AMD making money from ad revenue from installing drivers!?!?

[HelplmChoking]

It's easy to remove or whatever, but installing software without my knowledge or approval is digusting behaviour and needs to stop. Lot's of companies (even Microsoft) sneak junk in with a legit installation, but you can always uncheck the box.

This is sneaky, underhanded and wrong. I didn't give them permission to install this software, only the drivers.

[HelplmChoking]

7 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Yes, it is harmless.  Annoying, but harmless.  It's not like it's an installed program that will randomly pop up ads in your face, it's a shortcut.  I agree that they shouldn't have done it, but it's not going to cause your system any harm whatsoever.  At worst, you have to make a couple mouse clicks/keyboard taps to delete it.  Or just use the uninstall tool below:

 

 

 

That's not the point. The principle behind it is wrong, they're modifying your PC in ways you didn't authorise and that's wrong, regardless of how small it is.

[HelplmChoking]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Most installers do that.

Many installers try to sneak in extra software, but you can just uncheck the box, even when they're really sneaky about it. AMD isn't notifying you beforehand, and they're not giving you a way to refuse.

[Notional]

11 minutes ago, Rangaman42 said:

It's easy to remove or whatever, but installing software without my knowledge or approval is digusting behaviour and needs to stop. Lot's of companies (even Microsoft) sneak junk in with a legit installation, but you can always uncheck the box.

This is sneaky, underhanded and wrong. I didn't give them permission to install this software, only the drivers.

 

A link shortcut is not software.

 

And how the hell is AMD making money from this @zMeul ?

[HelplmChoking]

Just now, Notional said:

A link shortcut is not software.

 

And how the hell is AMD making money from this @zMeul ?

 

It's still dodgy though, I didn't allow them to do it so they shouldn't do it.

 

As an aside, I just updated to 17.4.4, and I don't have the shortcut.

[Notional]

No free games or beta access for you.

[Phate.exe]

12 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

Not good, if true, and is just as bad as Nvidia enabling telemetry collection when people install Nvidia drivers, with Nvidia selling the data they gather from people.

How the hell is creating a webpage shortcut that you can easily delete off your desktop in any way shape or form the same or as bad as holding your driver updates hostage behind telemetry and data mining?

[Noctus]

"Left Click -> Shift+DEL -> Ok = Gone"

 

So.

Damn.

Hard.

[Delicieuxz]

28 minutes ago, Phate.exe said:

How the hell is creating a webpage shortcut that you can easily delete off your desktop in any way shape or form the same or as bad as holding your driver updates hostage behind telemetry and data mining?

It's the attitude of exploiting customers with a discrete tracking link and referral id that I find comparable to Nvidia doing the same with telemetry that bundles with GeForce Experience software. Both are simple to avoid, if you know that they're there, but the intention of either method is similar in being a decision by those companies to discretely capitalize upon customer personal system usage.

 

Forums often have a rule about no member referral links... what right does a corporation have to slip them onto your personal PC?

[Jito463]

2 hours ago, Rangaman42 said:

That's not the point. The principle behind it is wrong, they're modifying your PC in ways you didn't authorise and that's wrong, regardless of how small it is.

I never disagreed with that.  I explicitly stated that I thought they shouldn't have done it, I was simply making a counterpoint to your claim that it wasn't "harmless".

[HelplmChoking]

1 minute ago, Jito463 said:

I never disagreed with that.  I explicitly stated that I thought they shouldn't have done it, I was simply making a counterpoint to your claim that it wasn't "harmless".

 

Just to clarify, I never said it wasn't harmless, just that it being harmless wasn't the problem. The problem is them doing this at all, regardless of the harm it does or doesn't cause.

[Jito463]

8 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

It's the attitude of exploiting customers with a discrete tracking link and referral id that I find comparable to Nvidia doing the same with telemetry that bundles with GeForce Experience software. Both are simple to avoid, if you know that they're there

With the major caveat that Nvidia puts legitimate services (like driver updates) behind their telemetry wall, while this is a simple shortcut that you can choose not to click on.  It actually requires intent on your part to open it and for them to get the referral click.

[Jito463]

Just now, Rangaman42 said:

Just to clarify, I never said it wasn't harmless, just that it being harmless wasn't the problem. The problem is them doing this at all, regardless of the harm it does or doesn't cause.

You're right, my bad.  It was someone else I responded to.  However, I did make the explicit point that I disagreed with it.

[Blake]

the ammount of non-news this 'news' topic contains, with the amount of butt hurt over a non-issue, makes me thing half of the people here must have been hired by nVidia (something they actually do btw).

 

Legit, grow the fuck up, you have a desktop shortcut, no-one gives a shit.

[Master Disaster]

15 hours ago, themctipers said:

Ryzen with us, V E G A 

 

nvidia driver installation has advertisements for games in them aswell. 

 

and nvidia requires you to have a account to use any features over than basic driver support. 

 

 

amd > nvidia when it comes to software. The fucking drivers are unstable as shit 

You should get your facts correct before posting them...

 

Nvidia advertise their own products and services during driver installation and I'm pretty sure they don't pay themselves. Oh and before you jump in with "but their advertising Ubisoft games right now", well yes your correct but actually their advertising their own free games bundles which just happens to be Ubisoft games at this time. If you look at the advert its not about For Honor, it says if you buy an Nvidia GeForce card now then you get a For Honor code chucked in.

 

If you find Nvidia software unstable you should start looking at your rig because Nvidia software has been rock solid recently, there's been a few small issues that slipped through but they're always fixed within 24 hours and patched via hotfix.

 

It took AMD basically rewriting their driver suite entirely from scratch for them to achieve stability and even then there's been pretty big issues within the last few weeks (their own software suite couldn't read Zen CPU temps properly until last week) that took them weeks to fix, not a 24 hour hotfix.

 

And I won't even go into Support for OSes outside of Windows.

[themctipers]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

You should get your facts correct before posting them...

 

Nvidia advertise their own products and services during driver installation and I'm pretty sure they don't pay themselves. Oh and before you jump in with "but their advertising Ubisoft games right now", well yes your correct but actually their advertising their own free games bundles which just happens to be Ubisoft games at this time. If you look at the advert its not about For Honor, it says if you buy an Nvidia GeForce card now then you get a For Honor code chucked in.

 

Finally if you find Nvidia software unstable you should start looking at your rig because Nvidia software has been rock solid recently, there's been a few small issues that slipped through but they're always fixed within 24 hours and patched via hotfix.

 

It took AMD basically rewriting their driver suite entirely from scratch for them to achieve stability and even then there's been pretty big issues within the last few weeks (their own software suite couldn't read Zen CPU temps properly until last week) that took them weeks to fix, not a 24 hour hotfix.

 

And I won't even go into Support for OSes outside of Windows.

? you have good arguments

 

i don't think I've gotten a nvidia update yet , I'll update that later. Running memtest.,

as far as I know last time I updated it was March 2017

 

[TOMPPIX]

UPDATE

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-apologizes-for-quake-champions-link-in-driver-update.html

it's a bitly link, amd is not making shit from that link.

[Grinners]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

With the major caveat that Nvidia puts legitimate services (like driver updates) behind their telemetry wall, while this is a simple shortcut that you can choose not to click on.  It actually requires intent on your part to open it and for them to get the referral click.

I uninstalled Nvidia Experience and choose to get my drivers manually. There is no telemetry wall stopping me from doing this is there? 

[Jito463]

2 minutes ago, Grinners said:

I uninstalled Nvidia Experience and choose to get my drivers manually. There is no telemetry wall stopping me from doing this is there? 

I was referring to automatic driver updates, something I believed was quite apparent given the topic at hand.  Obviously not that apparent for some.

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, themctipers said:

? you have good arguments

 

i don't think I've gotten a nvidia update yet , I'll update that later. Running memtest.,

as far as I know last time I updated it was March 2017

 

I mean don't get me wrong, Nvidia certainly aren't whiter than white, they do artificially inflate prices and charge a premium compared to AMD that's for sure.

 

Also in recent months AMD have made huge improvements, Omega is a 100% improvement over CCC and their hardware from the RX400 line has been the best bang for buck cards on the market. Plus no one can deny the whole Nvidia Async Compute debacle and AMD vs Nvidia DX12 argument doesn't hold at least some merit.

 

I don't understand the need for fanboyism, I prefer Nvidia and I will defend them when it comes to misleading and false claims but if they fuck up I'm the first to call them out and if I'm making a recommendation then I always tell people to go with what best suits their budget, the RX 400s and 500s are fine cards, they do a great job for not very much budget and if your budget can't stretch to the Nvidia premium then get an AMD card and you'll still be impressed.

 

That said AMDs other OS is nothing short of ridiculous, if your not running Windows you really have no other choice, buy Nvidia or you'll regret it.

[LAwLz]

I hate stupid bullshit like this, and I hate the people who defend anyone who does it.

"Everyone else does it is OK!" is such a terrible excuse. The reason why "everyone else does it" is because people like you allow it to happen. If everyone banded together and looked at what this actually is, a terrible move that is harmful to consumers, then companies would not be able to pull shit like this.

 

Even if you don't think it is a big deal because "you can just delete it", it still sets a precedency that it is OK to bundle ads with drivers.

 

Good thing AMD removed it in the update. I guess the fanboys who defend this despicable behavior did not manage to cause harm this time, but I find it really worrying that people are so willing to be fucked in the ass by companies these days.

 

Edit:

As for the people who apparently don't know how ads on the Internet work, and wonders how AMD can make money from a bitly link. The link AMD put on your desktop is tracked. It is a specific link and it gets logged when you open it.

In fact, you can see the full, unique URL at this page as well as how many people clicked it here.

My guess would be that AMD got paid by Bethesda per 1000 clicks or something along those lines. Either that, or AMD tried to test how far they could go, and see how many people would click on a link like this. That data could be useful for negotiating with other companies for future advertisement campaigns.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

That said AMDs other OS is nothing short of ridiculous, if your not running Windows you really have no other choice, buy Nvidia or you'll regret it.

Intel works too.

[weez]

Holy over reaction! I love it how some of you just ignore what other companies do and act like AMD are the devil. I'll agree that their software shouldn't install anything other then the drivers unless you want it to. But damn, the over reaction makes me sad to be a part of the PC community

[MoonSpot]

To think this could have all been avoided if there was a prompt asking if the user would be interested in, or checking out more details for, a quake beta.   I imagine most would have, and then thought little of a shortcut dropped on their desktop enabling them to do so.

 

Whoever decided to go about things in this manner should get punked by co-workers @ RTG.  They should raid that persons office and put pictures of someone else's family around their office and on their desk just to see if they at least think their literal desktop is their personal space.

 

That said, a lot of y'all are sure blowing whole heeps of smoke over a shortcut which ONLY does something if you execute it instead of just deleting it.  As for the people that are equating an http shortcut to installing software...Stop being stupid.

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, weez said:

Holy over reaction! I love it how some of you just ignore what other companies do and act like AMD are the devil. I'll agree that their software shouldn't install anything other then the drivers unless you want it to. But damn, the over reaction makes me sad to be a part of the PC community

So what you are saying is that yes you agree that this was a shitty move by AMD, but we should not make any noise about it because other companies are doing it too?

 

That's very dangerous circular logic you're doing there, and it is hurting everyone.

I mean, if you don't understand how bad that logic is let's just apply it to a different situation.

 

Judge) You are on trial for armed robbery. What is your defense?

Suspect) Wow speaking of overreaction. There are so many other people committing robbery on the loose and you're just going to ignore them to focus solely on me in this trial?

Judge) You're right... We should let this man go free!

 

If you want to talk about other companies doing shitty things then go ahead and make a thread about it. This thread is however about AMD doing something shitty so of course the focus will be on them.

[Sauron]

16 hours ago, Prysin said:

it's your fault for choosing express and not custom. Just like it is your fault if you give a app carte blanche permissions on your phone and finds out it is spamming shitloads of notifications and using tonns of background data.

The article and the post don't say whether it's optional or not, either way unless it is clearly stated that it will be installed it's definitely not the user's fault.