LMG Sponsor Complaints

[LinusTech]

Looks like the first year of subscription is mandatory for 8Sleep. I actually didn't realize this because I've been using mine without a subscription and I'm pretty happy with it. Wouldn't bother with the subscription.

 

The price is certainly high - especially now that we factor in that the first year of subscription isn't included - but I was going based on my own "i dunno if this is necessary anyway" experience.

 

I think we'll be re-evaluating any future collaborations with 8Sleep based on the community feedback regardless of my experiences with the product.

I certainly didn't intend to mislead anyone or hide the subscription. I intentionally mentioned it very clearly at the beginning of the sponsored video.

 

 

[Jonatino]

28 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Looks like the first year of subscription is mandatory for 8Sleep. I actually didn't realize this because I've been using mine without a subscription and I'm pretty happy with it. Wouldn't bother with the subscription.

 

The price is certainly high - especially now that we factor in that the first year of subscription isn't included - but I was going based on my own "i dunno if this is necessary anyway" experience.

 

I think we'll be re-evaluating any future collaborations with 8Sleep based on the community feedback regardless of my experiences with the product.

I certainly didn't intend to mislead anyone or hide the subscription. I intentionally mentioned it very clearly at the beginning of the sponsored video.

 

 

The video was just very strange considering the very recent rants about Jasco switches and cloud for basic functionality. If 8sleep ever goes away, you wont even be able to control the temperature of your bed let alone turn it on. This is much worse than the Jasco situation because if my $60 light switch company goes out of business, big deal. I can buy a new one. But 8sleep sells a $3500 product.... That's a lot of money to have to fork out for an alternative because they shutdown their cloud.

Also, 8sleep has no manual means of firmware updates and no public firmware (like Jasco).

I'm hoping that your feedback to them will change this and end up in a better product for everyone, but at this point, not much hopes from my end.

[Kid.Lazer]

50 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

I've been using mine without a subscription

What features (if any) are disabled or unavailable without a subscription? This seems to be the biggest point of confusion. The site itself makes no mention of what happens after the subscription is canceled, and I wouldn't want to spend $2k to just cross my fingers and hope. (I'm not personally in the market for one, but further clarification would be very helpful).

[Cursivedude]

The sponsor for your latest techquickie video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ2XkN2EG1M)is ill advised and outright sketchy. There is no product, only an IndieGoGo campaong with nothing but renders and photoshop. Notably IndieGoGo does not have the same protections in place as platforms like Kickstarter. How in the world are you going to be credible but not offering crowdfunding or pre-orders on LLT store and then advertise something like this. It would be one thing if it was a  crowd funding campaign from a reputable source that has done this type of thing before but it is not. The company is a no-name Chinese brand like Ranvoo, the kind of company name that gets put on and pulled from websites only to come up as a different name. The product itself looks to be a reskinned ineffective fan cooler that you get on Alibaba (Proof: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2023-Amazon-Best-Seller-Portable-Air_1600758836866.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normal_offer.d_title.71015686iV0XKZ ). Please guys, I love your stuff and your team but this is a big no-go. I don't know how this got approval but this is bad and effective processes should have caught this. I really hope you can make this right and recover your reputation. A number of comments on the video echo my sentiment here.

TLDR: The latest techquickie sponsor is bad and reflect poorly on you. I point this out because I care about you guys and your reputation.

[QwertyChouskie]

4 hours ago, Kid.Lazer said:

What features (if any) are disabled or unavailable without a subscription? This seems to be the biggest point of confusion. The site itself makes no mention of what happens after the subscription is canceled, and I wouldn't want to spend $2k to just cross my fingers and hope. (I'm not personally in the market for one, but further clarification would be very helpful).

From what I've seen online, it seems you can't use the app, but can still control it with the dial on the device itself.

 

Honestly it seems Eight Sleep's biggest issue is a lack of clarity.  They need to:

 

- Include the 1 year of subscription with the purchase (honestly they can even bump the base price by the same amount, so the net total price is the same, it'll still feel much better for consumers)

 

- Make it clear what does and doesn't work without the subscription

 

If they make these changes, I would have no issues with further sponsorships, and honestly these changes would probably help them sell more products anyways.

[LinusTech]

3 hours ago, QwertyChouskie said:

From what I've seen online, it seems you can't use the app, but can still control it with the dial on the device itself.

 

Honestly it seems Eight Sleep's biggest issue is a lack of clarity.  They need to:

 

- Include the 1 year of subscription with the purchase (honestly they can even bump the base price by the same amount, so the net total price is the same, it'll still feel much better for consumers)

 

- Make it clear what does and doesn't work without the subscription

 

If they make these changes, I would have no issues with further sponsorships, and honestly these changes would probably help them sell more products anyways.

App works without sub for me 

[Shahrad]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:30 PM, MicGold said:

I have tried to use the coupon code "LINUS50" for flexispot from the latest video but it does not work in the italian store (https://www.flexispot.it/)
I did some checks and it doesn't work on the german one too (https://www.flexispot.de/)

I does work on the UK one (https://www.flexispot.co.uk/)

 

 

Hey! I reached out to my FlexiSpot contact and they said they have fixed the issue and the code should now be working on the Italian and German stores as well

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

Since I'm sure you've had them as sponsor at one point: Logitech

 

Their support is literally unreachable from within Belgium:

• Cyclical references on the website.
• Support form throws server errors.
• Lists two phone numbers on their website, and both are disconnected.
• The only listed "support e-mail" is donotreply@buylogitech.com, which isn't exactly confidence inspiring.

Had to file a product return through Digital River (their reseller) and currently trying to get in touch with their support from the Netherlands. Definitely last time I'm bought a product of theirs.

[Andrewrobert]

On 5/23/2023 at 8:12 PM, Cursivedude said:

The sponsor for your latest techquickie video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ2XkN2EG1M)is ill advised and outright sketchy. There is no product, only an IndieGoGo campaong with nothing but renders and photoshop.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BSH5DG1X?maas=maas_adg_D8046A8336E8DE50D3CBE4C208619153_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas
The above amazon link is literally one line below the indiegogo link you're complaining about.

 

The Alibaba concern is valid. It does not look to be the exact same product but it's still incredibly similar.

[Pitboy64]

On 5/23/2023 at 1:54 PM, LinusTech said:

Looks like the first year of subscription is mandatory for 8Sleep. I actually didn't realize this because I've been using mine without a subscription and I'm pretty happy with it. Wouldn't bother with the subscription.

 

The price is certainly high - especially now that we factor in that the first year of subscription isn't included - but I was going based on my own "i dunno if this is necessary anyway" experience.

 

I think we'll be re-evaluating any future collaborations with 8Sleep based on the community feedback regardless of my experiences with the product.

I certainly didn't intend to mislead anyone or hide the subscription. I intentionally mentioned it very clearly at the beginning of the sponsored video.

 

 

Cudos to LMG for changing tracks with eightsleep.

I was the one (I think) that might have started this with this thread, and its nice to see LMG is willing to look into their sponsorships when there are questions regarding ethical sales techniques, like expensive subs like this, and little to no detail exactly what will happen if you cancel your sub.

Again, I dont mind the expensive product, even if it was more expensive had they just added the sub cost to the price, instead of just selling us a sub on top of purchase ... this kind of product is expensive, and thats fine.  But selling a long term sub ... as a newer company ... just falls flat for me.

Even after the WAN show discussing this, we still dont know in detail what works and doesnt work after the sub is gone, because as a non present user, I dont know really ... how it even works, and Linus didnt actually explain it except to say he doesnt use the subs benefits anyways, which is cool ... but what does that mean regarding the product?
So I still dont really know, so I wont be buying.

[FlaggyFlag]

I created a support ticket with Asus 2 weeks ago and the only replies I have received have been that the ticket has been escalated and expect a call in 24-48 hours. I have got this email 5 times from 3 different agents and have not received any phone calls. 

I will only be in Canada to ship the monitor another month and a bit and I have been told that the RMA on my monitor may take over a month. Which seems crazy to me, but I don’t even believe this timeline because I have been told I will get a call in 24-48 hours 5 times now. 

[XWAUForceflow]

On 5/23/2023 at 10:54 PM, LinusTech said:

Looks like the first year of subscription is mandatory for 8Sleep. I actually didn't realize this because I've been using mine without a subscription and I'm pretty happy with it. Wouldn't bother with the subscription.

 

The price is certainly high - especially now that we factor in that the first year of subscription isn't included - but I was going based on my own "i dunno if this is necessary anyway" experience.

 

I think we'll be re-evaluating any future collaborations with 8Sleep based on the community feedback regardless of my experiences with the product.

I certainly didn't intend to mislead anyone or hide the subscription. I intentionally mentioned it very clearly at the beginning of the sponsored video.

 

 

Kudos for handling the situation the way you did and for bringing it up in the WAN show. With you not knowing the current setup forces you to buy the subscription I see why you didn't feel the need to bring it up more.

I watched the video again and true, you did mention the subscription model, though 'clearly' is a bit of on overstatement in my opinion. Yes you mention it, but without any details about the model it's one word in a whole sentence that mainly focuses on the functions of the app and the bed in itself. I honestly completely missed it on my first viewing. Now, knowing what the reason behind this was I fully understand why you didn't put more focus on it.

Still, I feel LTT should generally always make it a point with any subscription model to make it clear what it enables and what will happen if the app is no longer maintained.

[kirashi]

On 5/12/2023 at 6:10 PM, GamingWizard said:

I know this is very anecdotal, but how is it possible for ASUS to create laptops with SSDs that lasted a combined 7 1/2 months over technically 3 laptops? And how many people ended up doing as my friend and just buying a complelty new laptop? That isn't very consumer friendly nor sustainable. 

On 5/13/2023 at 3:01 AM, GamingWizard said:

Yeah and who picks out the SSDs and assembles the laptops? That's ASUS, and they have a responsibility to make stuff that doesn't break after literally 14 days. 

 

Normal people aren't going to know that their SSDs are broken, their either going to warranty it forever or buy a new laptop, like my friend did. Super wasteful and it says something about ASUS QA team and how little they care. How do they manage to ship literal e-waste to their customers?

It's possible because ASUS does not (to the best of my knowledge) manufacture NAND flash or SSD controller chips. To be crystal clear, this doesn't excuse the manufacturer from repairing their product under the warranty terms, but this could happen just as equally to ANY manufacturer who sources parts from third-party vendors should they happen to receive a bad batch of parts.

On 5/12/2023 at 8:44 PM, Skiiwee29 said:

This is likely more on the SSD manufacture than Asus since swapping in a different drive resolved any/all issues you and the 2nd laptop had. 

Exactly. Again, it doesn't excuse the laptop manufacturer, but it's not their fault if a third-party part fails due to no fault of their own.

 

[RaccoonTOF]

Not sure if ASUS is still an active sponsor or not (they aren't listed on the master sponsor list anymore, but from what I've seen/heard on recent videos/WAN show the last word I had was they were still active but being looked into a sort of probationary status) so if this doesn't belong here anymore, feel free to remove it.

 

Recently purchased a new ROG Strix G713 with the (absolutely incredible) AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU and NVidia RTX 4070 GPU.  Very happy with the performance in both regards, and very happy with the system overall except for the lack of options for higher RAM and more SSD storage.  Figured that would be an easy fix however - just bought a 32GB kit and 2x 4tb 4th Gen M.2 drives from Crucial, both reportedly approved upgrades, and fully compatible.

Memory upgrade went flawlessly, however when it came to SSD upgrade time, this is where the hassles began.  First, the Crucial P3 Plus drives would not be recognized for initialization when installed via an external USB enclosure.  So, installed them into the second internal SSD slot one at a time to initialize.  Again, on trying to use the Acronis True-Image software, it would not recognize them as being Crucial/Micron devices when in the external enclosure, even after initialization - so ended up doing the drive cloning in the internal slot as well.  So far, this appears to be a more Crucial issue, than an ASUS issue, but wanted to present the full background for what came next.

After completing the cloning operation, the next step is of course, remove the original SSD from its slot, and replace it with the newly cloned drive (kept all same partitions in the cloning process, except for enlarging the original main partition to fill the extra remaining space on the new, larger drive).  Reboot, and immediately get greeted by the BitLocker recovery screen.  HUGE PROBLEM here.  I never enabled BitLocker, this was a brand-new-from-ASUS laptop, and of course the recovery key is not in my personal MS account info, nor is it provided in any printout in the shipping box, nor a BitLocker USB key included.  So, someone who did the factory install of the OS, at ASUS, enabled BitLocker encryption on the shipped drive with NO WAY for the user to get access to the recovery key.  Contacting ASUS support merely has them directing you to the standard MS BitLocker key recovery information - but as I was not the one to initiate the BitLocker activation in the first place, I of course have no key for it in my personal account.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that (as is usual these days) there is no OS install media included with the laptop as shipped either - so even the format/reinstall Windows option is not an option without a second working computer.  This WOULD have been avoidable had it been apparent that BitLocker was enabled prior to the cloning process (could have just decrypted the drive) but after the fact there is no apparent recovery option without the use of a second computer to generate a bootable installation device - recovery options no longer work since the recovery SSD and the boot SSD are of course the same locked device.

TLDR; ASUS shipping new laptops with BitLocker enabled on boot/recovery drives, not providing BitLocker recovery keys for customer use, and no alternative installation media to reinstall the OS from scratch effectively bricks a new laptop after doing an SSD swap (as opposed to just adding a second SSD in place).

[Drajon]

I'm not finding anything on Gizmogo yet, so I'd like to report on my experience selling electronics to them. They were easy to use, communicated well, and offered price negotiation or return of items after I sent them in. HOWEVER- They also offered me $12 for a 4-5 star review, coincidentally after lowering the value of my order by $14 :/. I was also a little miffed that they changed my order value by calling it "good condition" instead of "brand new condition" (that's what caused the $14 loss in value) despite my devices looking like they could've come straight from their original boxes (no damage, clean, and factory reset) and not having any guidelines on their website that I could find describing the difference between "good condition" and "brand new condition", but since I chose not to take them up on negotiation I won't complain too much about that. But paying for 4-5 star reviews is something I figure LTT should be notified of.

[Marsey]

Ordered my first pair of shoes from Vessi, Everyday Movers, and upon checkout they offered me ankle socks for a discount, so I bit.  My order arrived without the socks.  I've sent in a support request, so we'll see what happens and I'll update here with the outcome.

 

Got a reply from customer support that my socks are being shipped from a different warehouse, so they are coming later and they provided a separate tracker.  False alarm!  My bad.  Nothing to see here.  Sorry for any bother.

[QwertyChouskie]

13 hours ago, RaccoonTOF said:

Not sure if ASUS is still an active sponsor or not (they aren't listed on the master sponsor list anymore, but from what I've seen/heard on recent videos/WAN show the last word I had was they were still active but being looked into a sort of probationary status) so if this doesn't belong here anymore, feel free to remove it.

 

Recently purchased a new ROG Strix G713 with the (absolutely incredible) AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU and NVidia RTX 4070 GPU.  Very happy with the performance in both regards, and very happy with the system overall except for the lack of options for higher RAM and more SSD storage.  Figured that would be an easy fix however - just bought a 32GB kit and 2x 4tb 4th Gen M.2 drives from Crucial, both reportedly approved upgrades, and fully compatible.

Memory upgrade went flawlessly, however when it came to SSD upgrade time, this is where the hassles began.  First, the Crucial P3 Plus drives would not be recognized for initialization when installed via an external USB enclosure.  So, installed them into the second internal SSD slot one at a time to initialize.  Again, on trying to use the Acronis True-Image software, it would not recognize them as being Crucial/Micron devices when in the external enclosure, even after initialization - so ended up doing the drive cloning in the internal slot as well.  So far, this appears to be a more Crucial issue, than an ASUS issue, but wanted to present the full background for what came next.

After completing the cloning operation, the next step is of course, remove the original SSD from its slot, and replace it with the newly cloned drive (kept all same partitions in the cloning process, except for enlarging the original main partition to fill the extra remaining space on the new, larger drive).  Reboot, and immediately get greeted by the BitLocker recovery screen.  HUGE PROBLEM here.  I never enabled BitLocker, this was a brand-new-from-ASUS laptop, and of course the recovery key is not in my personal MS account info, nor is it provided in any printout in the shipping box, nor a BitLocker USB key included.  So, someone who did the factory install of the OS, at ASUS, enabled BitLocker encryption on the shipped drive with NO WAY for the user to get access to the recovery key.  Contacting ASUS support merely has them directing you to the standard MS BitLocker key recovery information - but as I was not the one to initiate the BitLocker activation in the first place, I of course have no key for it in my personal account.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that (as is usual these days) there is no OS install media included with the laptop as shipped either - so even the format/reinstall Windows option is not an option without a second working computer.  This WOULD have been avoidable had it been apparent that BitLocker was enabled prior to the cloning process (could have just decrypted the drive) but after the fact there is no apparent recovery option without the use of a second computer to generate a bootable installation device - recovery options no longer work since the recovery SSD and the boot SSD are of course the same locked device.

TLDR; ASUS shipping new laptops with BitLocker enabled on boot/recovery drives, not providing BitLocker recovery keys for customer use, and no alternative installation media to reinstall the OS from scratch effectively bricks a new laptop after doing an SSD swap (as opposed to just adding a second SSD in place).

AFAIK this is a MS policy, not an Asus one.

 

If it's a new system, just do a fresh install anyways.

[CPotter]

6 hours ago, Drajon said:

I'm not finding anything on Gizmogo yet, so I'd like to report on my experience selling electronics to them. They were easy to use, communicated well, and offered price negotiation or return of items after I sent them in. HOWEVER- They also offered me $12 for a 4-5 star review, coincidentally after lowering the value of my order by $14 :/. I was also a little miffed that they changed my order value by calling it "good condition" instead of "brand new condition" (that's what caused the $14 loss in value) despite my devices looking like they could've come straight from their original boxes (no damage, clean, and factory reset) and not having any guidelines on their website that I could find describing the difference between "good condition" and "brand new condition", but since I chose not to take them up on negotiation I won't complain too much about that. But paying for 4-5 star reviews is something I figure LTT should be notified of.

Hey, we're aware of this and won't be working with these folks again.

[RaccoonTOF]

5 hours ago, QwertyChouskie said:

AFAIK this is a MS policy, not an Asus one.

 

If it's a new system, just do a fresh install anyways.

MS Policy is for OEM to ship with BitLocker enabled, without providing recovery key?  I find this very hard to believe, considering that they specifically include a provision for your recovery key being a USB key and/or just physically printed out.  They also specifically say in the recovery steps, which are referred to by ASUS support on the issue, to go to the personal and/or school/work account of the individual that enabled BitLocker - highly unlikely this would ever be a usable option if policy was for the OEM installer to enable it.

As for fresh install, that's exactly what I ended up doing - but was only able to do because I had an old bootable SSD from a different system that I was able to swap in long enough to do a full format and reinstall on the locked drive.  With only the system as shipped from ASUS, once the SSD had been cloned and the swap done for the upgrade, there was no way to do a fresh install from the original drive - reinstalling it (EDIT: the original SSD physically back into the machine) did not remove the BitLocker Recovery lockout, and it was the only provided source of recovery media.  Again, multiple ways to avoid the problem had it been discovered beforehand, but once the upgrade had been done it was a one-way street with no way back - and I'd hate to think what the results would be for a user who decided to upgrade their factory SSD AFTER owning it for a while, and actually having filled it with data first...

Edited May 31, 2023 by RaccoonTOF
Clarification of "reinstall"

[Ex14]

On 5/31/2023 at 12:09 PM, RaccoonTOF said:

Not sure if ASUS is still an active sponsor or not (they aren't listed on the master sponsor list anymore, but from what I've seen/heard on recent videos/WAN show the last word I had was they were still active but being looked into a sort of probationary status) so if this doesn't belong here anymore, feel free to remove it.

 

Recently purchased a new ROG Strix G713 with the (absolutely incredible) AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU and NVidia RTX 4070 GPU.  Very happy with the performance in both regards, and very happy with the system overall except for the lack of options for higher RAM and more SSD storage.  Figured that would be an easy fix however - just bought a 32GB kit and 2x 4tb 4th Gen M.2 drives from Crucial, both reportedly approved upgrades, and fully compatible.

Memory upgrade went flawlessly, however when it came to SSD upgrade time, this is where the hassles began.  First, the Crucial P3 Plus drives would not be recognized for initialization when installed via an external USB enclosure.  So, installed them into the second internal SSD slot one at a time to initialize.  Again, on trying to use the Acronis True-Image software, it would not recognize them as being Crucial/Micron devices when in the external enclosure, even after initialization - so ended up doing the drive cloning in the internal slot as well.  So far, this appears to be a more Crucial issue, than an ASUS issue, but wanted to present the full background for what came next.

After completing the cloning operation, the next step is of course, remove the original SSD from its slot, and replace it with the newly cloned drive (kept all same partitions in the cloning process, except for enlarging the original main partition to fill the extra remaining space on the new, larger drive).  Reboot, and immediately get greeted by the BitLocker recovery screen.  HUGE PROBLEM here.  I never enabled BitLocker, this was a brand-new-from-ASUS laptop, and of course the recovery key is not in my personal MS account info, nor is it provided in any printout in the shipping box, nor a BitLocker USB key included.  So, someone who did the factory install of the OS, at ASUS, enabled BitLocker encryption on the shipped drive with NO WAY for the user to get access to the recovery key.  Contacting ASUS support merely has them directing you to the standard MS BitLocker key recovery information - but as I was not the one to initiate the BitLocker activation in the first place, I of course have no key for it in my personal account.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that (as is usual these days) there is no OS install media included with the laptop as shipped either - so even the format/reinstall Windows option is not an option without a second working computer.  This WOULD have been avoidable had it been apparent that BitLocker was enabled prior to the cloning process (could have just decrypted the drive) but after the fact there is no apparent recovery option without the use of a second computer to generate a bootable installation device - recovery options no longer work since the recovery SSD and the boot SSD are of course the same locked device.

TLDR; ASUS shipping new laptops with BitLocker enabled on boot/recovery drives, not providing BitLocker recovery keys for customer use, and no alternative installation media to reinstall the OS from scratch effectively bricks a new laptop after doing an SSD swap (as opposed to just adding a second SSD in place).

Hi there! I work with a SI, and Have seen machines being bitlocker locked randomly in the past (seems like its standard procedure with windows i.e. it will do so should it thinks security has been comprised in anyway, even with home licenses which shouldnt have bitlocker)

Just wanted to give you a heads up that the bitslocker key should be somewhere in your microsoft account. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/finding-your-bitlocker-recovery-key-in-windows-6b71ad27-0b89-ea08-f143-056f5ab347d6 We had several customers have success with this in past occurances so hoepfully this helps you too!

 

[RaccoonTOF]

On 6/1/2023 at 3:58 AM, Ex14 said:

Just wanted to give you a heads up that the bitslocker key should be somewhere in your microsoft account. 

Again, this would be the case had it been enabled after I received it personally - but with it enabled AT THE FACTORY prior to delivery to me, there is NO WAY for it to be in my personal microsoft account - unless the OEM (ASUS in this case) had my MS account info PRIOR to the install (potentially the case with some third party "custom build" shops I suppose) there is no way that ASUS would know WHAT MS account the device was going to be registered to on delivery...

[Guest]

On 6/3/2023 at 12:02 AM, RaccoonTOF said:

Again, this would be the case had it been enabled after I received it personally - but with it enabled AT THE FACTORY prior to delivery to me, there is NO WAY for it to be in my personal microsoft account - unless the OEM (ASUS in this case) had my MS account info PRIOR to the install (potentially the case with some third party "custom build" shops I suppose) there is no way that ASUS would know WHAT MS account the device was going to be registered to on delivery...

Unfortunatly this is the default behaviour of Windows and is not because Asus decided to enable it from the factory.

 

Even on a fresh install of Windows 11, Bitlocker will be turned on automatically and start encrypting your drive. Being this is a new laptop, I am sure you were greeted by the Windows OOBE (out of box experience) upon first boot. One of the aspects of the OOBE is to either enter in, or create a new MS account...unless you bypassed this using one of the work arounds. While you are correct in stating that Asus would never know your MS account credintials, the OOBE experience is MS way of getting you to fill in that information when setting up the deivce for the first time. Once you set it up it will tie aspects of that install to your MS account (ie: product key, Bitlocker key, etc...)

 

The easiest way to disable it is to go into settings within Windows, go to Privacy&Security>Device Encryption>Disable encryption. It will take some time for it to decrypt, but that is what you have to do if you want to disable Bitlocker. As I've said above, even if you do a fresh install of Windows, this will automatlly be enabled again, unless you disable it right after install and first boot.

[egef]

Am I the only one who was creeped out my Bark Parental Controls? The invasion of privacy aside, "we scrape your kids' social media messages" sounds like a scandal, not a feature. I don't think it's responsible to encourage parents to hand over their kids' messages to Bark, a company whose privacy policy explicitly states that they will give out users' data to third parties (unless I'm reading it wrong.)

 

ETA: Also they say that they're allowed to give out all the data they store to an acquiring company with no restrictions -was that not the reason LMG stopped doing VPN sponsorships?

Edited June 3, 2023 by egef

[CarCat]

56 minutes ago, egef said:

Am I the only one who was creeped out my Bark Parental Controls? The invasion of privacy aside, "we scrape your kids' social media messages" sounds like a scandal, not a feature. I don't think it's responsible to encourage parents to hand over their kids' messages to Bark, a company whose privacy policy explicitly states that they will give out users' data to third parties (unless I'm reading it wrong.)

 

ETA: Also they say that they're allowed to give out all the data they store to an acquiring company with no restrictions -was that not the reason LMG stopped doing VPN sponsorships?

Totally agree, signed back into the forum for the first time in years just to say this. Any parental monitoring stuff that's not local and/or scrapes text messages is really creepy to me. As Linus has said before, even though parental controls are good kids absolutely deserve and need some privacy. An app that literally controls every aspect of a kid's social life (because, well, everything social is online now) is not very cool. I didn't know about what egef said in the privacy policy too, that's really not good. Especially with the amount the app takes, that means basically anyone they so please can read your kid's texts essentially. Really disappointed in this sponsor choice.

[kirashi]

On 5/31/2023 at 8:18 AM, Drajon said:

But paying for 4-5 star reviews is something I figure LTT should be notified of.

Paying for reviews may also violate consumer protection laws in various jurisdictions.