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#813 Privoxy forced upon ASUS netbook users

closed-rejected
nobody
5
2010-01-20
2010-01-20
Anonymous
No

I realize that this is not the place to submit my issue but I cannot figure your site out or contact anyone.

I HATE your software. I cannot do anything on my ASUS Netbook with Windows XP. It came preinstalled with Privoxy and it blocks almost everything I try to access on the internet. I cannot configure it and when I uninstalled your program, because I was so fed up, it killed my internet access with Explorer. Yep. I cannot get on the internet anymore. I had to spend $90 to buy an external drive to back up my files and then had to reimage my computer. It is only 6 months old. When I was finally able to access the internet again, guess what, your little Privoxy warning pops up or blocks almost every site I access. I now have to spend more money to pay someone to "fix" your problems (remove your software) so I can use my computer. I never want your program on my computer again. This has been beyond a nightmare and exhausting.

elizard75@yahoo.com

Discussion

  • David Schmidt

    David Schmidt - 2010-01-20

    I assure you, no one has ever pre-installed Privoxy on any machine. You may have mistaken Privoxy for a different piece of software. Sorry you're having such trouble, though!

     
  • David Schmidt

    David Schmidt - 2010-01-20
    • status: open --> closed-rejected
     
  • Fabian Keil

    Fabian Keil - 2010-01-20
    • summary: Hi --> Privoxy forced upon ASUS netbook users
     
  • Fabian Keil

    Fabian Keil - 2010-01-20

    There have been several independent reports (some of them in private) so far, that ASUS does indeed ship Privoxy on some of their Netbooks and enables it by default.

    I haven't verified it myself, but I see no reason not to belief the reports. I have no idea what version and configuration they use, or if there are custom patches.

    I think forcing Privoxy on unsuspecting users isn't a particular good idea, but obviously there's little we can do about it. We probably should mention it in the FAQ, though.

     
  • David Schmidt

    David Schmidt - 2010-01-20

    Oh, man - that's news to me. No one from ASUS ever contacted us to ask if they could/should ship it. It's particularly alarming that they enable it by default, too.

     
  • Fabian Keil

    Fabian Keil - 2010-02-02

    Another user who contacted me in private spoke with ASUS support who confirmed that ASUS ships Privoxy as part of a "Parental Control" suite.

    It's still not clear to me if Privoxy is modified and if they comply with the GPL.

    I also found http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=71975. My favorite excerpts:

    Geran:
    "Uninstalled the parental control and after the the fourth or fifth reboot it works suddenly."

    Deepmerville:
    "I found the unistall program for parental controls, but it wouldn't work as it said that it was running at the time. The task manager did not show it as running. [...] I tried the uninstall program a number of times, then one time it caused the parental controls to crash. I then could uninstall it."

     
  • MikeinOhio

    MikeinOhio - 2010-02-14

    Thanks Fabiankeil. I also lost internet contact through both IE and FireFox on my Asus 1005HA netbook after uninstalling Privoxy. I tried reinstalling Privoxy and changing settings in my browsers. I even tried deleting and reinstalling Firefox. The only thing that worked for me was also unistalling Parental Control. When I first tried to uninstall Parental Control it wouldn't let me, because it said the program was in use. I found it in the task bar tray on the bottom right of the screen. I right clicked on it and exited the program. I was then able to uninstall the Parental Control. My browsers immediately began working once again. My netbook is now free of both Privoxy and Parental Control.

     

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