Whats up with these manufacturer's anyway? Do they not have any software people/consultants to LOOK at what they are installing in the machines they are peddling to us?

indianacarnie said:

Whats up with these manufacturer's anyway? Do they not have any software people/consultants to LOOK at what they are installing in the machines they are peddling to us?

It's because it's all one big data grab nowadays. Instead of considering security, they were considering $$$$$$

How to remove Dell's 'Superfish 2.0' root certificate - permanently | ZDNet

The fallout from a serious security mistake made by Dell is widening, as security experts find more issues of concern.

Researchers with Duo Security have found a second weak digital certificate in a new Dell laptop and evidence of another problematic one circulating.

The issue started after it was discovered Dell shipped devices with a self-signed root digital certificate, eDellRoot, which is used to encrypt data traffic. But it installed the root certificate with the private encryption key included, a critical error that left many security experts aghast.

Dell PCs root certificate security error widens as researchers dig deeper | PCWorld

Yep never good to see happening,
But if you don't make sure the manufacture sends a clean install disk with a purchase or accommodate buying one outright then you must of just fell off the moon

Personally I would clean install on a new ssd and put the oem in a drawer incase hardware failure occurs within the warrantee period

Does this affect desktops too? I have a XPS 8700 I bought last year in May.

Computer0304 said:

Does this affect desktops too? I have a XPS 8700 I bought last year in May.

I sure as hell wouldn't take any chances. It's easy enough to do a search for the problem file.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit though if you found something. Keep in mind these are the things coming to light we know about. Heaven knows how much other insecure crap is on there that we DON'T know about.

Best cure is a clean install
If you're out of warrantee there's little to be lost in doing one.

Borg 386 said:

Wouldn't surprise me one bit though if you found something. Keep in mind these are the things coming to light we know about. Heaven knows how much other insecure crap is on there that we DON'T know about.

I agree. I got really paranoid about all of the ASUS code that was on this PC when we bought it. I didn't like it "phoning home" to China all the time. I moved all of the ASUS folders to a separate USB drive and renamed all of the folders/files with an "OLD" suffix. Never had a "file not found" message afterwards, but at least the system stopped communicating with ASUS. After several years, I still have the code on the disconnected drive, but haven't seen the need to use any of it so far.

jamis said:

Borg 386 said:

Wouldn't surprise me one bit though if you found something. Keep in mind these are the things coming to light we know about. Heaven knows how much other insecure crap is on there that we DON'T know about.

I agree. I got really paranoid about all of the ASUS code that was on this PC when we bought it. I didn't like it "phoning home" to China all the time. I moved all of the ASUS folders to a separate USB drive and renamed all of the folders/files with an "OLD" suffix. Never had a "file not found" message afterwards, but at least the system stopped communicating with ASUS. After several years, I still have the code on the disconnected drive, but haven't seen the need to use any of it so far.

It's actually Taiwan, but I guess same thing. At least Dell is an American company.