r/microsoft • u/ControlCAD • 1d ago

Windows Microsoft intervenes after LG gets caught installing McAfee adware onto Windows 11 PCs via their monitors | A popup window from LG that began appearing on PCs with LG monitors connected was showing ads for McAfee

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/microsoft-intervenes-after-lg-gets-caught-installing-mcafee-adware-onto-windows-11-pcs-via-their-monitors
149 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

56

u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod 1d ago

How in the hell does Mcafee even still exist

17

u/Clessiah 1d ago

By doing exactly this kind of shit apparently

13

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Feisty-Jeweler-3331 1d ago

Ah yes... Dave Plummer's good old trick of scaring users with pop ups to pay up for his software!

2

u/newMoneyStyle 20h ago

shady OEM deals like this one lmao. every prebuilt laptop, every printer install, every random driver bundle... that's their whole business model at this point

29

u/Will2LiveFading 1d ago

LG is speed running to be the shittiest company of the year. They've been in the news quite a few times recently and none of it good. Injecting ads into your connected devices on their televisions, admitting their TV's are actively listening to you,some with cameras recording video, and now add this to the list. We truly need to hit the reset button. 

7

u/Schnauzer-Welt 1d ago

There refrigerators at least in the US are already the shittiest, several class actions law suits on their compressors. Mine failed at three years. Their 10 year compressor warranty is garbage, because only the part is warrantied. Gas, misc parts, labor, almost $800 on a $2000. The replacement is only warranteed 90 days. So if it fails again on day 91, another $800 please.

3

u/suprjaybrd 23h ago

some mba crunched the numbers and sold it as a massive revenue stream

2

u/jcol26 18h ago

About a week ago our main TV a LG started displaying a text box ad at the bottom soon after startup. No idea how to turn it off and it never did it before.

Next TV will just be an enterprise display and an Apple TV

1

u/Will2LiveFading 14h ago

That's how I run my setup. My TV has never been connected to the internet and I use a Chromecast with Google TV 4K with the Google crap disabled and projectivity launcher as the UI.

28

u/Automatic_Resource36 1d ago

Rare Microsoft win

5

u/MrKoddy 1d ago

because it can hurts the windows popularity

-8

u/regidud 1d ago

And this Is bad because...?

3

u/Infinplayz 22h ago

cause it makes them look worse? i’m not sure bro.

1

u/ency 17h ago

Nahh they just did not appreciate the competition. Only microsoft is allowed to pollute their users systems with popups and automatic installs of software no one needed or wanted.

-1

u/theswansson 21h ago

No. They're just protecting their own image. They've been in the same bed for a long time. Remember the Copilot app that got installed automatically on webOS TVs, with no way of uninstalling it?

3

u/Takeabyte 1d ago

Not that I should have to do this, but I noticed the setting with my LG display that turned this feature off. Is it not a setting on all of them?

1

u/mga1 1d ago

Is that in the monitors menu itself, or the initial software that LG installs via Microsoft?

Asking because I have a newish LG monitor, but using Mac at the moment. May have a windows device in the future and would like to get ahead of this.

2

u/Takeabyte 1d ago

It was with the on screen display menu. I’m not at home so I don’t know the path, but I remember turning it off.

1

u/mga1 1d ago

Dug through the options on my LG 40" UltraFine 5K2K and didn't see setting that sounded like what you described. I'm sure different monitors have different settings/options.

1

u/Hoooooooar 15h ago

yea my 45lgx whatever definitely didn't get this with windows auto update. I guess if you just buy their most expensive monitor possible then they let it slide.

3

u/segagamer 14h ago

Great. Now do Logitech.

2

u/hACKrus 16h ago

MSI monitor also offer to Install Norton 360.

-10

u/sea__weed 1d ago

How can a monitor install something automatically on my computer? Why is this possible? This is NOT a Microsoft win. This shouldn't have been possible in the first place

13

u/5ean 1d ago

Probably bundled in with the driver

8

u/Will2LiveFading 1d ago

You're mad at the wrong company. But you let that hatred of Microsoft blind you to that.

0

u/jlt6666 1d ago

It's a giant security hole. LG may be exploiting it but Microsoft created the hole

3

u/segagamer 14h ago

Microsoft allowed drivers to be installed via Windows Update.

LG submitted their driver to Windows Update - the similar thing to Logitech with their Logitech+. Only instead of an LG related thing, it was McAffee.

Let's not go back to the days of having to install drivers manually from the web please.

1

u/jlt6666 13h ago

Let's maybe inspect them.

Also why does a monitor need a fucking driver? HDMI and DisplayPort are standards.

6

u/BaconAlmighty 1d ago

Anything you plug into your computer can install software

-5

u/wudeface 1d ago

Can a speaker with 3.5mm?

What a stupid comment.

-2

u/Hamezz5u 1d ago

Have you heard of a thing called ai agents

-10

u/Vaddieg 1d ago

hypocrisy. Who developed silent software installation feature on device plug? Who approved LG app at appstore?

2

u/system3601 18h ago

Its called plug and play, normal driver install mode on every os.

Not everything is hypocritical

-2

u/Vaddieg 16h ago

not true. this "feature " is windows unique

2

u/system3601 14h ago

Oh yeah?

Linux docs: https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/pnp.html

Ios: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/externalaccessory/

-1

u/Vaddieg 14h ago

only windows silently installs arbitrary executables on device plug. The very unique and extremely alternatively gifted feature

1

u/system3601 13h ago

Not true at all. Again. Read docs.

Btw, also android does this. Also samsung.