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Asus bombards Windows 11 with christmas.exe malware-like Christmas wreath banner (www.windowslatest.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 137 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

It is a part of the ASUS Armoury Crate software that is pre-installed on some ASUS PCs.

Always flash new OS if you buy a computer.

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  • [–] 123 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    That won’t get rid of it unless you also manually go into the BIOS and disable the install ASUS Armoury Crate setting as explained in the article.

    If you don’t do this it will automatically reinstall even on a fresh install of Windows. Some of these bloatware programs will even install without an internet connection! This absolutely ludicrously stupid feature is called WPBT and is used by lots of manufacturers. Luckily it doesn’t work on Linux (at least for now…).

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  • [–] 55 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    That's wild that it's a BIOS setting. Just an extra level of fuck you.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It’s for the more novice users who can assemble a PC but don’t ever think go download / install drivers afterwards.

    Most of the motherboard OEMs do this. I get a lot fewer tickets where the root cause of the issue can be boiled down to “never installed drivers afterwards installing Windows”, which is also helped by the fact that many drivers are also served through Windows Update.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Operational drivers, sure i can see some valid use there.

    But this is crapware.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    I’m quite happy to install it, disable its startup background functions, and then use it to install / update drivers periodically. Much less tedious than doing it the manual way, especially when managing 10-20 systems per week.

    There’s a bunch of other potential functions but I simply don’t bother with them.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    automatically reinstall

    The user is prompted to install the application.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    According to this article: https://www.techpowerup.com/248827/asus-z390-motherboards-automatically-push-software-into-your-windows-installation it has already installed services on your computer that persist restarts by the time you are prompted to install Armoury Crate. In my opinion that is not acceptable at all.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I understand and respect your preference.

    A “power user” is typically going to go through the UEFI/BIOS settings immediately after assembling their machine to configure them to their liking. Having that preference, you likely fall within that category. I would add that, at this point, this practice is about 6 generations old at this point and in use by most motherboard vendors.

    As the article mentions, the feature could be considered useful. These products aren’t designed specifically for power users. Having network access and a frictionless path to driver deployment is ultimately beneficial to the majority of consumers who are going to interact with this hardware.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    I would completely agree with you if that was what this feature was being used for, however most manufacturers use it to install bloatware instead of drivers which is not acceptable in my opinion.

    Not to mention the huge security risk of running exe files at boot up that could be exploited by malicious people. I’m sure manufacturers aren’t releasing a new bios update every time they update their software so old versions could have unpatched vulnerabilities…

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  • [–] 69 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    That's in the bios, it's a pcie device that windows allows to inject root level code into your environement, you have to turn it off and hope nothing ever spoofs that pcie id because that's a permanent hardware rootkit into your pc like EFI

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  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    That's in the bios, it's a pcie device that windows allows to inject root level code into your environement

    What. The. Fuck. Are they the only one to install their crap so deep?

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Haha no. My work computer is HP and has similar shit.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Which model is that?
    Doesnt sound like an Elite/Pro model.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I dont know the exact model, but i think it is marketed B2B specifically. It advertises its "wolf security" on boot, which according to HP "offers hardware-enforced security layers, from motherboard to cloud, to prevent and contain malware, phishing, ransomware, and remote access attacks. It also provides solutions for patching, privileged access, remote management, incident recovery, and print security."

    So it is something that allows HP access on the BIOS level.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    No my ROG board does the same.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    ROG is Asus.

    Also I don't think I've ever had this issue with my previous, nor my current rog boards. I never use their drivers CD so maybe that helps

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Just because a the brand is owned by them doesnt mean they do the same.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Or we could all be informed consumers and... research products before we buy them to avoid these kinds of issues.

    I'd never buy an Asus product. I hear they're a nightmare when it comes to customer service, so in avoiding them, I avoid that problem.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I swore myself to never buy an ROG PSU (very noisy fan. Never had an issue with my seagate one being noisy) or a motherboard (armory crate).
    Are other (gaming) brands also so shit to have me reset all settings before updating the firmware? e.g Gigabyte, AsRock, EVGA?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    Not particularly, no, I'm just the type to not step on the rotting plank on the bridge. I'd rather step over it.

    I've had zero issues with Gigabyte and ASRock. I have an Asrock board in now and I used a Gigabyte in my last system. Stable and fine.

    EVGA, I dunno. I don't buy Nvidia or need the pedigree, I'm a Linux user who sticks to Ryzen CPUs and AMD, but I hear they're top shelf quality from others.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Can this "feature" be turned off on Windows?

    Edit: nvm, I read the article

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    You can turn it off in the bios, but windows will still execute code with root privileges from devices with the right PCI and USB ID As far as I know, that one cannot be turned off. I assume it is also a police/intel backdoor for PCs with secure boot and encryption turned on.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Which distro do you recommend?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Universal Blue is my go-to. Their OSs feel like the future. They are so easy to use and low maintenance. The upgrades happen in the background and apply automatically when you restart your computer.

    There are three flavors: Bazzite for gaming Bluefin and Aurora for basic workstations and developers

    I went with Aurora for myself because I like the developer focused stuff. But I also do a lot of gaming. Even though it's not gaming focused, it's still great for gaming.

    My wife uses it on her laptop, too. She doesn't give a shit what her OS is as long as it works and she can use the browser.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    EndeavourOS

    Even for beginners it's got a fantastic starting layout and default packages, but it's still basically "just Arch Linux" where it counts so you get the best of both worlds.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Linux Mint or de-snapped Kubuntu.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Hi there. I just installed Kubuntu on a spare machine, but I ran into a problem with the snaps. How would one "de-snap" it? Can you point me in the right direction?

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (1 child)
    • Remove Snap packages
    snap remove <package-name>

    (To check snap PKG installed, run

    snap list

    )

    • Uninstall Snapd
    sudo apt purge snapd
    • Remove leftover files
    sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/

    and/snap`.

    • Optionally install Flatpak if you want an alternative.
    sudo apt install flatpak

    . Don't forget to visit flathub.

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