LG Monitors Silently Install Adware-Like App On Windows PCs
- Reference: 0184526874
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/07/20/1736218/lg-monitors-silently-install-adware-like-app-on-windows-pcs
- Source link:
> [2]Gamers Nexus reproduced the behavior with an LG UltraGear 34GX900A-B after receiving reports from monitor owners. Windows Update first installed LG extension and software component packages. Windows Reliability Monitor showed that LG Monitor App Installer appeared one minute later. The installation did not display a consent prompt or require the user to approve the download.
>
> Gamers Nexus tested the application across 32 consecutive system boots. It displayed a McAfee promotion during 31 of them. On the remaining boot, it promoted one of LG's own monitor utilities. The McAfee popup offered a 30-day trial that would convert into a paid subscription. The behavior does not appear to be limited to newly purchased displays. Gamers Nexus also received the popup on an LG UltraFine 32UN880-B purchased three years earlier. User complaints about LG Monitor App Installer date back to at least 2024, although the recent increase in reports suggests that more models may now be receiving it.
[1] https://hackread.com/lg-monitors-install-adware-app-windows-pcs/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM
Re: (Score:2)
But LG wrote the malware that is being installed, so they are at least equally guilty.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, Microslop created the sneaky backdoor, its accomplices use it to enter for their heist.
Re:It is not the LG monitor (Score:4, Informative)
Can we use a more accurate term? This isn't the sort of thing that gets classified as "malware", it's a PUP - Potentially Unwanted Program. Malware does something malicious, PUPs do something that's just annoying, like offer free trials of crap AV software. What we used to call Adware and was explicitly distinguished from things that steal your data or harm your computer.
It's garbage that they shouldn't write at all, but we shouldn't call it something it isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
In my opinion malware is the most accurate term for this. (Adware isn't, as adware is ad- supported software, but it does say adware- like .) I would say that installing without your permission and showing ads is malicious. (And if any of the ads do any kind of tracking, that's "stealing" data - as it's taking your data without your consent - and makes it spyware.)
If this came from anyone other than Microsoft, there would be no doubt it is malware. Like say you visited a website and something was installed w
Re: (Score:2)
No, it may be rude and intrusive, but it is not malicious. Malicious behavior is intentionally harmful. Ransomware, credential theft, exfiltration, illicit monitoring, damage. Monitor software that occasionally annoys you with an ad, but can be easily removed and causes no other disruption is just Unwanted. You can try and bootstrap that to malice, but I can't and won't accept that argument.
There is a trend towards screaming "MALWARE!" any time a piece of software does something on a computer that th
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it goes out of its way to help users install devices and the associated drivers and applications. This is generally a good and helpful thing, but you can turn it off if you want. It takes less than a minute to find out how, unless you type very slowly.
Re: (Score:2)
Who is this owner of which you speak? Do you really own the system?
Crap like this (Score:4, Funny)
is why I'm sticking to just toggle switches and blinking lights.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sticking with punched cards and paper tape.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sticking with stone knives and bear skins.
Re: (Score:2)
Y'all can take your newfangled nonsense and toss it. I'm sticking with thumbs and a prehensile tail.
Re: (Score:2)
You have thumbs and a prehensile tail?
Lucky.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, elephants are the lucky ones. They have prehensile genitals.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll stick with my hand (0) and penis (1), THANKS.
Re: (Score:2)
You do you. I'll stick to Debian.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why I'm sticking to a giant pile of floppy disks and my trusty [1]C=64 [commodore.net]!
[1] https://commodore.net/computer/
Logitech (Score:4, Insightful)
Logitech does something similar. My Triathlon mouse occasionally triggers a driver update that installs some sort of shim that keeps asking to install the Logi+ app from the app store. You just uninstall and it goes away, for a few months at least.
I wouldn't mind installing it, it does offer some nifty tweaks, but at ~300MB it weighs in a bit hefty for a mouse options control panel. I can't imagine what other junk is in there I don't want or need.
Re: (Score:2)
300MB for a glorified mouse driver, it would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Re: (Score:2)
382MB for my Razer mouse.
I don't much care if it's less than a gig though.
Re: (Score:3)
> 382MB for my Razer mouse.
> I don't much care if it's less than a gig though.
That's ridiculous! WOW
$ du -h /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/hid/ | tail -n1 | awk '{print $1}'
4.7M
That covers all mice. The individual mice drivers sizes range from 13K - 277K.
I'm sure that 382MB Windows driver for your Razer mouse includes GUI utilities and such as well though. So here's the corresponding utilities on Linux (Debian version):
openrazer-daemon : 560K installed size
openrazer-driver-dkms : 837K installed size
openrazer-meta : 37K installed size
python3-openrazer : 144K installed size
I t
Node (Score:2)
I'm 90% sure it's all node or electron. CyberPower's UPS app is node based, along with Python/Twisted to talk to the UPS itself, so it has an entire server backend and Python installation to talk to a UPS.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure, but I do see node in some of the paths. In a node.js related way? I don't know, didn't bother looking any harder.
Re: (Score:2)
Solaar (GUI app for controlling Logitech mice settings on Linux) weighs in at a hefty 6MB. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, there are 9 megs of license.chromium.html.
Most of the space is the GUI, which is almost 200MB by itself (the executable), and has separate resource and library packs.
The actual device driver is 64k, plus two MS HID drivers.
Looks like those are open-source community written drivers and utilities for Razer devices, not Razer's. Took a look at RazerGenie, one of the GUIs, and I'd much rather have Razer's, size be damned.
Re: (Score:2)
I miss the old utility. I just want low battery notifications and the mouse isn't Bluetooth.
We're no longer a high-trust society (Score:3)
It's simply no longer possible to randomly install software from the Internet because most of it will be malware, even if it comes through Windows Update.
Re: (Score:3)
> no longer possible to randomly install software from the Internet
What lunacy is this? It never was. People just pretend that if you call the software "apps" or "Javascript", it doesn't hurt. Google started the brainwashing long before they dropped the "do no evil" pretense.
Re: (Score:2)
> What lunacy is this? It never was.
People have been doing it for decades. Half the open-source software available today will go and download three hundred dependencies from the Internet when you first run it.
That used to be safe so long as you didn't install weird software from weird places which would inevitably be full of malware. Now that low-trust people are running big business, you can't install it from them either.
Re: (Score:2)
You used "randomly" as a filler word, didn't you. Besides, unwanted software that comes with devices from "reputable" OEMs is and was so common that the word "bloatware" was coined for it.
What's the problem? (Score:3)
Isn't this why Windows users choose Windows?
Wondering about VMs. (Score:3)
My very recent LG is hooked to my Mac, through a dongle-dock and I haven't noticed this behavior on my sparsely-used but regularly updated Win11 VM (Parallels) - but will warily check it out PDQ.
Wondering at what layer the monitor hardware is detected to do this.
Re: (Score:2)
From this /. thread, it's the Windows update that install the LG software, probably retrieves a blob from LG which deploys the advert mill. Don't look after Windows myself, and not seen ads on my own machines as they're all Debian or Xubuntu.
Re: Wondering about VMs. (Score:2)
Sure, but I dunno if the monitor is exposed directly to Windows, as it has to connect through the dongle, through macOS, through Parallels before it gets to Win11.
Chris Titus fixed this (Score:3)
Chris Titus just released a video addressing this issue. His tool now allows you to block this crap: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNf0bLs1vyg
sleep issues (Score:2)
Some LG monitors have a Deep Sleep setting that is on by default. The monitor to not wake properly from sleep and it causes resolution issues, some EDID thing goes wrong when the LG monitor is in its Deep Sleep state. Super annoying. You have to go into the monitor settings and disable Deep Sleep to get a normal experience when your computer sleeps.
So I gave up on LG before this debacle.
Adware-like? No, *actually* adware (Score:2)
McAfee has been getting scammier and scammier. Their ads make it look like you are in fact infected with a virus, and you need to sign up with McAfee immediately to take care of the problem. Uninstalling McAfee doesn't make the ads go away, and this story finally explains why.
Windows still does this? (Score:1)
It's been 21 years since the Sony CD rootkit debacle and Windows still runs random shit from external sources. Is this a new thing introduced by young dipshits who don't remember the Sony CD rootkit debacle? Or is it older people who are just so fucking stupid that the only tech job they could get was being on the Windows team?
All I will remember (Score:2)
is don't buy LG. In a year I will probably have forgotten why, just that they did something s.... with their products that I dislike.
How to turn off these silent installs? (Score:1)
Iâ(TM)ve seen Logitech peripherals and HP printers do similar no-ask installations
Re: How to turn off these silent installs? (Score:1)
Is it really no ask? Or do people forget they have the option to not auto-install drivers from M$? Just like about everything else involving technology, people are throwing caution to the wind in the name on convenience.
Re: How to turn off these silent installs? (Score:4)
People expect a driver to be just that: a driver, that provides whatever is needed to make full use of the device, and nothing else. Maybe MS ought to be a little bit more like Apple, set some strict policies, and police them.
Re:How to turn off these silent installs? (Score:4, Interesting)
> Iâ(TM)ve seen Logitech peripherals and HP printers do similar no-ask installations
But were they automatic installs or were they put on the optional install list and had to be selected by the user?
Re: (Score:2)
Probably automatic. I know Gigabyte motherboards only install a utility that prompts you to install the actual software with notifications. Which is better because I don't want the software. This whole mechanism relies on trust, and now that LG is abusing that trust, we probably need to throw out that whole feature.
Re: (Score:2)
Windows polls new devices then pulls metadata for them. The metadata says if there are drivers and applications to download, and if there are, Windows installs them. Otherwise it looks to see if it has a generic class driver and uses that instead.
It makes sense. Very convenient for both users and vendors. Not problem free, but what is?
Re: (Score:3)
Yep, unfortunately some companies just can't help themselves and instead of sending down drivers and apps necessary to use the hardware, they are abusing it with their crapware. File under "This is why we can't have nice things." MS could police this but given their behavior, shouldn't come as a surprise they don't.
Re: (Score:2)
They'll scan for actual malware, but past that they're just trying to make it easy on the vendor and user. Maybe this sort of thing will push them to change their policy.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Windows' default policy is to have "Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata" set to Disabled in the system's Local Group Policy. It can be enabled manually, to prevent this from occurring.
Re: (Score:2)
> Windows' default policy is to have "Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata" set to Disabled in the system's Local Group Policy. It can be enabled manually, to prevent this from occurring.
Apparently, that is NOT an option on Windows 11 Home (only Pro or Enterprise have it). So the vast majority of consumer installs do NOT have this option.
I'm curious what the Microsoft apologists have to say about this. Is there another option for them? Will it be victim blaming / should have bought Pro? ...
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm curious what the Microsoft apologists have to say about this. Is there another option for them? Will it be victim blaming / should have bought Pro? ...
Does this accomplish the same thing on Windows 11 Home?
Settings app -> System -> About -> Advanced system settings -> Hardware -> Device Installation Settings : No
Honestly asking; I have no Windows 11 Home installs.
Re: (Score:1)
According to the article:
"Users can remove LG Monitor App Installer through Windows Settings and disable remaining LG entries under Startup Apps. Windows Pro and Enterprise users can also enable âoePrevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadataâ under Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System and Device Installation. Enabling this policy may also block useful companion applications for other hardware."
Re: (Score:2)
Best way is probably with SystemPropertiesAdvanced.exe ->hardware -> device installation settings, and say no.
Re: (Score:2)
Mod up 100, bitches.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems like it's pushed by Microsoft Store (FWIW doing so is apparently a ToS violation) so you'd probably need to strip it out of your system or disable it via group policy, which will disable the store entirely.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
simple, stop using windows!
problem solved