DELL + spyware

[Aspman]

Even that is going a bit far for most people who are buying from Dell.
I suppose you could say rtfm but it's never going to happen is it.

The move away from supplying a restore CD with the full OS on it would put me off buying from Dell and I was thinking about one for a cheap second PC.

[whatthe]

http://online.securityfocus.com/news/11250

[S3cur|ty4ng31]

I should have followed up on this a year ago when I had all the information. I bought a dell laptop and the very first thing I do with any computer before its ever allowed to connect to the internet is load up AVG,TinyFirewall, and AdAware SE Professional.

When I did this with the dell laptop and ran AdAware it caught a spyware program. I went to another computer looked up the info about the spyware and I verifed it to be a true positive.

Ill have to see if I can dig up the info.

[z31200n3]

quote:
"A Dell spokesperson said concerns about the product were misplaced. "My Way is not a spyware product and it does not monitor user's behaviour. It's a toolbar that displays relevant search results in response to search queries," she said. "You can disable the product
using the options menu."


imo, if you have to disable a proggy (preloaded or downloaded alike) from doing something it doesnt say happens, doesnt that make it spyware?


-z3

[Aspman]

If the machine also reinstalls with the hidden partition it's going to reinstall the 'spyware' with it. You'd never be able to start with a clean system unless you go and buy XP again.

I'll stick to self builds I think.

[killerbeesateme]

Dell does come with spyware pre-installed. It's called Microsoft Windows. It phones home right after you install it to let them know that you own a computer. Then (if you never change the defaults) it phones home every time you open a web browser (home page ala MSN). You have your "Automatic Updates" enabled by default, which phones home to see if you need any updates to your software.

Dell also pre-installs some other spyware on top of that spyware program. The dell support agent thing, god i hate that. Then if it comes with Real Player (haven't bought a dell in awhile so not sure if this is still in the mix) which has that Real Scheduler thing which in my mind is equivalent to adware.

Alot of the stuff i mentioned is a good thing, and just about any OS has something equivalent to it. Its just food for thought. You never really think about how many different peices of software phones home in one way or another. They just call the obnoxious stuff malware. Everything else is "Convenience" or an "Enhancement".

[jabrown]

Think about it. your the head of a huge company and 99% of the people who buy your product don't have an idea what spyware or adware is, the profit margine in the sector is weak at best. so why wouldn't someone whos looking to increase the bottom line to make share holders happy do this. i mean its not like to many large businesses have morals or even care to much about the consumer. didnt worldcom and tyco CLAIM everything was great! all the suits up front look for is the red and black in the monthly report. if they see red the look to alternative options.

the computers i spoke of earlier are brand new dell's right out of the box and i just installed the highspeed internet to it. i'm not claiming this because i've seen one or two computers like this, i've seen about a hundered new dell's like this in the last three months or so.

its easy to tell the difference between a new computer that hasnt been on the internet to a two month old computer with no protection because of user negligence that has been on the net

[zipc0de]

I just got my dell 700m laptop and wow. I don't know about spyware, but it comes with a ton of junk. Going to do a clean OS install on it.

[jxrry59]

When someone PAYS me to help them select and install a new home computer the first thing i do is format, if it doesnt come with an OS i use one i have laying around, M$'s genuine disadvantage doesnt allow direct dl's of updates on this OS but i just turn on automatic updates and it immediately grabs all the critivcal ones (and probably the critical patches for the earlier patches, lol)

The blank cd's that ask you to do your own backup, i think, are a way to generate funds via tech support, emachines are notorious for making it all but impossible for the casual user to find drivers

symantecs norton antivirus (what a sin) used to come bundled on all new computers, hogging resources and being somewhat questionable in its effectiveness, but it was sheer genius as a marketing ploy, symantec is the ONE av name recognized by the casual user.

As a bizness practice, bundling shareware and "spyware" is a good practice, novell sets firefox's homepage to its site on its Suse OS's, btw Suse 10 official is due for release on oct. 6, and computers and the internet is increasingly becoming more and more of a bizness as opposed to a repository of data

[tyger_claw]

It's like having sex with a hooker and no condom (or body suit)! You take your chances to get an infection.

It would be nice, however, if big corp companies strike a deal with anti-spyware companies to install "SE" versions to protect people's computers from Spyware, expecially if it's costing their helpdesk money to troubleshoot (Like mine).
*Heck, even install the Microsoft Beta One, any protection is better then none...

First thing we do when we take over someone's computer is install an anti-spyware like Ad-Aware nd run a scan.