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HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs
- abrowne 9y agoThis link is a summary of https://www.computerworld.com/article/3238512/microsoft-windows/hp-stealthily-installs-new-spyware-called-hp-touchpoint-analytics-client.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3238512/microsoft-wind...
- AdmiralAsshat 9y agoA technical analysis of what the service is doing would be nice. Right now the article is basically just a collection of user complaints from the HP forum. And to be clear, I don't doubt that it's happening, but some actual analysis would be nice. Even if it's just a screenshot of the system resources monitor.
- strictnein 9y agoUnfortunately the last thing we're going to get from an Engadget article is anything resembling technical analysis. The author refers to the software as a "driver" twice.
- fred_is_fred 9y agoI'm with you. Engadget took some HP forum complaints, slapped the word spyware on it and got their page views. Is this really spyware? What is it recording and how is it installed? Would love to know that.
- H99189 9y agoLenovo only got fined 3.5M? Cheap, not counting the reputation hit anyway. If anyone knows how to slow down systems with their software, it's definitely HP. Haven't used one in awhile, but you could get a boost similar to going from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD by reloading the OS without all their bloatware. I wonder, has any security researchers ever thought about going back to circa-2005 printer software to see what it was up to?
- imglorp 9y agoIt wasn't just the malware, they also got tagged for root certificates and then there was a third thing I forget now. It's a pattern of abuse. Either way, that fine is just a minor expense compared to their $300B revenue. It won't even show up on a summary report. Punishments are supposed to hurt if you want behavior to change.
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoThis! Always wipe and reload a commercial PC when you receive it. There's nothing they did that you want.
- timvisee 9y agoQuickly reading over your comment, I thought Lenovo started removing the 3.5mm jack. I got scared for a bit. Sadly more and more bloatware is included by manufacturers, along with all bloatware that is already in Windows.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago> All of the reports I’ve seen so far emphasize the point that HP (or Microsoft?) has installed this "telemetry" program without advising customers or requesting permission to install. It is now well established that if you choose to run Windows you're going to be playing this game of cat and mouse until the end of time. You simply are not in full control of the OS.
- jhugg 9y agoSo Windows has this problem more than other platforms because of OEMs and drivers and such are 3rd party by default, rather than as the exception. Still, there isn't really sufficient protection to avoid telemetry and data collection on most of the platforms I use. Mac App Store apps are somewhat sandboxed, but many common apps aren't. And running "little snitch" is great, but it's not for typical users.
- mtgx 9y agoMicrosoft itself does it, too, possibly more than OEMs do. Even if you block some of the telemetry with your firewall, they now seem to be opening new channels to send the data to Microsoft's servers. Their behavior is quite malware-like.
- pjmlp 9y agoWell, everyone using web apps don't seem to mind having their life exposed to the whole internet.
- pecg 9y agoAnd this is one of the things that worries me the most. The careless people that embrace confidently their lack of privacy, such group can quickly become the majority of a given population and follow a trend that can lead to social disaster in an Orwellian-Huxleyian way, without appearing as such in the surface.
- jenscow 9y ago
- mnw21cam 9y agoThis is (again) why I would not consider owning a computer with a manufacturer-installed OS. Even Linux.
- na85 9y agoI used to be this way but eventually I got to the point where I'm willing to run macos just to have things like working suspend/resume and WiFi/Bluetooth that won't require periodic fiddling when some jerk decides to embrace systemd.
- hiram112 9y agoI'm with you. I've been using Linux and Windows for years. When Windows 7 came out, I moved any Linux installs to VMs simply because it still cannot get the things you mentioned working, even on Thinkpads and Dell Precisions, which are far better than most laptops. It was good enough for most development. Work provided me a MBP about 2 years ago, and while it's not perfect, it's good enough. I will not be buying another Windows computer anytime in the future.
- jamespo 9y agoRunning linux in a VM condemns you to never really understand it
- majewsky 9y agoHow long ago was this? The last time I had problems with suspend or WiFi, even on brand-new laptops, was maybe 8 years ago.
- na85 9y ago2015
- arca_vorago 9y agoYep, the EULA/TOS on Dell Ubuntu images is egregious to say the least. In all cases you should reinstall yourself.
- lousken 9y agoDid nvidia get permission when installing telemetry for their drivers?
- Zak 9y agoThis kind of thing is hardly new. PC makers have been preloading software for a fee at least since the 90s. It should come as no surprise that such software doesn't always align with the user's best interests. It's common with phones too. My new Sony phone came with several Sony apps as well as Facebook installed as non-removable system apps. None of these are necessary for proper function, as it can run a third-party build of Android that doesn't include any of them. Facebook in particular is an odd one. I can understand preloading it since it's very popular, but why the hell is it a system app?
- Nursie 9y agoBecause they paid Sony, most likely. I'm assuming that's why Evernote came as a system app on my Samsung too. And a load of other crap.
- michaelmrose 9y agoIts a system app because on the majority of androids sold the user doesn't have root access to their own device and can't remove system apps. They could potentially be getting some useful saleable data from you, possibly even if you don't use facebook.
- vbernat 9y agoOn Android, system apps cannot be uninstalled but can usually be disabled. In "Settings", "Apps", select the app and choose "Disable".
- romanovcode 9y ago"Disabled" https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/ https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...
- dabber 9y agoThis was annoying to me when I had an older phone with less available memory. Many of the system apps were useless to me and just served to take up space. The system partition had to take up enough space to accommodate these apps whether I used them or not which resulted in less available space for what I did use. Pretty annoying.
- cjg 9y agoFar more detail here: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/27/hp-installing-hp-touchpoint-analytics-client-telemetry-service/ https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/27/hp-installing-hp-touchpoin...
- agumonkey 9y agoWell what's the issue ? just suffer 6 months and then spend 600$ on a new machine with, finally, the latest intel cpu, octocore, capable of making even hard computing tasks like idleing fast ! </snark> I think we oughta make a common repo + windows service to remove crapware. [user-complaints] -> [scripts] -> IO happiness
- hiram112 9y agoThere are already plenty: https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+telemetry+github https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+telemetry+github But as someone above already noted, it really is a cat & mouse game with MS. Things that worked yesterday will not work today, after MS silently installs new updates. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that MS has full-time staff dedicated to fixing any issues the most popular of these tools modify.
- agumonkey 9y agofor things like telemetry yes, but for most crapware I think it wouldn't end up in a chase
- arca_vorago 9y agoThis is why after over a decade of supporting their crap as a sysadmin, I've gone completely gnu+Linux. Windows 8/10 were simply the last straw, plus I realized RMS was right the whole time.
- teejmya 9y agohttps://github.com/bmrf/tron https://github.com/bmrf/tron
- shoover 9y agoI'm told national labs won't touch Lenovo PCs since superfish (despite the fact that from what I can tell business models were not affected). Is HP next?
- vectorEQ 9y agowindows, aptly named for the thing you should be chucking it out of :D as for vendors installing vendor software... whats new? really people are mad about this? what about their smart phones... they must have blood pressure issues throwing a fit over this nonsense. if you want a good running laptop where you are in control of the software chose linux, or if you prefer windows, atleast install and manage it yourself... don't need to have all this vendor nonsense if you dont want it. just re-install it clean!
- ssijak 9y agoWindows laptops always did this. First thing you need to do when buying windows laptop is to do a clean install of whatever system you want.
- a_imho 9y agoI quite like how the title says its instead of e.g customers. Lenovo has only just settled a massive $3.5 million fine for preinstalling adware on laptops without users' consent, and now it seems HP is getting in on the stealth installation action, too. How is that a massive fine? Instead of deterring anyone, it looks more like a bargain.
- chimprich 9y agoThat's absolutely outrageous. And now that the outrage has died down they're denying that they did anything wrong either.
- zanedb 9y agoDoes anyone know the domain this data is being transmitted to? Seems to be fixable via hosts file blocking.
- barneygumble742 9y agoIt's more than just the data being sent back. The fact that it's present and is causing systems to slow down is a huge concern. I personally don't know of anyone that uses a HP system for personal use. When I think of HP or Dell, I think of bloatware.
- shmerl 9y agoThe first thing to do with such new PC is to wipe out Windows and install Linux.
- markbnj 9y agoI bought my kids a couple of HP laptops back in the day. First step was always a reformat. But back then I had an MSDN account and the wherewithal to set the machines up the way I wanted, which many people do not. For myself I have not bought an OEM system for many years. I always build my own and if I need windows I buy an OEM disk. There's not much money in computers anymore so the manufacturers try to monetize them essentially the way news sites try to monetize stories.
- tbrock 9y agoI can’t believe HP is popular as a desktop and laptop hardware vendor. Their products are absolute shit and the prices aren’t low enough to make up for it. They remind me of the ultra cheap office pens that I bought once. I was new and my boss sent me out to get a box. When I got back he used one and said “these are too cheap, we use these every day”. He was right. If you are buying a laptop get a Thinkpad or a Mac. If you are want a desktop and don’t play games get a Dell.
- SadWebDeveloper 9y agoIn the valley and some big US cities you have choices but in the rest of the world, HP is highly valued not because their quality but for their support, even with the basic one they will send a representative in less than 72 hours with the spare part. Lenovo, Dell, Samsung, Asus et al would take weeks if not months for the shipment part to arrive (most of the times without a representative to install it) or ask to send back the laptop just to get it back with the same issue a couple of months later. On point: HP and Apple are the worst companies to buy a laptop, expensive as hell but they usually have local support staff in your city. Also Thinkpad suck, they feel super cheap for the price they ask and install even worst spyware preloaded.
- jcadam 9y ago> Also Thinkpad suck, they feel super cheap for the price they ask and install even worst spyware preloaded. I know, Lenovo has completely wrecked the Thinkpad brand. I wish IBM would start making laptops again.
- lowbloodsugar 9y agoI've been in a different country, with a broken dell laptop keyboard, and the dell guy arrived the next day. When I pointed out I needed a US keyboard not a UK keyboard, he went out to his van and got one. The next day, onsite is ~$300. Its worth it.
- copperx 9y agoWhat if you play games? Not that I do, but I'm curious.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago> One complaint on the HP support site says: "It's been making my computer work so hard I can hear it like cranking away and the light in the back of my computer is flashing rapidly in-tune with the cranking. In Task Manager I can see it starting and stopping numerous applications." How can an app be so poorly implemented? This had to have been noticed in QA and yet some exec prioritized gathering user analytics of user experience. How pathetic!
- takluyver 9y agoIt may only behave like that in some particular conditions which didn't come up in QA.
- Animats 9y agoSo why did HP do this? Their customers, which are mostly big companies, don't like it. Were they pressured to do so by a government agency? Did their in-house "analytics" people get out of control? Why won't HP say anything?
- whoopdedo 9y agoHP Enterprise is a different thing. Those big companies are customers HP actually cares about and they don't push things like this on them. They also honor warranties for them and respond to support calls. The HP that sells laptops in department stores is consumer-hostile and sees the purchasers of their computers as cash cows to be farmed out to third parties and upsold remote support plans when the computer has a problem. And problems will inevitably occur since the machines are built with such poor quality control. It's sad to see a brand new computer be slower than one that is 10 years old but can't be used because it has the wrong operating system.
- cmurf 9y agoMicrosoft makes it much easier these days to download an install image of Windows 10 that's devoid of non-Microsoft crapware. They're also kept up to date, so if you download Windows 10 ISO today, you will get version 1709 (fall creator's update). And during an update [1] it seems smart enough to get most of the model specific drivers installed. The things that remain for one off download and install from the manufacturer web site are firmware updates. The next time I do a clean install, I won't install HP's Support Assistant. It's OK UI/Ux, a bit laggy to discover what updates to apply, but more importantly it regularly fails to inform of and install firmware updates, even though they appear on that model's support page. [1] Windows Update times are incredibly shitty. On a system fully updated as of 2017-09-25, and then not used at all (Fedora is my main OS) until last weekend, it took 7 hours and 6 reboots to get it updated. That includes one update with "Getting Windows Ready Don't turn off your computer" for 4+ hours. I have never had macOS or any Linux distro take more than 10 minutes for a minor update, or more than an hour (slow embedded spinning rust system) for a major version update. It's obscene and any wonder why people prefer to opt out and end up with riskier systems as a result.
- Hasz 9y agoInstall a program like Fiddler and watch the call-homes roll in. It's truly amazing how many request are made while the computer is ostensibly doing nothing.
- traitormonkey 9y agoDo not currently own Windows PC. Was about to buy a bundle, an HTC Vive/HP PC for xmas for a family member who wants VR. Nearly did yesterday but too busy. Will definitely avoid HP products now. 0/10
- ezoe 9y agoIs it called Microsoft Windows?
- dingo_bat 9y agoFirst step when you buy an HP laptop: format and install an official copy of windows from Microsoft. The hardware is usually good. The software is usually crap.