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Comment by olyjohn | Hacker News Reader

The fact that they did it in the first place is enough for most people. An apology hardly covers the potential for damage. All in the name of some bundled shitware to make them a few extra bucks. Totally inexcusable, and I don't see why people jump in to defend them at all.

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You also don't see why someone should jump in to correct a wrong statement?

Either way, the potential for damage wasn't that obvious: it could have happened to any company. (Employees often make commercial decisions without understanding the technical ramifications.)

Also, Superfish said it wasn't its fault: it blamed Komodo's tool. This amounts to a similar type of buck-passing.

I've bought a couple of Lenovo machines since Superfish, mainly because they were fantastic value for money. I also know that if I wasn't happy with the installation, I could download Windows 10 from Microsoft and do a clean installation.

>I also know that if I wasn't happy with the installation, I could download Windows 10 from Microsoft and do a clean installation.

You’d think so. It turns out not though.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...

Great point!

Luckily I didn't buy any of the models that included that feature (and none of them were ThinkPads) or I would have had to run Lenovo's LSE Windows Disabler Tool from https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/gb/en/downloads/ds104370

Yeah, I wish I could like them, since Lenovo/Thinkpad has been putting out some pretty appealing hardware recently, but that kind of irresponsible behavior demands a response from people who understand the severity.

I refuse to buy or recommend Lenovo for my family members for at least another three years yet, no matter how much they seem to have reformed. If they haven't had a repeat incident in that time I'll be glad to start considering them again.

You could boycott Lenovo-branded machines while not boycotting ThinkPads. As far as I know, ThinkPads have been beyond reproach. It's a valuable brand for Lenovo, and it acquired the whole IBM division, not just the name.

I managed to be a ThinkPad fanboy for decades while despising IBM ;-)

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