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Buyer Beware
Dec. 25th, 2008 12:17 pmDoes anyone have any experience with the "U3" hardware/software? Apparently many flash drives come with it now. It's basically malware; when you insert the drive into a Windows machine, it creates an emulated CD-ROM drive with an autorun.inf file (to get around the lack of USB autorun), and autoinstalls the "U3 Launchpad software". There's no way to blank the drive (remove the emulated CD portion) without using the "U3 API" -- it's not a partition, it's a blob of data which is apparently in ROM somewhere on the device. There are removal tools for Windows and Mac, but according to a forum post I read, the Mac one installs a kernel extension, so I'm not willing to run it, and I'm hesitant to insert the drive into a Windows machine because 1) it will autoinstall the spyware, and 2) I'll still have to run the Windows removal tool, which is probably just as bad.
Fortunately I haven't infected anything yet, since the software doesn't run on Mac; but I'm not willing to use the drive with the software on it, because someday I will have to insert it into a Windows machine for something.
I suspect I'm just going to have to take this Christmas present back to the store, unless anyone out there knows how to get rid of this crap without infecting any machines with it.
Conclusion: Never buy Sandisk. (They invented the U3 technology, and it sounds like all their drives are now infected with it.) :-\ Apparently other manufacturers have licensed it too, so I don't know what brands of USB drives are safe to buy.
ETA: Another forum post suggested running the uninstaller in a fresh VMWare image, and said that worked. I'm not sure whether I'm willing to go through the effort just for a stupid flash drive, but it was a Christmas gift so I hate to return it.
Fortunately I haven't infected anything yet, since the software doesn't run on Mac; but I'm not willing to use the drive with the software on it, because someday I will have to insert it into a Windows machine for something.
I suspect I'm just going to have to take this Christmas present back to the store, unless anyone out there knows how to get rid of this crap without infecting any machines with it.
Conclusion: Never buy Sandisk. (They invented the U3 technology, and it sounds like all their drives are now infected with it.) :-\ Apparently other manufacturers have licensed it too, so I don't know what brands of USB drives are safe to buy.
ETA: Another forum post suggested running the uninstaller in a fresh VMWare image, and said that worked. I'm not sure whether I'm willing to go through the effort just for a stupid flash drive, but it was a Christmas gift so I hate to return it.
