If you've recently taken delivery of a brand new Viliv S5 Premium MID, do yourself a favor and perform a thorough virus scan. Why? Because some users have reported receiving their Atom-powered MIDs, still sealed and fresh from the factory, with the hard drive image infected with several dangerous viruses (e.g., kinza.exe, win32.QQrob-32, ActMon-Pro). Exactly how this happened is still up for debate, but the consensus seems to be that the infected image is inadvertently being installed at the factory.
There are obviously perfectly clean images floating around as well, which is why most of the devices are being delivered from various outlets in tip-top shape, so don't let the virus possibility scare you from purchasing one of the most highly rated MIDs on the market right now. Just install some of the free utilities users are suggesting in this thread and rest assured that your S5 will be scrubbed clean.
:: Visit the Viliv S5 forum to connect with other owners, share tips, and troubleshoot. ::
Update 6.3.09: Viliv unofficially addresses the issue.
Same thing happened to me with the S5 I got direct from Korea via eBay. I then rebuilt it using a (legit) spare XP Pro install I had lying around, then added the Viliv utilities. This leads me to believe the worms were in the English XP image.
“don’t let the virus possibility scare you from purchasing one of the most highly rated MIDs on the market right now”
“the consensus seems to be that the infected image is inadvertently being installed at the factory”
Unacceptable and sad that you Jenn are protecting your banner revenue by doing damage control for Viliv with a curt, civil brush over of a monumental QC issue.
My banner revenue? I don’t make a penny from anyone buying a device from Viliv. I just don’t think something that can be resolved by a virus scan should stop someone who wants the S5 from buying it, especially when it isn’t 100% clear yet how a handful of systems got infected. Yes, shipping infected systems is inexcusable. I don’t know if Viliv is aware of the issue yet, though, and the problem isn’t widespread enough for anyone to make concrete assertions about anything. As you’ll notice in the thread, users who have actually experienced this issue first hand are keeping this in mind (one user is threatening legal action against either Dynamism or Viliv – not sure which – but everyone else is doing a virus scan, cleaning things up, and moving on).
Virus is bad but very easy to fix problem. It is to be worse if faulty hardware or broken components used instead. I will still buy Viliv S5 when I save up some money first.
Mine was infected too. Second shipment from Dynamism.
I had a few pieces of malware on my unit too. I didn’t care though because I wiped it clean and installed Win7 instead. I hope Viliv releases all of the drivers soon.
Maybe they were shipped with some pigs from Mexico?
Some virii on mine from 2nd dynanism shipment. I logged into gmail before seeing this and reimaging and clearing the virus crap out. All manner of nasty amazon charges last night and I’ve got to head to the bank to take care of this. No telling if my account was compromised because of this or something unrelated, but be cautious on this for sure…
I and others consider this blog one of the leading information sites on portable computing and when a product it gushes over comes with some really nasty malware that can infect an unknowing consumer’s host computer when said device is plugged into it, then we have a serious dilemma, not to mention the work involved to clean the pocketable PC.
“don’t let the virus possibility scare you from purchasing one of the most highly rated MIDs on the market right now”
Backdoor Trojans are nothing to sneeze at and as a person on the forefront you should of used more tact with this instead of putting the sales pom poms on and cheering for Viliv who have put some ignorant buyers at heavy risk, even if Conics doesn’t sell this particular product.
Obviously it would of been better to emphasize the warning more than the purchasing. I’m sure Conics and Dynamism would’ve understood that protecting the buyers is the valuable stance you unfortunately halfheartedly did take.
Sorry to butt in but I just wanted to say that I think the post DOES warn buyers. Other sites that loved the S5 even more than Jenn (who said in her review that she didn’t like the device very much from a personal standpoint) haven’t written about the virus possibility AT ALL. That seems more irresponsible to me. At least she let people know of the potential problem, suggested they do a virus scan ASAP, and linked to a place to get more info. She didn’t link to anywhere to buy it.
Having said that, I am disappointed that Viliv haven’t addressed the issue yet. It seems they are too busy handing out 3G S5s to the people that never mentioned the viruses. Bad form, Viliv.
Forgot to add that the majority of S5s are not infected. Only a very small percentage are. I don’t think people should not buy something when the chance of getting a “lemon” is so minor. Based on the forum thread, I don’t think even 3% of units are infected. That means buyers have a 97% chance of buying a perfect unit. I like those odds!
I got mine from Dynamism in their first shipment. 2 different virus programs found nothing on my machine. I reinstalled XP a week ago due to my own error, not malware. XP reinstalled quite fast and has run perfectly since. I don’t care much for their on-screen keyboard but that’s a different story.