Lenovo admitted to pre-loading the Superfish ad-ware on some consumer PCs, and unhappy customers are now dragging the company to court on the matter.
A proposed class-action suit was filed late last week against Lenovo and Superfish, which charges both companies with “fraudulent” business practices and of making Lenovo PCs vulnerable to malware and malicious attacks by pre-loading the adware.
Plaintiff Jessica Bennett said her laptop was damaged as a result of Superfish, which was called “spyware” in court documents. She also accused Lenovo and Superfish of invading her privacy and making money by studying her Internet browsing habits.
The lawsuit was filed after Lenovo admitted to pre-loading Superfish on some consumer PCs. The laptops affected by Superfish include non-ThinkPad models such as G Series, U Series, Y Series, Z Series, S Series, Flex, Miix, Yoga and E Series.
Lenovo has since issued fixes to remove Superfish applications and certificates from PCs. Microsoft’s Windows Defender and McAfee’s security applications also remove Superfish since Friday.
Lenovo earlier admitted it “messed up” by preloading Superfish on computers. The software plugs product recommendations into search results but can hijack connections and open major security holes, thus leaving computers vulnerable to malicious attacks.
Superfish also used memory resources and took up Internet bandwidth, according to the court document.
Since mid-2014, the following laptop models may be affected:
- G Series: G410, G510, G710, G40-70, G50-70, G40-30, G50-30, G40-45, G50-45
- U Series: U330P, U430P, U330Touch, U430Touch, U530Touch
- Y Series: Y430P, Y40-70, Y50-70
- Z Series: Z40-75, Z50-75, Z40-70, Z50-70
- S Series: S310, S410, S40-70, S415, S415Touch, S20-30, S20-30Touch
- Flex Series: Flex2 14D, Flex2 15D, Flex2 14, Flex2 15, Flex2 14(BTM), Flex2 15(BTM), Flex 10
- MIIX Series: MIIX2-8, MIIX2-10, MIIX2-11
- YOGA Series: YOGA2Pro-13, YOGA2-13, YOGA2-11BTM, YOGA2-11HSW
- E Series: E10-30
Lenovo Business Models (Lenovo Thinkpad) are not affected. It is always better to buy business class notebook than the normal consumer class notebook.
How to remove Lenovo Superfish ?
Lenovo joined hands with Microsoft and McAfee and created a custom uninstall tool to clean your computer of the Superfish malware program and its CA certificates, and in a responsible transparent move, also posted the source code and license of the removal tool for scrutiny.
The company has released an “automated tool”, which the PC maker says will “ensure complete removal of Superfish and Certificates for all major browsers.”
