After having an incredibly bad week last month, Lenovo started saying the right things, and perhaps doing some of the right things too. But some laptops with the Superfish malware preinstalled on them are still in the supply chain, which means some people are unwittingly buying them.
This isn’t terribly surprising. But there are a couple of things you can do about it, and they’re things worth doing anyway.
The easy option is to let Microsoft’s antivirus/antimalware solution take care of it. But before that can happen, you have to uninstall the third-party antivirus software already on it. But you don’t lose anything by doing that, except the risk of being unprotected when the trial expires.
A second option is just formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows from scratch, leaving all of the bloatware, whether malicious or merely annoying, behind. It’s more time consuming and not an option for the so-called “Windows 8.1 with Bing,” however.
A third option is just waiting a few months, when everything will be shipping with Windows 10. I’ve played with the Windows 10 preview, and while it’s unfinished, it’s much more usable on desktop and laptop hardware than Windows 8.1 ever was.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.