Assuming they don't get a revenue cut, pushing back on Microsoft can in principle be effective here.
Microsoft decides what happens here, and presumably today they just take it on trust that hardware makers know what software to install. New driver? Sure. McSpam installer? OK. Maybe they have a guideline saying "Don't ship unrelated garbage" but today it's not enforced because why would you do that?
If the Microsoft customers (particularly larger corporate customers) tell Microsoft they hate this that policy will get tightened or if there isn't a policy one is introduced, and outfits like LG get told if you do this again we're taking away your update privileges, 'cos our customers hated this. Because (as I said assuming MS don't get a taste) this is all downside for Microsoft.
Pushing back on LG will be less likely to work because you already bought their product, so at most you can insist you'll forgo LG next iteration and they know such pledges evaporate in practice usually. Whereas Microsoft has contract negotiations every day, somewhere a $$$ contract is being renegotiated next week and if "Yeah, these LG popups suck" comes up - even if it's not a corporate system but the VP's niece's video editing suite for her vlog that's strictly unrelated - that Microsoft sales droid reports this was an impediment and it's on the list of things that don't benefit Microsoft.
gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation
Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata
Set to enabled
I am tired of this. LG is now on my blacklist alongside EA and Blizzard Entertainment for their anti consumer practices.
I can't change them, I can't change policies about it. I can choose to not buy.
Why do people even install 'drivers' for things like monitors. (Or usb devices running 'standard' protocols). The OS handles these just fine by itself.
This is so much worse that the title makes it out to be:
1. Your OS installs malware (technically manufacturers software) from a 3rd party vendor in background, zero user interaction
2. Happens as soon as you or anyone with physical access plug in a device into the HDMI port
3. That malware has internet and full system access, no sandboxing
4. It starts with every system boot
5. This software gets installed when you plug in a new LG monitor
6. OR ALREADY HAD AN OLDER LG MONITOR PLUGGED IN, BECAUSE LG APPARENTLY ROLLED THIS OUT FOR MANY OLDER MODELS TOO!!
7. And yes, if you think that's horrendous, as mentioned in the video below, that also applies to 'Professional' LG monitors!
This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..
> This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..
Microsoft has been allowing this sort of ludicrous behavior for decades at this point, it's not a new issue. What's new is how visible LG made their malware, compared to previous auto-installs that happen like this, where they try to make the thing not so in your face, as they know there will be a huge backlash.
I don't know what Microsoft is thinking even allowing and enabling this sort of thing, they've lost all touch when it comes to building things for users.
I'm wondering if we in Europe gets vastly different experience compared to Americans or elsewhere in the world. People complain about LG having ads everywhere in the monitors, displays and what not, but none of our LG products (bought and used in Spain) have any ads anywhere. I'm sitting here with a LG monitor and our main TV is a LG OLED TV, neither of them have ads anywhere, although I haven't booted Windows in a couple of days and I guess I won't, until this malware issue been fixed.
But still, is it possible Americans are receiving more ads than in other parts of the world? Certainly online sentiment gives me that impression.
So because the US is the largest consumer market in the world, the TVs LG sell in the US has more ads in the UIs than TVs sold in Europe? Why would it be like that? If that theory is true, does that mean TVs sold in the European Union then have more ads than TVs sold in China, as the EU consumer market is larger than the China one?
But in case LG, they record your activities in EU too. You can opt out, but the settings has a very non-descriptive and name and resets by itself when you are not looking.
They used to call this spyware/malware. Now it's a regular practice by eng. teams and managers inside these big corp. Well played guys :) Congrats with new type of tricks
From FTC website: Malware is harmful software that’s installed on your device without your knowledge.
So I think that is what we should continue to call it. LG monitors are installing malware, because they install the software silently and it harms the system by making it slower and disrupting the work of the user with advertisements.
They also come with terms of service which assert that you will inform everyone in the vicinity of your TV that their voices are being recorded by your TV.
In Korea, pretty much all devices come with Windows. It's hard to live outside of Windows. Most programming is done in CPP,C#, and even when people use C, the majority are working on top of an IDE. The OS kernel layer only really appears in things like Samsung phones—the vast majority of work is on the application layer, and most consumers are on Windows on their desktops. It seems unavoidable
And Razer, Logitech, nvidia and everyone else who has it's driver package accepted into WU.
No, you can't have a "(o) just the driver" checkbox because... honestly there are a lot of reasons and the device manufacturers are the guys who demand that in the first place.
Razer mice are the worst because they are just HIDs and could work without any special driver at all! Also I don't need their whole suite on every Windows computer I plug my mouse in. I think most people would just configure their Razer mouse on one PC, save the settings in the firmware of the mouse itself (I guess, I've actually never used their driver suite) and then never touch their software again.
It's just crazy to me that a lot of keyboard manufacturers have basically standardized on VIA as their firmware which can be configured via WebUSB without installing any additional driver. But my mouse somehow needs a gigantic driver suite just to configure and save some settings? It's just madness.
I like Razer mice and their headsets, but I will never install any of their drivers. Ironically I feel more comfortable using Razer hardware on non-Windows devices than on Windows precisely because they don't support other operating systems.
With the quality of that software, it wouldn’t surprise me if the driver didn’t work without the userspace app at all. The GeForce experience at least you can disable, but if you have any branded components getting all of their management software off your PC is incredibly difficult
If you're using Windows on a personal device in the first place, you're pretty loudly declaring that your consent doesn't matter anyway.
That's not your computer, that's Microsoft's computer. You're the threat model they lock it down against, you're the schmuck that keeps them fed, and you're the possible terrorist/hacker to be surveilled, tagged, tracked, and monitored.
If you care about consent as it relates to your use of technology, you shouldn't be using Windows in the first place, and this has been obvious for well over a decade now.
Assuming they don't get a revenue cut, pushing back on Microsoft can in principle be effective here.
Microsoft decides what happens here, and presumably today they just take it on trust that hardware makers know what software to install. New driver? Sure. McSpam installer? OK. Maybe they have a guideline saying "Don't ship unrelated garbage" but today it's not enforced because why would you do that?
If the Microsoft customers (particularly larger corporate customers) tell Microsoft they hate this that policy will get tightened or if there isn't a policy one is introduced, and outfits like LG get told if you do this again we're taking away your update privileges, 'cos our customers hated this. Because (as I said assuming MS don't get a taste) this is all downside for Microsoft.
Pushing back on LG will be less likely to work because you already bought their product, so at most you can insist you'll forgo LG next iteration and they know such pledges evaporate in practice usually. Whereas Microsoft has contract negotiations every day, somewhere a $$$ contract is being renegotiated next week and if "Yeah, these LG popups suck" comes up - even if it's not a corporate system but the VP's niece's video editing suite for her vlog that's strictly unrelated - that Microsoft sales droid reports this was an impediment and it's on the list of things that don't benefit Microsoft.
Honestly yeah
MS should get all the flack (which is mostly deserved) of this
Manufacturer does whatever crap they want with "it works" and then MS gets the complaints
A driver should only be that. A driver
Workaround:
I am tired of this. LG is now on my blacklist alongside EA and Blizzard Entertainment for their anti consumer practices. I can't change them, I can't change policies about it. I can choose to not buy.
Why do people even install 'drivers' for things like monitors. (Or usb devices running 'standard' protocols). The OS handles these just fine by itself.
In this case, they aren't.
I woke up the other day to a notification that my LG monitor driver was installed, with a little window on how to use the on-screen crap.
Absolutely useless, since the buttons for the monitor are right there on the bottom of it, and probably easier to use than the software.
Sounds like this malware gets installed even if you don't manually install anything.
> Connecting some LG monitors to a Windows PC may automatically install software that promotes McAfee subscriptions
I too have a LG monitor, but haven't booted Windows in some days, guess I'll stay put in my Arch environment until they've fixed this shitshow.
But this assumes you plug in USBC .... Right? HDMI and display port can't....install over right?
This is so much worse that the title makes it out to be:
This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..GamersNexus has a video diving deeper into what LG did here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM
I can only conclude that Windows is basically malware now... Thank $deity I haven't used any form of Windows for 10+ years anymore.
> This situation has.. no precedent as far as I can tell..
Microsoft has been allowing this sort of ludicrous behavior for decades at this point, it's not a new issue. What's new is how visible LG made their malware, compared to previous auto-installs that happen like this, where they try to make the thing not so in your face, as they know there will be a huge backlash.
I don't know what Microsoft is thinking even allowing and enabling this sort of thing, they've lost all touch when it comes to building things for users.
It is the same when you plug in a Logitech mouse nowadays, no? At least they don't install McAfee
Gamers Nexus have a video about this. Definitely worth a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM
I'm wondering if we in Europe gets vastly different experience compared to Americans or elsewhere in the world. People complain about LG having ads everywhere in the monitors, displays and what not, but none of our LG products (bought and used in Spain) have any ads anywhere. I'm sitting here with a LG monitor and our main TV is a LG OLED TV, neither of them have ads anywhere, although I haven't booted Windows in a couple of days and I guess I won't, until this malware issue been fixed.
But still, is it possible Americans are receiving more ads than in other parts of the world? Certainly online sentiment gives me that impression.
> Americans are receiving more ads than in other parts of the world
Ads aren't free, so yes, it would stand to reason that people in the largest consumer market in the world might garner more ad spend.
So because the US is the largest consumer market in the world, the TVs LG sell in the US has more ads in the UIs than TVs sold in Europe? Why would it be like that? If that theory is true, does that mean TVs sold in the European Union then have more ads than TVs sold in China, as the EU consumer market is larger than the China one?
In general, yes.
But in case LG, they record your activities in EU too. You can opt out, but the settings has a very non-descriptive and name and resets by itself when you are not looking.
They used to call this spyware/malware. Now it's a regular practice by eng. teams and managers inside these big corp. Well played guys :) Congrats with new type of tricks
From FTC website: Malware is harmful software that’s installed on your device without your knowledge.
So I think that is what we should continue to call it. LG monitors are installing malware, because they install the software silently and it harms the system by making it slower and disrupting the work of the user with advertisements.
McAfee should be classified as a virus
? isn't this normal windows behaviour?
They also come with terms of service which assert that you will inform everyone in the vicinity of your TV that their voices are being recorded by your TV.
Can confirm. This happened to me yesterday on my Windows 11 machine. Uninstallation was only listed in the Microsoft Store -> Library.
Last time a company abused platform driver delivery to install adware, Microsoft threatened to pull their drivers altogether.
But that was a different time.
Your OS silently installs malware. Doesn't get much worse than this.
Your OS is malware, if it's Windows.
it's worth noting that the price of these monitors got cut in half due to this news -- great for the linux users out there
Still seeing them for ~600 everywhere, which is completely in line with historic pricing: https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/2246090/lg-ultragear-oled-34...
we finally cracked self-installing software, it just turns out the payload is McAfee and the installer is an HDMI cable
Shame on Microsoft for allowing this
Not great, but also not at all surprising.
Not sure about other solutions, but one suggested workaround here would be to silently uninstall Windows without consent.
Last 2 were LG, been looking at a new one but I guess I'll go with another brand that has their panels.
In Korea, pretty much all devices come with Windows. It's hard to live outside of Windows. Most programming is done in CPP,C#, and even when people use C, the majority are working on top of an IDE. The OS kernel layer only really appears in things like Samsung phones—the vast majority of work is on the application layer, and most consumers are on Windows on their desktops. It seems unavoidable
This is also true outside of Korea.
And Razer, Logitech, nvidia and everyone else who has it's driver package accepted into WU.
No, you can't have a "(o) just the driver" checkbox because... honestly there are a lot of reasons and the device manufacturers are the guys who demand that in the first place.
Razer mice are the worst because they are just HIDs and could work without any special driver at all! Also I don't need their whole suite on every Windows computer I plug my mouse in. I think most people would just configure their Razer mouse on one PC, save the settings in the firmware of the mouse itself (I guess, I've actually never used their driver suite) and then never touch their software again.
It's just crazy to me that a lot of keyboard manufacturers have basically standardized on VIA as their firmware which can be configured via WebUSB without installing any additional driver. But my mouse somehow needs a gigantic driver suite just to configure and save some settings? It's just madness.
I like Razer mice and their headsets, but I will never install any of their drivers. Ironically I feel more comfortable using Razer hardware on non-Windows devices than on Windows precisely because they don't support other operating systems.
With the quality of that software, it wouldn’t surprise me if the driver didn’t work without the userspace app at all. The GeForce experience at least you can disable, but if you have any branded components getting all of their management software off your PC is incredibly difficult
If you're using Windows on a personal device in the first place, you're pretty loudly declaring that your consent doesn't matter anyway.
That's not your computer, that's Microsoft's computer. You're the threat model they lock it down against, you're the schmuck that keeps them fed, and you're the possible terrorist/hacker to be surveilled, tagged, tracked, and monitored.
If you care about consent as it relates to your use of technology, you shouldn't be using Windows in the first place, and this has been obvious for well over a decade now.
[Laughs in Linux/BSD]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fbt1fVfi-g