Lenovo customers affected by Superfish get first details on free anti-virus offer

By John Callaham
published

Lenovo PC owners who bought one that had the Superfish adware installed will be able to sign up to get six free months of the McAfee LiveSafe anti-virus program service by March 16. Lenovo first announced this freebie last week as part of its attempt to appease its customers who purchase a laptop from the company that had Superfish pre-installed.

The company stated:

Today Lenovo is providing updated information about the free 6 month subscription (or free 6 month extension for existing subscribers) for McAfee antivirus service for Lenovo customers who purchased a Lenovo PC pre-loaded with Superfish software. We are working with Intel Security to provide this free service through an online system that will go live by March 16, when appropriate systems will be in place to process incoming requests.

The six free months is in addition to the 30 day free trial that's already set up for new McAfee LiveSafe users. Lenovo previously announced that Superfish, which was pre-installed on some of its notebooks between October and December of 2014, won't be installed on future PCs due to security concerns. It has already provided those owners an application that's designed to completely uninstall Superfish. It has pledged to release PCs with much less bloatware and adware in the future.

Source: Lenovo (opens in new tab)

John Callaham
John Callaham
36 Comments
  • Superfish..... If you have this then you've got more problems than software issues.
  • Well I've had bought a Lenovo G50-45 80E300GYIN on 14th Nov 14. I'm wondering if I've got any superfish thingy inside my lappy. And if so, how will I know?
  • I'm not sure... I'm not a doctor.
  • Look for this item in programs & features in control panel
  • so in apologizing for bloatware they are offering free bloatware?
  • That was my reaction exactly. If a user accepts the offer then Lebovo actually has a chance to earn a commission later if the user chooses to renew McAffee.
  • Lebovo logic
  • Damn! Beat me to it! Yeah, my reaction also. "We sincerely apologize for ruining your PC with preinstalled bloatware. To make it up to you: We're offering you some free bloatware."
  • WTF!! Mcafee!! are you serious! there is bitdefender, norton, kaspersky and you are offering Mcafee!!
  • I know, I'd rather have no anti virus at all than have McAfee. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
  • I used to perform virus removal phone support for McAfee. The first thing we always did was to install another free antimalware program and start a scan with that because McAfee took so bloody long to run. And then of course get windows updated. Good fun really.
  • me too, i mostly use bitdefender and norton,
    my sis bought a dell laptop, and it came with 1 year mcafee, and it was just slow!! i replaced it with norton 360, and for two year no problem at all.
  • Yes, bitdefender and norton were top 5 last year
  • Totally agree! Which company with self respect makes a deal with McAfee after what they did with Superfish!? McAfee is the biggest bloatware of all!
  • So they're basically saying: "Here!! We're gonna help you get rid of Superfish, but we're going to slow your system way down with McAffee." Hmmm, That's gonna hurt Lenovo badly. Replacing crapware for crapware.
  • Even if I was one of these consumers affected by Superfish, I would not even look at McAfee. Windows defender works better than McAfee and it's free... Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
  • How about MSE?
  • Used to be great, now not so much. Good for those who are already web-smart, but I wouldn't recommend for people who don't know how to tell what's a legitimate web link and what's spyware hidden behind a "Make your penis HUGE!" ad.
  • "Make your penis HUGE!" lmao, i used to fall for that one when i was first introduced to internet.
  • If MSE (Windows Defender in W8) is coupled with CCleaner and Malwarebytes then yes, it's effective. Standalone? perhaps, but I wouldn't chance it. Got that idea from IT where I used to work and I've been using this combination for over 5 years now without any issues. They're all freeware too!
  • Why no one mentions Avast? I think its great it detected all the supersfish shit.
  • This is hilarious. Lenovo is offering software to protect the user from...Lenovo, and their evil ways.
  • Sorry about the crapware. Have some free crapware.
  • So more bloatware and crap software lol. Lenovo sucks Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
  • Microsoft should step in at this point. This is damaging to the rep of all PC devices.
  • Windows Defender is free and already installed. Someday the masses will understand this, and McAfee and Symantec can finally stop stealing their money.
  • Presuming the masses become tech savvy. I understand quite a few people still don't comprehend the link between the OS and hardware. Macs ftw /sarcasm.
  • actually norton 360 is really good, i understand it was bad before, but it is now one the lightest and best av out there.
    and windows defender is good but for clueless user, nope no way.
  • Haha LMAO. Never expected pre-IBM to cross lines with MSFT. Maybe its payback to Bill Gates for leaving but, why now ? Waiting to have little power and then comeback ? So its not just scroogle......
  • Oh yeah. More hidden fish inside. Whoa!
  • I've got 99 problems but Superfish ain't one
  • Meh. The millions from a class action lawsuit though.
  • But McAfee makes everything painfully slow!!
  • My brand new, 22/Feb G50-70, came with the superfish pre-installed. Since this is not my 1st pc(first was one in 1983), I've learned to instal a good antivirus first thing, so AVG found the superfish immediately. You can imagine my surprise. The Lenovo was less than an hour out of the box. After that I started searching and found out what was happening. The Lenovo removal tool does a good job and since I do not use this laptop for any kind of transactions I am fine with it.
  • They'd probably be better off with superfish rather that that Mcafee garbage to paralyze their pc
  • I have a crazy theory. What of Lenovo purposely put SuperFish oh the computers to get caught. And then in a corrupt deal with McAfee (because who pays for that shit) they would offer it so Lenovo could try and fix it's butthurt reputation and McAfee gets more users. I have no idea why this entered my brain it just did.