Tag Archive for: crapware

Microsoft tests new tool to remove OEM crapware

Windows 10 already includes ways to clear out applications and data to repair misbehaving systems or prepare them to be sold, courtesy of the Refresh and Reset features added in Windows 8. Microsoft is now adding a third option: a new refresh tool.

Currently available only for Windows Insiders, the new tool fetches a copy of Windows online and performs a clean installation. The only option is whether or not you want to preserve your personal data. Any other software that’s installed will be blown away, including the various applications and utilities that OEMs continue to bundle with their systems.

The tool is currently in preview and has some quirks; it installs a preview build from the fast track, but Microsoft notes that the new tool can sometimes install a version older than the one currently installed. When this kind of version mismatch occurs, the option to preserve your files is removed.

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Technology Lab – Ars Technica

µTorrent latest victim of crapware paranoia

BitTorrent Inc. has been accused of loading its popular µTorrent BitTorrent client with cryptocoin miners that install silently and then harvest the processor power of unwitting torrenters.

Users of the software created a thread on the official µTorrent forum to complain about a high processor load when the computer is idle. The culprit was a program called Epic Scale, installed alongside µTorrent.

Epic Scale is a distributed computing client from a company that claims it wants to harness “unused processing power to change the world.” The website says that it uses the processors of machines with the software to solve “math problems for weather prediction, physics simulations, cryptography (including cryptocurrency mining) and more,” and this computation is monetized. Currently, it appears that the software is mining the Litecoin cryptocurrency.

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Ars Technica » Technology Lab

Lenovo promises to cut the crapware in the wake of Superfish debacle

Lenovo announced today that it will stop shipping PCs with adware and bloatware and that it now aims to be the “leader in providing cleaner, safer PCs.”

This response comes in the wake of a massive backlash after the company was found to be including bundled advertising software that completely broke the security provided by HTTPS.

Lenovo’s plan comes in two parts. First, the company will scale back preinstalled software. Its systems will include the operating system and any necessary drivers and software to make the hardware work (to, for example, support fingerprint readers or 3D cameras). It will also include some Lenovo applications (such as the ThinkVantage System Update software, which is a genuinely useful app for updating drivers and system firmware) and security software.

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Ars Technica » Technology Lab