Lenovo Offers Apology, Removal Instructions For Intrusive Superfish Adware

As we noted yesterday, Lenovo made it sound like the adware in question, Superfish, wasn't all too bad. While the company removed it for now, it said that should Superfish change its likeness a bit, it would be returned. Now, it seems like Lenovo has had a change of heart. It's funny how backlash can work, isn't it?

Lenovo's stance is this:

We thought the product would enhance the shopping experience, as intended by Superfish. It did not meet our expectations or those of our customers. In reality, we had customer complaints about the software. We acted swiftly and decisively once these concerns began to be raised.

I am going to have to call shenanigans on some of this. Lenovo didn't install this bizarre piece of software to aide its customers; it installed it to help pad its revenue. Shopping plugins like this all work the same; if a sale is made through you, you get a kickback. It was worth it to Lenovo to bundle this plugin and simply hope that no one would notice.

Given this kind of vendor behavior, I wouldn't blame you if you felt the need to simply reformat using your own copy of Windows after buying a brand-new notebook. It's situations like these that also give some major credence to Microsoft's Signature program, in which the company sells notebooks void of all possible bloatware.

Nonetheless, if you've been infected with Superfish, Lenovo gives some simple uninstall instructions here. Prepare to not only uninstall the program itself, but also remove the security certificates it installed.