Very bad, HP

[torkell]

While reading a web page, I was greated with this appearing out of nowhere (note: the HP device in question has been connected to this computer since last year, and I've reinstalled the system since getting it for unrelated reasons).


I am not amused.

For those of you who are interested, the offending executable is hpqfrucl.exe, lives in C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\Digital Imaging\bin and claims to be "FRU-Client". It's whole purpose in life appears to be to display the above survey. It starts as a scheduled task named "FRU Task", running (on my system) at 10:18pm every day starting today.

That task has now been deleted and purged. Not good, HP. In my opinion this is dangerously close to adware and spyware.

Comments

[pleaseremove.livejournal.com]

*looks up, sighs, smites hp, returns to annoying bit of php*

[jecook]

Yeah, some of their digital imaging products are not only waay too annoying, but take up entirely too muc hdisk space, and processor resources.

We use the Officejet 4215 devices for most of the group homes I'm in charge of, and I always instasll the "lite" version of it's driver. I say "lite" as it only measures 100 BMB as opposed to a full GB for the CD based install.

::sigh:: anyone remember when a driver could be stored on a floppy disk?

[torkell]

Oh, for the days when a driver was a driver, and data was stored in compact binary formats.

[pleaseremove.livejournal.com]

ah yes, the days when floppy disks could actually be used in day to day life....