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Posted by baranul 2 days ago

LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent(videocardz.com)
1210 points | 631 commentspage 6
jzer0cool 2 days ago|
How to ensure physical devices like keyboard, monitor, mouse are safe? Essentially all recording devices.
mfro 2 days ago||
Fun fact, Gigabyte motherboards do the same thing. Thankfully they give you an option to disable it in BIOS.
guax 1 day ago|
Jeez, I had to search because this is baffling to me but alas, there it is:

> Gigabyte's UEFI firmware leverages WPBT to drop an executable—specifically GigabyteUpdateService.exe—into the Windows %SystemRoot%\system32\ directory during the early stages of the boot process. This executable automatically connects to the internet to download and install Gigabyte's auto-update application, often referred to as the "APP Center".

ninalanyon 2 days ago||
Why does a monitor install anything at all? Why does it even have a mechanism to do so?
rbanffy 2 days ago||
At this point, such shenanigans are to be expected when using Windows.

I guess my next machine will have a VGA port ;-)

And no Windows.

userbinator 2 days ago||
VGA still has EDID which this is based on, so this situation could've happened in that era if companies were less hostile.

But this is definitely something Windows does.

classified 2 days ago||
As long as you don't need some Windows-only software, Linux is a viable alternative now. KDE Plasma is a great desktop environment and even most games run flawlessly on Steam. And if you do need Windows occasionally, you can put it into a VM.
subscribed 2 days ago||
Eh, kinda. I have new-ish MSI laptop with nvidia and it's still not good enough. I tried on the spare nvme and it just doesn't work well enough with these few games I want.

Close but still not there. And Plasma has its own problems (I have it on my work laptop with Fedora).

rbanffy 1 day ago||
You have to be very unlucky to find a laptop without Linux support these days. Nvidia’s support towards the Linux developers is better now, but still leaves much to be desired, and gaming, while Steam did an incredible job in making Linux better than Windows for most games, can’t really work miracles if the hardware manufacturer doesn’t care.
subscribed 1 day ago||
It does have Linux support, mostly, it's just that the nvidia support is not good enough if someone doesn't want to run Bazzite or Arch (I don't want to).
rbanffy 1 day ago||
I tend to avoid Nvidia on my laptops, but AI has made them less and less optional. This whole ecosystem dependency on a single hardware provider that can’t publish a reasonable device driver is not the best possible scenario.
astonex 2 days ago||
Shame on Microsoft for allowing this
Telaneo 2 days ago||
My heart aches for those who can't opt out of using Windows.
jmward01 2 days ago||
It may seem extreme, but we need laws about digital breaking and entering/assault that cover things like this. It is being done specifically to harm you and without your consent or knowledge. That is assault. We just, as a society, need to start naming things what they actually are and treating them that way.
account42 19 hours ago|
Governments haven't been keeping up with technology and by the time they get around to it all these practices are already established and normalized.
DevPulse 2 days ago||
I am using an LG ultra wide monitor and have not had any popups or ads.
motbus3 2 days ago||
I think this is how they are going to make us pay rent for what we bought. They will make everything unusable unless you pay more and make some cuckoo TOS saying that you agree to be held in contempt if you circumvent their measurements.

Honestly, if we don't push it back hard, it will only get worse and worse. Why we were cancelling people if they used wrong pronouns and suddenly we got tired of doing the same with stuff that we all should agree on that is terrible.

Havoc 2 days ago|
LG's bad faith actions aside I'd think this also casts significant doubt on MS's running of Win Update.

Why are they allowing mystery crap to be installed on user machines on plugging in a device? All sort of aggressive driver signing rules yet crapware autoinstalls is somehow cool? MS wtf are you doing?

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