Lenovo preloaded laptops with reformat-resistant perpetual crapware

BOING BOING ^ | Aug 12, 2015 | Cory Doctorow

[george76]

The company abused the Windows installer's anti-theft mechanism, which reads the firmware for executables at install-time, embedding a ton of crappy, insecure shovelware that would be added to your computer every time you reinstalled the OS.

I'm a Lenovo user, though none of this affects me: I always take the Lenovo-supplied drives out of my Thinkpads, swap in an SSD and install Ubuntu GNU/Linux. But it's pretty gross nevertheless. Based on this, I wouldn't recommend Lenovo to Windows users, if I knew any.

Lenovo eventually offered a removal tool. This is the second time this year they got caught pre-loading evil crapware to their PCs. This is becoming a pattern.

[A CA Guy]

Desperate in this economy to make a living like everyone else I guess.
I have three Lenovo laptops including a new touch screen and I do have to unpolluted the computer a bit.
My niece got one as well and I took a couple of hours there as well because updates and the rest take time.
msconfig is your friend.

I haven't used any protection against viruses in years. I don't get them.

I don't click ads.
I don't go to Russian sites.
I don't go to porn.

That is where the infections come from in computers and probably in real life. :-)

[Chad_the_Impaler]

Lenovo = China. Look it up.

[Scutter]

Thanks for posting this. I am shopping for a new laptop for the wife. Going to remove Lenovo from the list. I like the machines at the Microsoft store because they de-crapify them before sellng. I have no idea why every PC manufacturer feels the need to kill performance, disk space, and battery life by loading their computers up with this junk. No wonder people buy macs...

[proxy_user]

What happens if you DBAN the drive?