Lenovo Software Update Stealthily Installs Adware

An anonymous reader writes "A recent Lenovo automatic software update has the great feature of displaying annoying pop-up ads for Lenovo products. What's worse, it appears that many users are unable to turn the advertisement 'feature' off, subjecting them to pop-ups every couple of hours. Gee guys, a note about your 20% off sale in my e-mail wouldn't have bothered me that much, but you really had to pop up over top of my PowerPoint slides? I'm sure that all of my office colleagues will be running to order ThinkPads ..."

Comments

Wait...

[MyLongNickName]

It hid some guy's PowerPoint presentation? I'd consider that a feature not a bug.

Re:Wait...

[RMH101]

"When you get to be as big a company as we are you take whatever the lobbyist are giving away."
Never a truer word spoken: in our case, it's Lenovo...!

Hmmm.

[y_axis]

Annoying ad pop-up or Death by PowerPoint? Nope. Can't decide.

compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it's compatible with the rootkit that Sony so kindly installed for me?

Re:Obligatory Snark

[snl2587]

...or, really, just the people who leave on the vendor-installed operating system and actually use the Lenovo software updates.

Re:i bet i can uninstall it

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of like vampires, doesn't matter what the holy symbol is as long as it does the job. I personally prefer my ubuntu CD but what ever banishes the evil is good enough.

Re:Obligatory Snark

[fandingo]

I remember installing something that was supposed to stop crap like this. Oh yeah, it was Ubuntu... Never had any problems, although the cable tech was horrified.

Chinese Economic Warfare

[shankarunni]

You do realize that this is just another salvo in the Chinese effort to cripple American business productivity and efficiency, don't you? What little there is left of it, that is?

Re:this is dumb

[thepotoo]

Yes, newegg users are paragons of intellect and their reviews are universally useful.

Pros: Why is everyone so hung up on overclocking??The truth is that the performance of your P/C depends on the combination of a lot of things. Although this MB's awardbios software is awesome, to much emphasize is placed on overclocking. I had some bottleneck issues that were solved by buying this motherboard and a 550w power supply with 25a on 12v rail. I have a dual core athlon 175 opteron! and a 10,000rpm Western Digital SATA drive to boot. Why in the world would I need to overclock that??

Cons: None! I hear a lot of people complaing about instructions. Well, I think that most mother boards are pretty much the same installation wise. A first timer would have issues with any mb, not just this one. The only issue is that the board is kinda picky about what slots you put the ram in. I used matching ram sticks and placed each one in a yellow slot. The mb booted up just fine after that.

Other Thoughts: Don't believe the hype about Overclocking! Its overrated and frankly doesnt do much for the performance of you PC.

Another:

Quote: Pros: Works like a tank and has full integration.

Cons: After removal of computer clock speed jumpers the system would not boot. The 80mm fan & heatsync we purchased did not fit & snap onto the processor & motherboard.

Other Thoughts: We now are looking into refund of the heatsync & fan for another future purchase from newegg.com

Wait, there's more (this one can't be serious):

Pros: This thing is great! Before I could only play Solitare and Minesweeper on their lowest settings but now I can play as many as 4 games of Solitare at the same time.

Cons: I can't figure out where to install the second core.

One more, then, just to prove that a CPU is more important than your internet connection:

Pros: MY GOSH WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT OVER MY HYPER THREAD 2.8..I GOT THIS STRICLY FOR GAMING (BF2). I HAVE BEEN FIRST IN THE SERVER EVERY TIME..I DOWNLOADED 3 MAPS AND A PATCH (9 GIGS) IN UNDER 15MINS.

Cons: THIS THING NEEDS TO COME WITH A GIRLFRIEND ....

Other Thoughts: PAIR IT WITH SOME KICKBUTT RAM, AND YOULL BE KILLIN EVERYONE IN NO TIME

There's one more I really like that I can't seem to find now. It was regarding a new processor and went something like:

The installation was a little tough, I needed to use a hammer to get it installed, but I think most new CPUs are a little tough to install nowadays.

Of course, if someone makes a mistake, there's always someone willing to help you out:

Pros: Great Cards, howeevr witht he R600 series coming out shrotly, I would save your money for those.

Cons: Not DX10 as CpuLouie said

Other Thoughts: CpuLouie while DX10 is software, the ability to run DX10 is in the hardware. Why do you think the 8800 series are so big? Your 7950 will not run DX10 either. sorry

The point of this is just to use a little common sense with the reviews. Most of them are fine.

Also, I just realized that this has run on pretty long. It this EVER shows up as one of those stupid email chains in my inbox, I'm personally going to hunt down and destroy everyone who forwarded it.

Re:What the hell were they thinking?

[FutureDomain]

look at how Acrobat reader

Well, there's your first problem.