After the SuperFish mess, Lenovo has decided to start afresh. The company announced that it will ship cleaner, safer, adware-free and bloatware-free Windows PCs, by significantly reducing the number of pre-installed software on its systems.
Lenovo has been down in dumps since the last two weeks as shipping computer systems with a pre-loaded adware Superfish actually bummed out the leading hardware manufacturer. This adware could hijack encrypted web sessions and make PC users vulnerable to HTTPS man-in-the-middle attacks.
After an initial denial stance, the company has been working hard to resolve the issue. The team created an automatic removal tool, which could help users remove the Superfish malware from their systems. Furthermore, the company also joined hands with Microsoft and McAfee to counter Superfish.
The company is trying hard to regain its damaged reputation. It has now offered a free 6-moth subscription of McAfee LiveSafe service to the affected consumers as a compensation.
A post at Lenovo Newsroom states,
Our goal is clear: To become the leader in providing cleaner, safer PCs. We are starting immediately, and by the time we launch our Windows 10 products, our standard image will only include the operating system and related software, software required to make hardware work well (for example, when we include unique hardware in our devices, like a 3D camera), security software and Lenovo applications. This should eliminate what our industry calls adware and bloatware.
Lenovo also promised to post a detailed information about the entire range of software preloaded on their upcoming computer machines, and explain clearly what each application does.
It looks like Lenovo has decided to take a positive lesson from the fiasco. By announcing bloatware-free PCs, it is sure to make their PCs an attractive buy, as compared to the other crapware-riddled brands. If I had to buy a new Windows 10 laptop, Lenovo could well be my first choice, knowing very well that I wouldn’t need to exorcize the laptop before I started using it.
We hope that other companies will not wait for an incident to occur, but instead take suo moto decisions and announce crapware-free PCs. Sure this decision would result in some financial losses – but in the long run, the Windows ecosystem is sure to win!
To offer a 6 months free subscription on McAfee is ridiculous.
McAfee are already one of the most annoying “crapware”, this “offer” give the 6 months free, then you are locked to a full paid subscription, until you directly contact McAfee to end the subscription, if you “forget” to cancel this 6 months free at least 1 month before the end of the free period you are forced to pay for a year, and then again at least one month before the end of this year ……..
McAfee was my favourite AV software at the time it came on the marked for many years ago, but since then it has been a forceware/crapware/annoying ware and so on.
It force it’s way through many free installations, even though I have paid for Winzip, the installation will always offer a free McAfee installation.
When you install Java and do not show attention doing the installation process you will get the hideous and crappy ASK tool-bar
And that’s make me HATE McAfee at the same level as I hate Java and ASK, they are just as bad.
I can’t trust a company who do not respect the customer.
The paradox is they like to expose their product as a security software.
So this “offer” is Excuse my language, a crappy deal.
By the way the spelling of the English word “offer” in Danish mean VICTIM 🙂
So in Danish an offer is a victim.
I know I sound angry, but I really aren’t
Lenovo are still undisputed my #1 preferred brand.
I normally make a clean installation, so I don’t get the crapware.