(Business Insider) – Earlier this week, it came out that Lenovo had shipped a piece of software called Superfish on a bunch of new computers.
Turns out, the software was a potential security nightmare. It hijacked security certificates from web sites that the user was visiting, which could have allowed hackers to steal user information using the same technique.
Lenovo formally apologized for Superfish yesterday, and admitted that even before the security problems became obvious, it was considering removing Superfish because it “frustrated some users without adding value to the experience.”
This was an extreme example of what’s come to be called “crapware” — software that PC makers ship on new machines not because it provides any particular value to the customer, but because these software companies pay them for distribution.