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Posted by baranul 1 day ago

LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent(videocardz.com)
1043 points | 530 commentspage 3
Kelteseth 23 hours ago|
Can confirm. This happened to me yesterday on my Windows 11 machine. Uninstallation was only listed in the Microsoft Store -> Library.
scottydelta 19 hours ago||
Similarly after getting annoyed at my TV for showing ads and other privacy issues, I have started working on a smart TV version of the casting device my startup makes.

I have been using it for both personal use and other work use-cases, here is a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jObZzI2_pv0

Just like youtube, I can log in to my netflix, amazon prime and then use the touch screen to choose the movie to watch and it gets played on the external screen. I am building it how I would use it as a power user.

newsoftheday 19 hours ago|
We have a smart TV on the way. We do not plan to run the setup, it won't have Internet access. We plan to do what we've done for over a decade now, connect our Kubuntu laptop in the entertainment center to it and select it as the default input device. And occasionally watch OTA TV shows. So we will use it as ... a monitor and plain TV, that happens to have far better video and sound quality than our old TV.
scottydelta 18 hours ago||
that's the same conclusion I came to and the device I am developing is basically a Raspberry Pi with my own modified OS that has a casting canvas and it can show all kinds of content.

No third-party installs, ads and spywares!

drnick1 17 hours ago||
Not sure what your homegrown solution is, but check out Plasma Bigscreen too.
scottydelta 16 hours ago||
it looks very interesting, thanks for pointing me to it.

My solution is a casting device like chromecast or apple tv which works without apps and cables. Now I am extending the device's canvas for personal use case without the concept of app stores. AI can control the canvas, show multimedia content, open any website/app, and show you options to log in by extracting context, then control it.

So I can tell it to open netflix, it shows login options on screen and once logged in, you can ask it to show catalog or play something by just talking to it.

It can connect and cast content to TWO external screens simultaneously, that I think is the most powerful feature.

throwa356262 23 hours ago||
Last time a company abused platform driver delivery to install adware, Microsoft threatened to pull their drivers altogether.

But those were different times...

trelane 11 hours ago||
This is (one of) the downsides of Windows' vendor-provided driver system. Compared to Linux's FOSS-centered system.

When folks ask "Why doesn't Linux have a stable binary DDK API" this is one of the inevitable downsides of having it.

guax 4 hours ago|
I think the fault is entirely on Microsoft for allowing the abuse. I do remember back in the older windows that the driver that auto installs was always the bare basic thing to make the device work. If you wanted the whole support you had to go and download or install from disc.
Ciantic 20 hours ago||
I also discovered that these days motherboards come with a payload in their chipset, which gets installed automatically in background unless you figure out to turn it off from BIOS before installing Windows. In my case it was bunch of ASUS useless stuff, not just drivers, some "Armoury Crate" etc. Which just keeps running in background. I've switched to KDE, that kind of solved itself.
guax 4 hours ago|
This does not make sense to me. It's likely the exact same scenario where the software is delivered using windows driver infra structure for the chipset.
paweladamczuk 15 hours ago||
I once plugged in a Logitech keyboard on a fresh system and got a colorful branded popup covering several inches of screen real estate in the bottom right corner. It was urging me to download some Logitech software.

As far as I know, the source of the graphics was not the unifying receiver that I plugged in the USB port, and the notification was not using any OS API meant for hardware to be avle to prompt the user for additional download. It was a Logitech-built DLL shipped and loaded by the operating system as part of some default driver for the Logitech keyboard.

tailrecursion 9 hours ago||
I'm starting to think that complaining about these kinds of practices isn't having an effect.
callamdelaney 20 hours ago||
They were doing this over a year ago [1]

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/callam-d-b38b05105_windows-is...

downrightmike 13 hours ago|
linkedin EW
throwatdem12311 20 hours ago||
Installing drivers and software for connected hardware is just something Windows has done through Windows update for a long time.

Is this a good practice? I don’t really know. We used to get drivers on CDs, but barely anyone has a drive on their computer anymore. You could download them from the vendor website but these are usually a mess and very difficult to navigate to find the right thing — impossible for your grandma.

Could do like Linux and just build trusted software right into the kernel - but then people will complain about bloat.

So we are where we are. I guess.

frollogaston 16 hours ago||
It's pretty rare nowadays to need drivers for specific hardware that ordinary people are going to plug in. Maybe printers are the unfortunate exception.
dist-epoch 19 hours ago||
Windows already ships with gigabytes of drivers. This is why you can plug most popular hardware on an offline Windows and it will work.
infinite_spin 21 hours ago|
the paranoid part of me thinks this is a war of attrition, where if every company imaginable has to be taken to task for intrusive behavior that we'll eventually grow numb to it, or that with a large enough onslaught we'll never be able to outpace it. It's not like there is profit to be made from preventing this behavior, and incredible incentives to, at minimum, turn a blind eye.
cindyllm 19 hours ago|
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