Lenovo caught preinstalling malware onto its laptops. The kicker? It's horrifically insecure. - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Unib5;47178723][IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-TI0oHIAAA1BCg.jpg[/IMG] looks like microsoft appears to be doing something about it lucky I picked up a lenovo laptop before they actually started preinstalling the malware onto them, nevertheless I still removed a bunch of the trash software and in hindsight I should have just gotten a fresh copy of Windows[/QUOTE] This won't remove certs from Firefox, though (Mozilla will hopefully issue an update that fixes this).

[QUOTE=Levelog;47189666]They may have turned it to shit, but the ThinkPad didn't devolve as quickly as most other brands have imo. There just flat out aren't many good laptops on the market.[/QUOTE] I couldn't agree more. The laptop market has pretty much gone to shit. You either pay way too much to get an alright laptop with some shitty bloated crap on it, even more to have the same without the bloat, but there's not really any good place to get one without all the skewed price:performance ratio. It doesn't seem to be possible to get cheap but medium-level performant laptops anymore. And then suddently you stumble upon something that seems alright, but it has the worst kind of everything in it, or the resolution is a petty 1366x768, which is just too small for what should be a standard today. Even "Full HD" screens costs a few million (overstated), and that should've at least been the minimum for ordinary 15.6 inch laptops. Where did all the HiDPi go? The Chromebook Pixel did something right there. Something that should be a standard. Something which even Apple don't even do all the time.

A high-DPI screen does have significant disadvantages. Eats more battery and rendering resources, and looks terrible when your applications were made for low-DPI (and no, not all OS X apps support scaling either). For me, >170 DPI (which is about the densest I can handle content made for 96 DPI at) is a very strong reason [I]not[/I] to buy a laptop.

I'd be happy with a true full-HD 15" to 17,5" screen on a laptop that doesn't have shit backlight, colors or viewing angles.

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;47189966]A high-DPI screen does have significant disadvantages. Eats more battery and rendering resources, and looks terrible when your applications were made for low-DPI (and no, not all OS X apps support scaling either). For me, >170 DPI (which is about the densest I can handle content made for 96 DPI at) is a very strong reason [I]not[/I] to buy a laptop.[/QUOTE] I kind of disagree here. If application and desktop environment developers don't ensure fully functional support for any set of DPI settings, then they can really go fuck themselves. We live in a day and age where this isn't really the most problematic thing to support, and even Windows has it for the most part it seems. So anything that doesn't want to support it can just fuck off, it isn't worth it. This goes for games as well, let me just put that out there. Few things are as dumb as shit, as when games decide to pixel-perfect render HUD elements or whatever. That shit needs to stop.

[QUOTE=mastersrp;47189907]I couldn't agree more. The laptop market has pretty much gone to shit. You either pay way too much to get an alright laptop with some shitty bloated crap on it, even more to have the same without the bloat, but there's not really any good place to get one without all the skewed price:performance ratio. It doesn't seem to be possible to get cheap but medium-level performant laptops anymore. And then suddently you stumble upon something that seems alright, but it has the worst kind of everything in it, or the resolution is a petty 1366x768, which is just too small for what should be a standard today. Even "Full HD" screens costs a few million (overstated), and that should've at least been the minimum for ordinary 15.6 inch laptops. Where did all the HiDPi go? The Chromebook Pixel did something right there. Something that should be a standard. Something which even Apple don't even do all the time.[/QUOTE] Take a look at the Dell XPS 13. Seems to me like the market is moving in the right direction (in some respects at least). You can even get something like the HP Stream and it won't suck donkey balls.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;47190040]Take a look at the Dell XPS 13. Seems to me like the market is moving in the right direction (in some respects at least). You can even get something like the HP Stream and it won't suck donkey balls.[/QUOTE] They're nice and all, but that's still the Macbook price to pay. The thing is, anything that is in the slightest a budget PC (and no, 11k DKK is NOT budget) just seems to have total SHIT specs in one area or other. I've found some refurbed PCs that had reasonable pricing and so on given the specs, but then it was refurbed so the specs where shit. But the price was fitting. And that's the issue I'm arguing here, that too many places where you buy laptops (or in a lot of cases it's simply electronics) they charge a retarded amount of money for something that really isn't all that much worth it. But then people end up paying up anyway because they WANT the computers. Of course they want it, they're not gonna like not buy it just because it's all expensive, they'll get the expensive ones or the total shit ones. There's just no good middleway out there, which is what I'm missing the most. Getting the most for your money is just not feasible anymore I fear. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] Chromebooks have the potential to change that though, but they're not really all that available here anyway. I found a 13.3 inch Chromebook once from Acer, that had pretty decent specs, and a Full HD monitor. Great! Finally some real hardware that made sense. The price wasn't total bullshit, and it overall matched the specifications. But after seeing it once on a single site, I haven't ever found it again. Once a year thing I suppose.

[QUOTE=mastersrp;47189982]I kind of disagree here. If application and desktop environment developers don't ensure fully functional support for any set of DPI settings, then they can really go fuck themselves. We live in a day and age where this isn't really the most problematic thing to support, and even Windows has it for the most part it seems. So anything that doesn't want to support it can just fuck off, it isn't worth it. This goes for games as well, let me just put that out there. Few things are as dumb as shit, as when games decide to pixel-perfect render HUD elements or whatever. That shit needs to stop.[/QUOTE] Tons of software (particularly old programs) don't support DPI scaling. And I don't know if you've ever tried it, but when a window doesn't register support for native scaling, both Windows and OS X will just render it at its original size and upscale it. If you think having a small number of applications look marginally better in exchange for the vast majority of applications looking a lot worse (or just not use any program that doesn't support scaling, and good luck with that) in addition to the other disadvantages I've mentioned, fair enough, but I consider that to be a pretty shitty tradeoff. This, of course, is less of a problem on mobile platforms which have always supported variable DPI, but on the other hand those are even more affected by the extra resource consumption.

[QUOTE=mastersrp;47190085]They're nice and all, but that's still the Macbook price to pay. The thing is, anything that is in the slightest a budget PC (and no, 11k DKK is NOT budget) just seems to have total SHIT specs in one area or other. I've found some refurbed PCs that had reasonable pricing and so on given the specs, but then it was refurbed so the specs where shit. But the price was fitting. And that's the issue I'm arguing here, that too many places where you buy laptops (or in a lot of cases it's simply electronics) they charge a retarded amount of money for something that really isn't all that much worth it. But then people end up paying up anyway because they WANT the computers. Of course they want it, they're not gonna like not buy it just because it's all expensive, they'll get the expensive ones or the total shit ones. There's just no good middleway out there, which is what I'm missing the most. Getting the most for your money is just not feasible anymore I fear. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] Chromebooks have the potential to change that though, but they're not really all that available here anyway. I found a 13.3 inch Chromebook once from Acer, that had pretty decent specs, and a Full HD monitor. Great! Finally some real hardware that made sense. The price wasn't total bullshit, and it overall matched the specifications. But after seeing it once on a single site, I haven't ever found it again. Once a year thing I suppose.[/QUOTE] The "entry level" Dell XPS 13 is $800. The reason it's 11k DKK here in Denmark is that we don't get the option of a 1080p non-touch panel, an i3 processor or 128GB of storage. 11k is totally reasonable for the hi-res, i5, 256GB model, it's just not the entry-level option. There are a lot of shit laptops around, sure, but overall I think you have better options than you had a few years ago. And while I think 1366x768 should disappear on anything larger than ~11 inches, saying FHD should be the standard is unrealistic in my opinion. Yield goes down not only with resolution but also with panel size (iirc).

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;47189966] (and no, not all OS X apps support scaling either). [/QUOTE] no, not really. this isn't a disadvantage in OS X because apple enforce DPI scaling support and make it very easy to do so. i think Audacity is the only application on my macbook that doesn't scale properly and it's almost certainly out of date [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] where as on windows 10 everything is all fucked up, even without third party applications. the only things that look acceptable on my retina macbook are metro applications text can shift sizes whenever it wants, text looks fuzzy and many frequently used icons aren't designed for any high resolution panel saying it's not just a windows problem is laughable, because it is. apple are doing this the right way, you can't just blame developers for not supporting high DPI on windows

[QUOTE=mastersrp;47190085]They're nice and all, but that's still the Macbook price to pay. The thing is, anything that is in the slightest a budget PC (and no, 11k DKK is NOT budget) just seems to have total SHIT specs in one area or other. I've found some refurbed PCs that had reasonable pricing and so on given the specs, but then it was refurbed so the specs where shit. But the price was fitting. And that's the issue I'm arguing here, that too many places where you buy laptops (or in a lot of cases it's simply electronics) they charge a retarded amount of money for something that really isn't all that much worth it. But then people end up paying up anyway because they WANT the computers. Of course they want it, they're not gonna like not buy it just because it's all expensive, they'll get the expensive ones or the total shit ones. There's just no good middleway out there, which is what I'm missing the most. Getting the most for your money is just not feasible anymore I fear. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] Chromebooks have the potential to change that though, but they're not really all that available here anyway. I found a 13.3 inch Chromebook once from Acer, that had pretty decent specs, and a Full HD monitor. Great! Finally some real hardware that made sense. The price wasn't total bullshit, and it overall matched the specifications. But after seeing it once on a single site, I haven't ever found it again. Once a year thing I suppose.[/QUOTE] I just want to know what happened to 1600x900. I've got it on my T420, and I think it would be great for midrange laptops 11"-15.6".

[QUOTE=Levelog;47189361]I've found just as much bloatware, and their customer support is literally shit.[/QUOTE] Just install Linux or do a clean install of Windows. Bloatware is literally a non-issue if you're remotely tech savvy.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47192902]Just install Linux or do a clean install of Windows. Bloatware is literally a non-issue if you're slightly tech savvy.[/QUOTE] how is it a non issue. the amount of people who would be willing to install an operating system let alone have the know-how to do so without breaking something is tiny [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] nice edit! i would still like to not have to reinstall everything when i buy laptops, even if i am capable of doing it

[QUOTE=.Lain;47192911]how is it a non issue. the amount of people who would be willing to install an operating system let alone have the know-how to do so without breaking something is tiny[/QUOTE] For Windows all you have to do is insert the disk into the the drive and do a clean install. It's an afternoon worth of work that will save you weeks of headache.

well for starters you just assumed that every laptop comes with an install disk, which they don't. most don't that means that they have to go out and buy a windows installer disk for a lovely £100, or burn an ISO themselves which is actually not an easy process a lot of the time for various complications [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] small issue for a small majority? maybe. it wouldn't make or break something for me personally (but i would prefer none) but claiming it's a non issue is kind of ridiculous [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] small minority*

Plus, ya know, drivers, grabbing updates and such. Hard to do much without a network driver.

[QUOTE=Levelog;47192959]Plus, ya know, drivers, grabbing updates and such. Hard to do much without a network driver.[/QUOTE] Most OSes (including Windows) now come with basic generic drivers though. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=.Lain;47192929]well for starters you just assumed that every laptop comes with an install disk, which they don't. most don't that means that they have to go out and buy a windows installer disk for a lovely £100, or burn an ISO themselves which is actually not an easy process a lot of the time for various complications [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] small issue for a small majority? maybe. it wouldn't make or break something for me personally (but i would prefer none) but claiming it's a non issue is kind of ridiculous [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] small minority*[/QUOTE] I've never done it, but I think you can just download a Windows trial from the microsoft site, burn it, and then use the code that came with your computer for a free fresh install.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47192984]Most OSes (including Windows) now come with basic generic drivers though. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] I've never done it, but I think you can just download a Windows trial from the microsoft site, burn it, and then use the code that came with your computer for a free fresh install.[/QUOTE] You can't, for what Lain posted. Also Windows still won't pull generic drivers for a lot of systems made in mid Windows 7 era and earlier. I've installed OS's on many many of these systems, and I still have to manually grab drivers. 8 is a lot better with this, though. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] But if Lain and I are actually agreeing on something, you're probably quite wrong.

i wish it was as easy as downloading the iso and installing it but there are almost always some stupid complications bios lock out, issues with DVD burners or USB stick sectors, lack of network and or sound drivers and all that it's still an issue really

[QUOTE=Levelog;47193029]You can't, for what Lain posted. Also Windows still won't pull generic drivers for a lot of systems made in mid Windows 7 era and earlier. I've installed OS's on many many of these systems, and I still have to manually grab drivers. 8 is a lot better with this, though.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/can-i-use-windows-7-oem-key-with-a-non-oem-disc/7788dfa2-94a7-4db3-8bcd-b0e109bd7b95"]An OEM key will work with a non OEM disc[/URL], you just have to call microsoft to get them to issue you a new key. I've known people who have done this because doing a fresh install is extremely common. You generally don't have to grab drivers to get ethernet to simply work, Once you get ethernet working it's pretty easy to install the other drivers. Either way basically all new laptops come with a driver disc, and if they don't just find a new computer and burn one. [quote] But if Lain and I are actually agreeing on something, you're probably quite wrong.[/quote] I'm glad you think so highly of yourself. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=.Lain;47193062]i wish it was as easy as downloading the iso and installing it but there are almost always some stupid complications bios lock out, issues with DVD burners or USB stick sectors, lack of network and or sound drivers and all that it's still an issue really[/QUOTE] Yeah true, but it's still better than the bloatware. Also, Lenovo doesn't lock you out of BIOS. It's pretty uncommon in general for a manufacturer to lock you out of BIOS.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47193186][URL="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/can-i-use-windows-7-oem-key-with-a-non-oem-disc/7788dfa2-94a7-4db3-8bcd-b0e109bd7b95"]An OEM key will work with a non OEM disc[/URL], you just have to call microsoft to get them to issue you a new key. I've known people who have done this because doing a fresh install is extremely common. You generally don't have to grab drivers to get it to simply work, I've also done this a lot. A lot of laptops (basiclaly all) do come with a driver disc, and if they don't just find a new computer and burn a new DVD. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] Yeah true, but it's still better than the bloatware. Also, Lenovo doesn't lock you out of BIOS. It's pretty uncommon in general for a manufacturer to lock you out of BIOS.[/QUOTE] look i hate lain's massive hardon for apple as much as the next guy sloppy_joes but you have to remember, you're sitting on an internet forum, which already puts you at like the 70th percentile of computer owners. grandma isn't going to reinstall windows, she's not even sure what the round thing is for the point is that for most people, they're just going to look at something like that and go "this is hard", which for them isn't a false statement. people deserve better treatment from OEMs, they shouldn't have to learn what an iso is to make their computer better

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47193186][URL="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/can-i-use-windows-7-oem-key-with-a-non-oem-disc/7788dfa2-94a7-4db3-8bcd-b0e109bd7b95"]An OEM key will work with a non OEM disc[/URL], you just have to call microsoft to get them to issue you a new key. I've known people who have done this because doing a fresh install is extremely common. You generally don't have to grab drivers to get ethernet to simply work, Once you get ethernet working it's pretty easy to install the other drivers. Either way basically all new laptops come with a driver disc, and if they don't just find a new computer and burn one. I'm glad you think so highly of yourself. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] Yeah true, but it's still better than the bloatware. Also, Lenovo doesn't lock you out of BIOS. It's pretty uncommon in general for a manufacturer to lock you out of BIOS.[/QUOTE] And where are you going to get a non OEM disk? You have to put in a valid key to download it from microsoft, and last I checked microsoft pulled all the digital river downloads. A large majority of new systems don't come with a disk, so where?

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;47193220]look i hate lain's massive hardon for apple as much as the next guy sloppy_joes but you have to remember, you're sitting on an internet forum, which already puts you at like the 70th percentile of computer owners. grandma isn't going to reinstall windows, she's not even sure what the round thing is for the point is that for most people, they're just going to look at something like that and go "this is hard", which for them isn't a false statement. people deserve better treatment from OEMs, they shouldn't have to learn what an iso is to make their computer better[/QUOTE] Yeah I agree with that but that wasn't really what I was getting at. I was saying it should be easy for us (as in tech savvy peopel) to reinstall an OS. If you know how to burn an ISO and can troubleshoot problems then it's not really as hard as people make it out to be. Of course there are going to be problems, but everyone makes it seem like reinstalling your OS has a 50% chance of causing your computer to die or something.

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47193288]Yeah I agree with that but that wasn't really what I was getting at. I was saying it should be easy for us (as in tech savvy peopel) to reinstall an OS. If you know how to burn an ISO and can troubleshoot problems then it's not really as hard as people make it out to be. Of course there are going to be problems, but everyone makes it seem like reinstalling your OS has a 50% chance of causing your computer to die or something.[/QUOTE] it is easy i will give you that but the point is we shouldn't have to do that

[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;47193186][URL="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/can-i-use-windows-7-oem-key-with-a-non-oem-disc/7788dfa2-94a7-4db3-8bcd-b0e109bd7b95"]An OEM key will work with a non OEM disc[/URL], you just have to call microsoft to get them to issue you a new key. I've known people who have done this because doing a fresh install is extremely common. You generally don't have to grab drivers to get ethernet to simply work, Once you get ethernet working it's pretty easy to install the other drivers. Either way basically all new laptops come with a driver disc, and if they don't just find a new computer and burn one. I'm glad you think so highly of yourself. [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] Yeah true, but it's still better than the bloatware. Also, Lenovo doesn't lock you out of BIOS. It's pretty uncommon in general for a manufacturer to lock you out of BIOS.[/QUOTE] It's more common for latop manufactueres to lock you out of the BIOS than you think, especially modern UEFI systems that aren't specific for production systems. I've had laptops that either don't even allow you to access the menu (no shortcuts at all!) or wouldn't allow you to change anything related to legacy BIOS, secure boot, and so on. Now for most Windows installations, this is (almost always) a sort of non-issue. Mostly. Unless the device always boots from HDD first, and you cannot touch the boot order. Then you have netbooks. USB installations only. So you have to fetch the installation from somewhere. And hope to god that the WiFi driver works, because there's now no Ethernet cable in a lot of computers. So either you'd have to purchase a USB to Ethernet cable, or fix your issue somehow else. Given that the cable you purchase is even supported by the drivers on Windows, which may not be the case too. So no, it's NOT a non-issue. Sure it's better than the bloatware, I couldn't agree more, but then I'd also wonder why you'd go through the trouble of being a somewhat tech-savy user, and getting a laptop that is filled with shit. That's borderline retarded. [editline]23rd February 2015[/editline] The point is, if you want everyone to do this with their shittops filled with bloatware, then telling people to just "reinstall the system", simply won't work for the vast majority of people. At all. Ever. It's even a ton of pain for people who know how to do this shit to a simple level like figuring out the basic elements above.

[QUOTE=Levelog;47193237]And where are you going to get a non OEM disk? You have to put in a valid key to download it from microsoft, and last I checked microsoft pulled all the digital river downloads. A large majority of new systems don't come with a disk, so where?[/QUOTE] Every Windows 8 system I've seen comes with a recovery partition or a USB drive that has the disk image loaded to it. Additionally, the license key is stored in the firmware, so you don't have to worry about finding a new one. The only thing I'm not sure of is if the image the manufacturer includes contains the bloatware. It may vary by vendor, but I've done a Dell recovery, and it was a pure Windows image.

[QUOTE=deadeye536;47193340]Every Windows 8 system I've seen comes with a recovery partition or a USB drive that has the disk image loaded to it. Additionally, the license key is stored in the firmware, so you don't have to worry about finding a new one. The only thing I'm not sure of is if the image the manufacturer includes contains the bloatware. It may vary by vendor, but I've done a Dell recovery, and it was a pure Windows image.[/QUOTE] What firmware is it stored in? I haven't heard about this before, it sounds really interresting.

heh, the antivirus levovo laptops are now bundled with will uninstall superfish awkward for lenovo

[QUOTE=mastersrp;47193384]What firmware is it stored in? I haven't heard about this before, it sounds really interresting.[/QUOTE] Within UEFI. If you run the Windows installer on a machine that has a key embedded in its firmware, it won't even prompt you for a key. If you search for "MSDM key", you can find a million ways to extract this key from your firmware. For example, on Linux: [code]sudo hexdump -s 56 -e '"MSDM key: " /29 "%s\n"' /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM[/code] [editline]22nd February 2015[/editline] I found out about this when I wanted to do a fresh install of Windows 8.1 Pro on my laptop. The installer kept on using the embedded license key, and I thought it was some strange bug. Before I found out that you could do the 8.1 Pro upgrade within Windows, I had to make a disk that contained the key in a PID.txt file.

[QUOTE=DrTaxi;47189966]A high-DPI screen does have significant disadvantages. Eats more battery and rendering resources, and looks terrible when your applications were made for low-DPI (and no, not all OS X apps support scaling either). For me, >170 DPI (which is about the densest I can handle content made for 96 DPI at) is a very strong reason [I]not[/I] to buy a laptop.[/QUOTE] The apps look terrible, but not any worse than they would on a low density screen. The difference between a low resolution rendering and a good rendering makes it much more obvious though. What's worse is the apps that don't scale, but tell the system they do, so they render smaller than they should. I'm looking at you Origin.