Asus bombards Windows 11 with christmas.exe malware-like Christmas wreath banner

it is a very subtile ad for linux

The manager who approved this need to be fired. Programs need to ask permission to the user before installing, especially when they're not device drivers.

This is literal malware and there's also a chance that it might be exploited (example: a mitm Attack exchanges the file that armory crate is downloading)

This kind of Easter egg is not funny at all, developers must avoid undocumented time bombs. I still remember that day 15 years ago when I turned on my Wii and it said that the system files were corrupted. After hours of reverting a full nand backup via bootmii (and losing 2 years of game saves) it turned out that it was a funny April's fool by crediar, which put a fake system corruption message when you run his program on April 1st. Problem is that his program was a loader for the system menu so it was unavoidable if you didn't know that.

Like me, there must be someone paranoid that saw that black bar on the screen, saw a weird Christmas.exe running on their system, and starting wiping or restoring old images to "clean" that.

the wreath has a memory leak

modern app design and its consequences

When you turn on your PC and notice that there’s a huge Christmas banner on your desktop, do not panic – your device is not compromised.

Hah, well a vendor just pushed unapproved executable to the device and ran it without consent. Under any definition or other context it's definitely compromised.

Another reason to not buy any Asus stuff.

"do not panic – your device is not compromised."

meme(always has been)

If it's unwanted, disruptive, and (allegedly) impacts performance, that's not "malware-like". It's malware.

It is a part of the ASUS Armoury Crate software that is pre-installed on some ASUS PCs.

Always flash new OS if you buy a computer.

Who green lit this? I really hope that person gets fired immediately.

The lack of any visual link to ASUS isn't even the biggest problem for me; it's that ASUS rolls out a program that (presumably) puts itself in autostart by default and just pops up without prompt at all.

Edit: There's a fucking setting in the BIOS to auto-install ASUS' bullshit software? And it's enabled by default.... jesus fucking christ

Windows is a choice. You made it. Congratulations.

Somebody should create a windows executable to be placed in the WPBT that silently install Linux on first windows boot....

everyone submit a help desk ticket to Asus asking wtf is going on

You just cant make this shit up. Truly is year of the linux desktop.

I'd love to know if this was just some guy who went 'let's ship it to all our customers!' or if this was a C-level 300 hours of meetings type of thing which concluded that spreading christmas malware cheer was the right move.

Why don't every vendor with an installed app make a similar banner?
It would be so festive, and I bet people would love it, to have 20 or 30 such occurrences every time you need to use your computer during holidays.
It would of course be optimal if each has an animation and a tune, that need to finish before you can escape.
Weird that only Asus had this brilliant idea? It's so awesome when you are not in control of what happens on your computer.
/s

If you want to take back control, Linux is your best option.

awesome, merry christmas

An unsolicited Christmas card through a letterbox would have at least been less worrying.

Thank god I was using Linux
Edit:Nvm its Armory crate shenanigans

How was this even approved for deployment?

Haha, how fortuitous for me that my new SDD arrived over the weekend and I used the opportunity to install Linux on my Asus laptop.

I find it difficult to choose a motherboard because they all look shady. aSUS should be criticized for creating a bad app and installing it without consent but I feel like this could have been any other motherboard manufacture.

Make no mistake, they will backpedal and apologize, but this was a flex. They want the public to know that their machines are fucking pwnt from top to bottom and they shouldn’t try any funny shit.

Why???? who thought this was a good idea?!?

Just like the Mozilla Mr. Robot “Easter egg”

I got on this on Windows 10 too.

At first I thought I got a virus or something, but then realized this was some ASUS bullshit.

Windows is malware

yes it is malware

Glad I'm running linux on my asus computer, but I'm gonna re-check my bios for any bullshit like this.

Yeah, when I saw that shit I had a mini heart attack. Opened up process explorer to identify what was running. Found it was Asus and basically said "huh, how are you still here - delete"

Asus hacker: I'm in

Sure, ASUS is real bad for doing this, but Windows 11 users kind of have it coming to them.