this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I see this whole LG affair as a good thing. Windows users get shown how fucked up their OS and ecosystem is by this, and LG monitors will drop into the discount zone for users who have Linux and don't have to deal with such shit.

[–] gian@lemmy.grys.it 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In a sane world you would be correct. In this world you are dreaming, most of the people do not care.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

most people do not care, until it personally affects them.

Then they will cry and wail about why anyone let it happen and why didnt anyone do anything to stop it.

[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Remember when autorun.ini was considered harmful?

[–] percent@infosec.pub 42 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Many years ago, when I was a PC repair tech, software that would behave like this was generally considered to be malware. Seems a little ironic that they're McAfee ads.

Not really surprised though. That's just how the Windows ecosystem is. I've never seen any other OS constantly support so much weird advertising bullshit all the time.

[–] zerofk@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago

McAfee has always been more of an advertising application than antivirus. A free version would constantly try to scare you into buying it. A paid version always reminds you that you could be paying more to clean your PC, including showing perfectly normal settings as “potentially unwanted“. Even if you pay for all the bells and whistles, you’ll need to click away constant reminders of how good a job it is doing at protecting you.

But, to be fair, the other big names do exactly the same.

[–] Wataba@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

My brother got a new laptop some years back. Norton was pre-installed.

It literally hijacked the system and blocked internet access until the subscription fee was paid. Getting AVG antivirus on the laptop via USB ended up killing that ransomware thankfully.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 36 points 2 days ago (1 children)

holy hell.just bought a monitor yesterday. so glad i just narrowly dodged the LG bullet by this ->\<-much and went a different brand. whew omfg...

wait...what am i worried about? i installed linux. hah hahahaha HAHAHAHA. MUAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHHAHAHHAHAHAAAA.

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[–] artyom@piefed.social 155 points 3 days ago (8 children)

The McAfee ads are just a symptom of a much bigger problem that is Windows allowing 3rd parties to install malware on "your" computer without your consent, or even your knowledge. Which makes Windows itself malware.

[–] random_character_a@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago (1 children)

always has been

[astronauts_on_the_moon.gif]

[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

🌎 🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

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[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 158 points 3 days ago (3 children)

This is being pushed as a driver update. Drivers run in ring 0. LG could be snooping on you at a very low level here.

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 84 points 3 days ago

But they promised that their installer isn't sending any data back to LG!

They didn't promise the app itself isn't snooping or that McAfee isn't snooping, but the installer isn't snooping, they swear!

[–] voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 43 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is not a driver update. This is adware that is automatically installed with the device being connected. It is the same as how synapse is automatically installed with Razer products. If it was a driver, you wouldn't be able to uninstall the software and have the device still work, not that a monitor needs a driver anyway.

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I believe they were claiming it is installed the same as a driver, not that it's a driver in the literal sense. That was my understanding of it too, so is that wrong? Surely Windows looks for drivers, downloads them, and this gets installed alongside. If it is not listed as a driver then why is Windows installing it? Is this a Windows issue of giving companies the ability to install optional crap or is it a company issue of hiding optional crap inside their "driver" packages?

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[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 98 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

From the comments on the article:

  • Open SettingsSystemAboutAdvanced system settingsHardware tabDevice Installation Settings.
  • Select No to Automatically download manufacturer apps and icons.
[–] SouthEndSunset@piefed.blahaj.zone 33 points 3 days ago (5 children)

How reliable is this?

Call me cynical or whatever you like, I don’t trust anything that isn’t a physical switch.

[–] urushitan@kakera.kintsugi.moe 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Probably reliable until the next "feature and experience update" where they move or remove the setting and default it back to allow for all users again and all the soulless advertisers cum their pants because their malware delivered impression counts just went up again

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[–] ooterness@lemmy.world 50 points 3 days ago (6 children)

Any statement by Microsoft that doesn't include, "so we banned them from publishing auto-installed drivers for a year" is an insufficient response to this crime.

Yeah this was a significant non answer. "We want to sound like we're doing something without doing anything"

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[–] ShredderFeeder@shredderfood.net 73 points 3 days ago (7 children)

So LG is on the list of never buy again...good to know...

Pity, they used to make good shit..

[–] axh@lemmy.world 43 points 3 days ago (7 children)

I am worried that soon we will need a "decent enough to buy" list because it will be difficult to find anything that is not on the "never buy again" list.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

There are only a few companies that make the actual panels (regardless of how the finished TV or monitor was branded), and two of the biggest (LG and Samsung) are the worst offenders in terms of enshittification. It would not take much at all for the availability of new non-enshittified TVs and computer monitors to drop to literally zero.

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[–] nycvin@lemmy.world 59 points 3 days ago (8 children)

I was trying to figure out why someone would install a third party driver for a monitor, of all things, and then I read this

Further, Microsoft allows Universal Windows Platform device apps “to automatically install when the user connects their device to the PC”

Is this for real? Does it at least prompt with a pop-up first?

[–] towerful@programming.dev 24 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Let me guess...

Users never read prompts, so we have removed them

Kinda like

Users never update, so we have forced that

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[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I guess this shows how out of touch I am because how the fuck is a peripheral auto installing software on my computer in the first place? how does Microsoft allow that?

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago

Old school way was installing peripheral, or even sometimes internal hardware drivers and apps, manually from the vendors website or disk. Modern Windows checks your hardware and the vendors send MS updates to the MS "repository" of drivers and apps. As part of the auto updates Microsoft pushes your system will be fed vendor updates for your hardware.

For the layperson this is helpful, but it is annoying as heck when you have your own application that needs a specific driver version and windows keeps trying to overwrite it.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 36 points 3 days ago

We’ve connected with the team at LG and as an immediate next step, they have agreed to disable the McAfee pop-up from their app. We appreciate LG working with us toward a shared goal of a better experience for our mutual customers. We will keep improving here with our ecosystem partners.

Corpo speech is awful, but this AI corpo speech somehow is even worse. Someone literally asked AI to come up with some transparent lies to make people believe that they care

[–] Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Isn’t LG digging their own graves by pissing off their customers so much? No one is going to buy their shit anymore.

[–] cheat700000007@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

But everyone's doing it

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[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 37 points 3 days ago

My Linux does not do this shit. get rekt MS and LG.

[–] bigmamoth@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Thanks Steve from gamer nexus to put a spot on this atrocities

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 37 points 3 days ago

Good reason not to use LG or Windows.

[–] deczzz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago

Fyi Microsoft did not respond for comments

[–] bitteroldcoot@piefed.social 30 points 3 days ago

Microsoft responds to accusations that they are selling back door access to their OS, by issuing a vague and obtuse statement, that kind of maybe says that they asked the offenders to stop making the back door's existence so glaringly obvious.

[–] deliriousdreams@fedia.io 16 points 3 days ago (3 children)

My understanding is that LG broke the TOS and Microsoft asked them to stop instead of penalizing them under the agreement they broke. They wouldn't do this for the average consumer and so the average consumer should jump ship to something else.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

..like linux. and then be done with all this shit.

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[–] rue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Oof. This sucks. My two favorite monitors are LG. My pool of monitor brands I like shrinks ever tinier!

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Yeah I was always a big fan of LG stuff.

Oh well.

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