machine into a botnet node but I hate coming back to my PC and find it has rebooted while it was running some task for me.. Grrrr.

Sure it's nice for the average joe soap not turning their machine into a botnet node

It is, but we should really stop tolerating that as an argument for mandatory updates. Enabling security updates by default on Windows editions not intended to be professionally managed would be sufficient to achieve most or all of the same benefits without imposing the much-criticised costs to users. The same argument holds for other tech that wants to force changes in behaviour and/or phone-home behaviour on its buyer/owner/user once the purchase is completed, including almost any device associated with the word "smart".

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#209

Post by pengaru » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #42

tehjoker wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I've never encountered any ads in printed books. Edit because I can't be bothered to reply to all the comments below: excerpts from other books (often by the same author, or in a similar genre) are not ads IMO. They're not intrusive. They're pretty much always relevant. They're fun to read. They don't contain tracking cookies. They're as benign as it gets.

A newer fiction book I skimmed after finding it abandoned at a campsite seemed to have overt and contrived repeated mentions of bmw automobiles, including the models, in places such details didn't seem to have anything at all to do with the story.

It left me wondering if some authors now secure contracts to always use a specific brand of $foobar if $foobar makes an appearance in their stories.

The only time I've ever encountered this level of repeated brand shilling in a book I actually intended to read was Vonnegut's Bluebeard and its Sateen Dura-Luxe. But there it played a significant part of the story, and it's a fictional brand..

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#210

Post by Syonyk » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #193

Syonyk wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatives certainly exist - I've been moving myself rapidly in that direction after my nearly 20 years of Apple use has come to an end (at a remarkably low sysadmin-hours-per-year level, that's going to go up substantially). Unfortunately, most of them aren't quite ready for standard daily driver use. I've been daily driving a PineBook Pro, and despite some custom kernel hacking I've done, I still don't have relia…

You're right... But we don't live in a vacuum. I can try to live without WhatsApp but literally everyone in Europe uses it. It's just unavoidable. And that's just one example. So, I still go the trouble to bend the ecosystems to my will... Like Matrix bridges. It's a lot of work I'll give you that.

KaiOS supports WhatsApp...

I'm at a point in my life where I can be a bit cranky about stuff like this - and, my views on tech are well enough known that people almost expect me to be a bit cranky about it. I recently asked someone how he'd prefer to be paid, cash or check. His response was along the lines of, "Well, I'd prefer a payment app on the phone, but I know you don't use those, so... check, easier to scan and deposit that way."

If "everyone uses it because everyone uses it," well... great, there lies monopoly and abuses. I can get away with using somewhat less, without any real impact to my social or professional life - so at this point, being that friction point is perfectly fine with me.

But I grew up before cell phones. I grew up before smartphones. The concept of a smartphone beyond a "lol, Crackberry, I'll bet you a beer you can't put it down on the table for half an hour and not touch it!" stage is only a decade old. In that time, it's absolutely transformed the world - and, IMO, not for the better. Our collective response to the "Crackberry" behavior was, "oooh, I want one too!" My daughter has asked for her own phone (no, you're about a decade too young). When asked what people use phones for, her response is, "I don't know... but they look like they're really interesting!" Yeah... how to cut your phone use substantially overnight.

Just because the river is rushing towards "What makes tech companies the most money in the next quarter" doesn't mean we have to be part of it. And at this point, I think coming up with alternatives (technology based or not) is damned near a moral obligation.