Open box Laptops

[elipsey]

What is superfish?

Short answer: vendor crapware that injects advertisements into user web traffic and effs up security. Lenovo pre-installed this onto lots of machines they sold, which seems to indicate that they are ethically challenged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superf...urity_incident

[big_teee]

Short answer: vendor crapware that injects advertisements into user web traffic and effs up security. Lenovo pre-installed this onto lots of machines they sold, which seems to indicate that they are ethically challenged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superf...urity_incident

Thanks!
I just read it is another WinDoz issue.
Maybe it ain't on my Xubuntu, Mint XFCE or My Debian-X partition.
I haven't owned a windows, anything, in over 3 years.
T

[elipsey]

Exactly. You can always install a trusted OS yourself, at least until they start subverting the firmware. Depending on how my tinfoil hat is adjusted, I wonder if they already have and we just don't know it yet...

[big_teee]

Exactly. You can always install a trusted OS yourself, at least until they start subverting the firmware. Depending on how my tinfoil hat is adjusted, I wonder if they already have and we just don't know it yet...

You sound paranoid as ME!

[elipsey]

While we're getting paranoid about firmware, if you want to see what the medium term future looks like, read this: Welcome to The Internet of Compromised Things

Bwahaha!

EDIT: re-reading the post, I see that's it's about routers, but as a footnote, it alludes to an object lesson: routers are really important, so if we can't be bothered to secure those, what will happen when every toaster and lightbulb is a general purpose computer with a network connection? Since, as one of my CS professors likes to say, the cost of semi-conductors asymptotically aproaches zero, this is inevitable in the long run unless we make a deliberate effort not to do it. So now what?

[g1]

Not sure how soon you need something T, but in 2 weeks there may be black friday deals to be had.

[TomCarlos]

Last year, I was looking for a lower end 15" laptop for travel, testing, banging on etc. I got a Dell Inspiron from Costco. For $600, it was a very good deal. It had an I3 processor (good enough for web browsing), 6 gig memory, and Windows 7! That was the clincher. I did not want a Win 8 computer. And if you look now, you will also find they carry Lenovo.

So no need for an open box when you can find a good deal. By the way, I couldn't find that Inspiron from Dell directly. Only Costco carried that configuration. Go figure.

Good luck, happy shopping.

Tom

[big_teee]

Thanks,
I don't guess we have Costco here.
Maybe that is like Sams Club?
Our Sams club is higher than the local Best Buy, on laptops.
I'm more of a $250-$400 kind of guy.
I have this Lenovo N586, a Toshiba C55, and my wifes HP?
We want to rotate the HP out of the line-up.
I'll keep looking.
T

[big_teee]

I'm still looking!
I found this one.
Good, bad, or indifferent?
ASUS Laptop X550ZA-WH11(WX) AMD A10-Series A10-7400P (2.50 GHz) 8 GB Memory 1 TB HDD AMD Radeon R6 Series 15.6" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit - Newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...31&ignorebbr=1
T

[big_teee]

I finally broke down and bought another laptop to throw in the fold.
I bought it last night, and don't have it all linuxized yet, but will work on that today.
It is a new discontinued model from best buy.
It is this one, and cost $309.99 before tax.
Lenovo G51 15.6" Laptop - AMD A8-Series - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive Black 80M80020US - Best Buy
The new model that replaced it was nearly $400.
It must have some software changes, that I won't use anyway.
It has 8gb ram, and a 1 TB Western Dig blue drive.
I have another 1tb linux drive I plan on swapping out today.
Later If I decide I don't need the win10 OS, I will blow it out and reformat the 1TB blue drive.
I turned the win10 on long enough to register it, and I felt violated, just turning it on.
It kept going to the cloud, and kept installing some form of updates.
It wanted to know way more than I ever give out about ME.
Another thing about win10, is it is SSLLOOOWWW!!!!!
I foresee a Hard drive Wipe and Format coming in the Near future.
But, seriously folks, if you need a laptop, the Hardware is a lot of bang for the buck!
T

[Bill Moore]

Another thing about Win 10, it is trained to find pirate software. I had Office 13 on a Win 7 Pro machine, and let it update to 10. It kept telling me that I had an unregistered product, I would run the toolkit again, and it would be fine until the next power up. I finally took it off, and installed a copy of Office 10 I had, just yesterday, it told me I had some hackware, (office 10 toolkit), I told it to ignore it, irritating! And yes the update thing is also irritating!
It is also a snob, refusing to even talk to an old XP machine I have on the network. It recognizes the Win 7 machine, but has to be told more than once to communicate with it, but it will not link to the XP machine! (When we had Win 7, and XP we used to use each other's printers when one was out of ink, not anymore!

[Leo_Gnardo]

It wanted to know way more than I ever give out about ME.

So it can turn over all that info to sales bots. Wassamatta U, not a good little consumer?

[big_teee]

On the new Lenovo G51 Laptop, I took out the Win10 Drive and put in another one.
Here's a screenshot of the new laptop with Ubuntu XFCE desktop loaded.
Unlike the Windows 10 IMO the Ubuntu is secure, and very fast!
The small panel lower left, is set to auto-hide.
You don't see it, when not in use.
T

[Richard]

What software do you use on linux? None of the software I use is available.

[big_teee]

Hi Richard:
I'm retired so I don't need many programs.
I use Libreoffice, I use stock viewers, and a lot of gnome programs.
If you need windows specific programs, you may want to stay with windoz, or do dual boot.
I dig the speed and security of Linux.
I primarily use Debian derivatives, like Xubuntu, MX15 Debian, or mate Ubuntu with a Xfce desktop overlay.
I've run a lot of Mint, fedora, open Suse, Open Mandriva linux.
Now, I strictly use debian compatible distros that use the apt-get package manager.
I've used linux for 15 years or so, and have been completely Windoz free for about 4 years now.
I won't go back!
T