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>This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell.. Printer, mouse, tablet and display tablet makers use this to insert their crapware since at least Win
by orbital-decay 3mo ago
>This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..
Printer, mouse, tablet and display tablet makers use this to insert their crapware since at least Windows Vista or Windows 7, I think. The last one I remember is plugging a Razer mouse just to watch it instantly pulling 1.5GB of bloated junk with "telemetry" exfiltrating the data from my gaming PC in realtime. At least it doesn't leave my mouse in a non-working state when I disconnect the internet, like it used to. Thanks, Razer!
Microsoft is to blame here, really. They have a mechanism to block any vendor (supposedly to avoid reputational risks to their brand due to buggy drivers, at least that was their excuse back in the day), but aren't even using it to block these contraptions. Entire businesses are built on this, e.g. Razer is probably more of a marketing/data company now rather than a hardware shop.
- stego-tech 3mo agoThis. Microsoft has chosen to allow this functionality, despite it being a very clear breach of trust with customers. LG/Dell/et al should be shamed and blamed for even trying this shit in the first place, but it’s Microsoft who holds the blame for allowing such malware and spyware trash through their own update service.
- solarkraft 3mo agoYou’re acting like Microsoft aren’t pushing malware themselves.
- brookst 3mo agoHow in the world does that absolve Dell/etc, OR reduce Microsoft’s culpability for letting their update service be abused?
- tbrake 3mo agoThat's just a parallel fact, no one's "acting" like anything? What were you actually trying to say?
- solarkraft 3mo agoI am saying that people here seem to be appealing to Microsoft as an authority that should be interested in stopping this, perhaps because they are morally superior or concerned about their reputation. They are not.
- wizzwizz4 3mo agoNo, Microsoft should be stopping this because Microsoft is doing it, and it is wrong. HDMI does not, to my knowledge, provide a mechanism for loading code: it's Microsoft software looking the product model up in a Microsoft database, downloading the appropriate malware, and executing it with elevated privileges (bypassing UAC).
- orbital-decay 3mo agoNo, Microsoft inflicted this upon themselves. They introduced driver vetoing long ago specifically for this purpose (at the cost of certain amount of user freedom), and have established the criteria for it, but barely ever enforce most of these criteria that aren't related to hard OS stability (and sometimes even those that are related), because that might upset the vendors.
- kjs3 3mo agoThe last one I remember is plugging a Razer mouse Oh, yeah. Bought this overpriced but heavily hyped Razer mouse and it wouldn't even work right until it had an internet connection. A MOUSE. I'd never encountered something so blatantly customer hostile in my life. Never even looked at another Razer product, never will, and will tell anyone who will listen that Razer is a terrible company full of objectively terrible people.
- Chaosvex 3mo agoRazer was always low quality garbage at premium prices. Gamer marketing for you.
- dimgl 3mo agoWhat do you recommend instead? In my opinion the Razer mice are always superior for FPS.
- orbital-decay 3mo agoSome Razer mice were somewhat good in the times when the sensor mattered, with the rest of them being absolute garbage (starting with the Copperhead which barely worked). Today there's a ton of niche manufacturers with great internals that will exceed any requirements you might possibly have. If you're really interested in FPS performance and not just the brand, choose for the ergonomics first, it's not possible to recommend anything without knowing your play style, hand size etc. The shape and weight you like, and complementary feet and mat with the exact static/dynamic friction you need. Then check if the internals are good enough (they likely are) and whether there are any firmware issues like extra jitter on flicks or unavoidable debounce lag, then look at the required software. There's a ton of mice with excellent performance that are configurable without ANY software.
- sbrother 3mo ago> choose for the ergonomics first This is unfortunately why I keep buying the Razer Deathadder Pro. It fits my hand perfectly and is super accurate. I hate their software, and the company, but the performance and ergonomics of the mouse are worth it to me.
- yndoendo 3mo agoBack in my Window days. I would start the driver installation and let it sit. Open the temp folder and copy content the install extracted to a new directory. Cancel the installation. Open Device Manager and install the drivers from there so non of the excessive bloat was installed. This worked greater with being an IT consultant. The client's machine to run smoother and drivers installed fast since they would buy multiples of the same equipment at once. Now I only use Linux on personal equipment. You have to pay me to use Microsoft products. Microsoft has become shit-ware.
- clickety_clack 3mo agoThese days, even a window gets updates.
- b112 3mo agohttps://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=lastwin.95 https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=lastwin.95
- RajT88 3mo ago7zip will do the trick for a lot of self extractors.
- IgorPartola 3mo agoTo be fair Microsoft was always shitware. I don’t remember a time when using a Windows machine just worked, didn’t take up gigabytes of space, didn’t crash, and didn’t get messed up by simply using it requiring a yearly or semi-yearly reinstall.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- akurtzhs 3mo agoWindows 3.1? It was only 6 3.5” disks. To be fair, I had stretches of 2K, XP, 7 and 10 working acceptably.
- benoau 3mo agoMy Logitech mouse does this but it prompts to install their crapware and adds that to the startup programs, it's not automatically installed.
- thewebguyd 3mo ago> but aren't even using it to block these contraptions Even worse, this one is installed via Windows update. I have an LG monitor and noticed the stupid LG app all of the sudden, uninstalled it, and saw it pop up again as an update in Windows update. Microsoft is actively enabling this behavior.
- mcv 3mo agoI don't understand how this is legal. Isn't this malware? Isn't it illegal to install malware on someone's computer without their permission? Or is this very illegal, but nobody cares about that anymore?
- nemomarx 3mo agoyou'd need to legally prove it's malware and they would definitely claim it's useful software tools that come with the hardware or something
- jwrallie 3mo agoI guess it’s becoming harder for MS to define malware in a way that would catch this behavior but does not flag their own products as well.
- jasonfarnon 3mo ago"Isn't it illegal to install malware on someone's computer without their permission?" Yeah but you almost certainly granted permission to allow updates from our "Partners" when you installed windows. How did you miss clause III of romanette 2 in the 6th paragraph right in front of your face on page 26 of the ToS?
- hedora 3mo agoTou probably agreed to this when you broke the seal on the box that contained the monitor and a copy of the agreement you just agreed to. If you think that’s bad, don’t ask what you agreed to by reading this comment. I miss the days when contracts required two-party consent, or at least “meeting of the minds” / negotiations.
- jayd16 3mo agoMicrosoft could end up being a higher barrier but how much do we really want that? To me, it seems like LG is the one to blame.
- CodesInChaos 3mo ago> Microsoft could end up being a higher barrier but how much do we really want that? For drivers installed automatically via Windows Update? Absolutely yes. For software the user installs manually? No.
- londons_explore 3mo agoMicrosoft could easily make a rulebook for drivers, and say any company which violates the rulebook can only send open source drivers, or even ban them from driver distribution entirely which would quickly kill a consumer hardware brand.
- Gigachad 3mo agoMicrosoft does not care about the quality of Windows. Half the malware comes from them. Windows is just a platform they can sell online services and AI products through.
- account42 3mo agoYeah but they can only sell online services and AI products through Windows as long as people keep using it. Betting it all on their lock in being strong enough doesn't sound like a good long term strategy.
- LocalH 3mo agoMicrosoft has been coddling big devs (read: the devs that code this absolute garbage) for decades. They have this mentality "if we change anything, and anything breaks for current users, they're going to blame us instead of the vendor" and that might have been useful in the 95 days, but it's outmoded. They need to have the balls to break every vendor in 2026 if they're doing things they shouldn't. I don't trust Microsoft not to be a modern capitalist, but I trust the companies they enable even less.
- jerieljan 3mo agoThe Razer one is spot-on. I had a Razer mouse during the Windows 7 days and it kept running the installation setup despite declining it all the time, and it's so bad at times I recall seeing the setup trigger while on an ongoing Windows update when the screen was already locked up. Logitech did something similar if I recall right.