ExpressVPN To Be Pre-installed on HP Consumer PCs (betanews.com) 41
Consumer VPN specialist ExpressVPN has announced a tie up with HP to have its software pre-installed on the company's consumer PCs. From a report: As part of the deal selected machines will come with ExpressVPN's Windows app pre-installed to help protect customers' privacy and security on public Wi-Fi networks. HP consumer customers will also receive an exclusive free 30-day trial of the VPN service. The Spectre x360 13 will be the first of HP's consumer PCs to have ExpressVPN pre-installed, so customers can encrypt network data and secure their internet browsing experience with a single click.
Bloatware (Score:2)
If you aren't paying, you're the product. (Score:2)
Of course they may be a WeWork-type deal, that just burns free money from stupid investors until it dies.
super duper p##per sk00per (Score:4, Funny)
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What's VPN compared to the rocking dulcet tones of whatever his name is...?
How does that make them a profit? (Score:3)
I know how:
1. Funneling all data through one place is the perfect way to get ALL data to sell and abuse.
Or 2. ExpressVPN pays them a subscription kickback.
Why not both?
This IS a game of profit maximization or getting eaten, of course. Morals be damned.
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Inserting morals into a revenue stream is immoral unless it's for the purposes of increasing cfs.
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Or 3, when people just buy a subscription to ExpressVPN.
You appear to have missed that the pre-installed software is for a time-limited free trial only.
Can I have a Just the Pure OS install? (Score:4, Insightful)
ExpressVPN may be a good tool, or a bad one. But that isn't the point. Hardware Makers have been loading Crap on Windows PC, including overly complex and ugly "drivers" which are 3rd party tools that seem to be more apt to show off what cool feature that hardware can do, vs actually being useful.
I have found that using Windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 is actually much more useful when you stick with the Original Install, and install official drivers for any particular hardware component you needed. The OS that comes preinstalled by the vendor, really discredits how well Windows actually does run.
This preinstalled OS, was the key reason why I normally reinstall it with Linux as it gives me a clean OS to run off of. As for my home laptop, I really don't care if I am running Linux, Windows, Mac OS, or even FreeBSD just as long as my hardware is supported and it is running fast and secure.
If I want to use ExpressVPN then I will install it later.
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What is the correct term for this?
Doesn't seem like shovelware, because the software is free. Shovelware usually has to be valuable to qualify.
Maybe it's crapware, but it's not actually all that crap. Unwanted but not actually bad.
Bloatware perhaps. It does need to install some network drivers to offer the service. There isn't really any justification for it beyond making more money for HP.
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The justification for this beyond the nefarious ones. Is the fact for most people when they get a new PC, there should be a set of extra's you want to install as part of your normal toolbox.
For me It is usually Firefox, Chrome, Work Tools (VPN Clients) and Office, and my developer tools. For most average person, they don't have a set of tools in their toolbox and will work with what they have. So HP is offering them a value add service giving them a VPN solution to protect their privacy.
That said, I stand
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What I've found works best is extracting the installer if possible, locating the folder the
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"Privacy" lolololol (Score:2)
"As part of the deal selected machines will come with ExpressVPN's Windows app pre-installed to help protect customers' privacy and security on public Wi-Fi networks"
And what will it report back to the mothership?
Sorry, but I don't trust HP as far as I could throw a aircraft carrier. And I wouldn't be surprised if this had embedded reporting functions sponsored by some multi-letter government agency. Because the way they think, only people with something to hide would use a VPN, right?
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Here you go:
https://support.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com]
Your link is of no use to me; I run Linux at home and have no need for Microsoft at this time.
Why should I trust ExpressVPN? (Score:2)
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Why should I trust ExpressVPN with all of my Internet traffic? Who are they?
Also, what exactly are they loading? Will they be loading a trusted cert on the system? Who will have access to that root cert if so?
This to me seems more like HP trying to ride Apple's coat tails on the "Privacy" issue. It's security theater by HP (probably Apple too but thats another topic). HP would do better to just load a basic default OS and package a booklet full of discount codes with the hardware for products and services people might find useful.
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That or a VPN?
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A bad thing vs want every ISP has to keep for decades for city gov, local gov, state gov, gov worker, city police, the security services...
A good VPN gets past all that city, state, nation level collection. Collection that is been done by law in that nation on every ISP account.
vs a VPN that might log when asked by their own nations legal system to find one account?
That decades of logs kept by a gov on every ISP and ip vs the VPN that might not log.
How is this news? (Score:3)
Do we get to hear about every piece of bloatware now being installed on some laptop?
A laptop without bloatware, now THAT would be newsworthy!
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Wonderful news... (Score:2)
Unlike the cynics here (Score:2)
I think anything that encourages people who would not otherwise use a VPN to do so is a good idea. Sure, anyone reading here can install and configure their own, that is not who this is aimed at. If you don't want the free trial just uninstall it. This is not going to affect people who are going to do a clean install anyway.
Elsewhere on /.s front page is an article about Edward Snowden. The takeaway from that should be that everyone should use a VPN. Nothing wrong with making it easy to try for people
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If you don't want the free trial just uninstall it.
You obviously have never spent the first day of having a new laptop uninstalling the crap that comes preloaded on it. "Just uninstall it" would be a fair argument if it was only one program. It isn't. It's usually at least a dozen, often with incredibly difficult procedures that you get to look up first to actually get rid of the junk.
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I'm one of the people that normally does a fresh install.
Trustable VPN (Score:1)
Given how hard it is to convince oneself that a VPN company can be trusted - does anyone else automatically become suspicious of a VPN promoted by a huge tech company? It seems clear that an easy way to subvert effective VPN usage would be to promote compromised vendors over honest ones.
To be clear, I have =no= idea whether Express VPN is trustable, I'm just sayin'...
HP is shipping machines? (Score:2)
We have orders as far back as May which still haven't been received. Apparently HP doesn't care about its corporate clients and is instead sending machines to sit in stores.
A buiness model that is almost 15 years old (Score:2)
Since 2006, when I got my first HP laptop (at work), their machines have been loaded with crap-ware. I fear they're using a buiness model that is almost 15 years old, and seldom impresses a customer. Since that experience, I've sworn of HP laptops - both privately and corporately.
If memory serves (Score:2)
There used to be a program called "The PC Decrapifier" that was created specifically because HP would pre-install so much crap on their systems that an automated tool was required to get your system back to "freah pure OS" only status.
This was also around the time (again, IIRC) when HP, and others, stopped supplying a proper OS disc, and only offered a "restore partition" that would put everything back, if you tried to start from fresh.
And Chinese gov thanks them for opening up custs. (Score:2)
Nope. (Score:2)
I don't buy pre-built machines, and if I did, I'd wipe and reinstall the OS of my choice immediately.