LG kills McAfee pop-up after Windows boss steps in

LG has agreed to stop its Monitor App Installer pestering users with a McAfee pop-up after Microsoft's Windows boss intervened. Pavan Davuluri wrote on social media: "We've connected with the team at LG and as an immediate next step, they have agreed to disable the McAfee pop-up from their app. "We appreciate LG working with us …

[Anonymous Coward]

Bless Microsoft and its efforts with LG to create a "better experience for our mutual customers". It's why Microsoft execs wake up in the morning

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

“Windows features a mechanism during external device installation that permits a hardware maker to add software to a user's device silently.“

Well, it’s not really a user’s device, now is it?

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

To be fair, the vast majority of USB based devices try to automatically install their drivers on insertion, too, and there is nothing anyone could do to prevent one of those drivers from hooking into an ad display trigger mechanism.

[TReko]

It's only a matter of time until real malware authors hijack this mechanism to install real malware.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Thousands of malware coders have just begun designing hardware, upon hearing that the only penalty is a bad review and a phone call from Microsoft.

[Andy Non]

Hello, this is Microsoftie calling, we have noticed you have adware on your computer, it is known as Windows 11.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>malware coders have just begun designing hardware

So instead of RubberDucky being some nefarious hacker thing, a maker of USB keys just has to sign up for a Microsoft developer account and Windows will install anything they want.

[david 12]

Your app needs to be certified by MS (You missed the 'submit for certification' step)

Advertising in Apps is permitted (there are add-supported apps), and pop-up notifications are permitted: I'm not aware of an app-store policy that prevents pop-up advertising during installation.

I'm not sure anyone has thought of it before. It doesn't look like there is a policy (justifying app-store refusal or revocation) to handle this case.

[FirstTangoInParis]

It‘s all bad …

There are so many things about the Windows UX that just seem wrong. Like this automatic install thing like it’s still W95. Like turning on services that beat the cr@p out of your PC when it is clearly not the best thing for the user (SysMain, looking at you). Like shoving the misbehaving toddler Copilot down your throat at every opportunity and you can seemingly not refuse or get rid of it. Yes I know MS you’ve spent a bucket load of shareholders money on it, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

[ICL1900-G3]

Good grief

McAfee! Does anyone knowingly use it?

[Screepy]

Re: Good grief

Certainly.

It's still quite big in the enterprise realm where they have renamed themselves to Trellix.

A number of orgs I've worked for over the years ran it.

As does my current employer.

It's not a great product.

[The Original Steve]

Re: Good grief

I can't comment on the product, but Trellix is owned by a different company based in Singapore I think. The McAfee acquired company is owned by a different US entity with the same name.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good grief

I'm ripping this pile of crap out of the environment I manage. It still (on macOS at least) relies on installing an agent from a 20Mb (!) shell script and even as Trellix still deploys folders labelled McAfee.

It's a rebadge job, not much more.

[EricB123]

Re: Good grief

Đang, I'm old enough to have experienced the first virus at my company at the time. A coworker gave me the phone number of a guy named Mr McAfee. I called Mr McAfee, and he asked me the nature of my problem. He said he has a cure on a PC running in his basement, and hold the line.

The next morning I was handed a FedEx package with a floppy in it. Inserted the floppy, followed the hand written instructions and minutes later my problem was gone. No charge from Mr McAfee.

I really miss those days... tech was fun back then.

[xanadu42]

McAfee - Crap for Fee

So why are M$ not stopping other vendors from doing the same???

[Paratiritis]

Both Microsoft and LG are pretending the issue is simply the McAfee advert, hoping that we all have the critical mind of a three year old.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Microsoft is an American company

[stiine]

In name only.

[ChoHag]

Well, if I was a betting man...

[Sok Puppette]

... and yet idiots keep exposing critical assets to Microsoft's software.

An OS that lets a bazillion random companies install arbitrary highly privileged code is *not fit for use*. This should not be hard to understand.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Windows had a vector image file format where you could put commands in plain text in the header and Windows would execute them when you viewed the image.

This was a deliberate feature of the specification for, reasons

[Blackjack]

Now they will just silently spy on you instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

McAfee adware

My sister was plagued by McAfee adware either claiming her computer had malware or that her non-existent McAfee subscription had expired.

Multiple security researchers had reported the offending McAfee affiliate ID to McAfee as did I but the scams continued unabated.

Another antivirus peddler from Brazil called Psafe was using infected websites to show fake CAPTCHAS that tricked mobile users into accepting malicious mobile push notifications which would show fake system warnings that the phone was infected with non-existent viruses.

Psafe had been running this scam for over 13 years ever since their "antivirus" app: "DFNDR" was released in 2013.

The DFNDR app uses Avast's antivirus engine and when I went on Avast's forums to report the fraud Avast banned me for life from their forums and scrubbed any mention of their affiliation with Psafe from their website.

Psafe also tried gaming the antivirus reviews at AV test.org and when I emailed AV test and notified them that the DFNDR app was secretly using Avast's detection engine instead of their own AV test banned Psafe from the review site.

Avast and McAfee have a long sordid history of trying to scare victims into installing their wares.

[JLV]

What were they thinking?

You have to wonder at the logic of LG execs. LG - Life’s Good IIRC- is generally a somewhat competent hardware vendor, active in a lot of domains. That means that to a large extent it benefits from goodwill: like your LG monitor? Well, consider them for your next - web-connected, of course - fridge.

Now you have a big snafu for shady ad practices flogging a non-beloved virus scanner. How much can McAwful be paying, per monitor? Remember, the user mark has to see the ad, act on it and not cancel. They’d just as likely look for an antivirus to remove the ad and it wouldn’t necessarily be McAwful.

Bottom line: LG can’t be paid that much but has probably turned off many techies for decades, across a vast brand portfolio. Just like many people still associate Sony with awful practices. MS shows more insecure practices. McAwful? Well, cockroaches gotta be cockroaches, eh?

This whole fiasco would make more sense flogging Tai Chi Walking ads on sub-budget no-name Chinese phones. From big brands …????

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What were they thinking?

LG was originally "Lucky Goldstar". They shortened it to LG, and now use "Lifes Good" as a tag, but the company is just "LG"

P.S. Agree 100% with your post. The mind boggles.

[Stephen7Eastern]

Re: What were they thinking?

Agree, this is extremely shortsighted behavior which damaged their reputation. LG has been added to our permanent list of avoid companies. A pity because we currently have several non-internet connected LG products and they've performed well over the years. But LG, like Sony, will never be trusted again and thus, boycotted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What were they thinking?

LG stands for Lucky Goldstar.

[DaveK23]

Windows is just a bloody advertising platform now.

In particular, the notifications system is the spammiest heap of shit I've ever seen. Even former good guys like AVG now spend most of their time popping up FUD to try and upsell you. If you had told me back in the '80s how bad it would be, I wouldn't have believed it.

Bah. Burn it all down and pirate everything.

[David 132]

Re: Windows is just a bloody advertising platform now.

For me, Windows reached its nadir with that whole "<crappy shovelware app X> just got installed! Check it out!" mechanism that plagued Windows 10. It might be on 11 too, for all I know, but I now apply a brutal set of GPOs to every Windows box I (...am forced to...) build, so haven't seen it recently.

On the subject of this LG thing, though, the blame isn't all with LG. Someone at McAfee must have thought, "we're being offered an opportunity by LG to advertise our AV software via unsolicited popup when users connect their new monitor... that sounds really good and effective, and will definitely bring us happy keen customers, and won't tarnish our brand at all..." (ok, ok, I admit, it's probably not possible to tarnish their brand any more than it is). Who was that person, and why are they not in the stocks somewhere being pelted with fruit?

[Richard 12]

Re: Windows is just a bloody advertising platform now.

McAfee almost certainly approached LG with the offer. McAfee have been doing this type of thing since the brand was founded - their poor reputation is well deserved.

This is entirely on LG for not immediately slamming the door on them, and whichever LG exec approved this needs to be publicly tarred and feathered.

Microsoft did LG a huge favour by telling them to stop their reputational suicide.

[Mike_R]

Re: Windows is just a bloody advertising platform now.

Funny, don't happen to me

(see icon)

[ComicalEngineer]

Just something else to uninstall

SWMBO has a W11 Dell. I spent a couple of *happy* hours uninstalling and blocking crapware and adverts.

We have Iiyama monitors so the LG thing isn't going to arise, but the sneak installing of an app that you don't need to use the monitor is nasty.

Knowing that it does autoload, it should be just one more bit of crapware that you can uninstall and then forget about.

There should also be a method of blocking the automatic installation of software to the machine, but then LG might be slipping M$ a brown envelope - oh wait, that's exacty the sort of thing that M$ does as a normal part of the advertising operating system.

I haven't used McAfee for about 30 years when a free 3 month subscription came with a new PC. It got replaced as soon as the free period ended. I've got Norton at the moment, but they are also always trying to sell you extra services.

[david 12]

Re: Just something else to uninstall

There should also be a method of blocking the automatic installation of software to the machine,

There is. It's a software policy / registry entry, or you can simply not give your users the required permissions. In my personal opinion, control is not as obvious since Windows moved to 'rootless' admin, but that's the modern way both for Win an Linux.

[Stephen7Eastern]

Nirsoft AdvancedRun as TrustedInstaller

>>>Windows moved to 'rootless' admin<<<

Use Nirsoft AdvancedRun to execute any app as TrustedInstaller.

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/advanced_run.html

Then, you can then do anything to Windows which pleases your fancy; including totally destroying a box. Best to experiment your intent on a VM first, reboot, then assure results meet expectations. Easiest method to use AdvancedRun is to execute either a cmd prompt or an "third party alternative file browser" as TrustedInstaller (can't use explorer.exe for this, tks ms). This way, every process spawned from will acquire the same ACL and thus, you have immense ease of flexibility in execution. Be careful about altering permissions in the registry. Even just taking ownership from TrustedInstaller and giving it to Admins can result in windows being wonkier than normal.

There's has always been hacks for acquiring the TrustedInstaller SID long before Nirsoft's tool entered the picture. They've made it much simpler and more reliable; and also reduced the need for taking the multiple steps of the prior methods.

[dinsdale54]

Re: Just something else to uninstall

There is. It's not trivial.

I don't own any LG products and I don't expect to in the future but this news story made me look up how to disable automatic download of software.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM&t=617s

And to install group policy if you are on a basic versions of Windows :

https://windowsforum.com/windows-news.4/how-to-enable-group-policy-editor-on-windows-11-home-step-by-step-guide-for-full-system-control.360840/

[Deckard_C]

Re: Just something else to uninstall

"There should also be a method of blocking the automatic installation of software to the machine"

run sysdm.cpl, Hardware Tab, button "Device Installation Settings", pick No

I'm off to use the GPO/registry setting for work laptops

[Blue Screen of Bleurgh]

Quote ""We appreciate LG working with us toward a shared goal of a better experience for our mutual customers. We will keep improving here with our ecosystem partners.""

You see this often when vendors are hit with criticism, especially buzzwords such as "better experience", "customers" and good old "ecosystem partners". But strip away the PRspeak and its just another "Damn, we got found out, people are moaning. Guess we better do something nice to make them STFU"