Corsair Gaming—Corsair iCUE software criticized for disabling hardware on uninstall and dropping support for older devices
Corsair's closed-source iCUE software has been widely criticized for anti-consumer practices. Users report that uninstalling iCUE completely disables manual keyboard control, effectively bricking hardware without the software. The company has also been criticized for releasing new iCUE versions that drop support for older hardware, pushing users toward hardware upgrades. The software consumes 400+ MB of RAM.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Protection | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Right to Repair | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.409 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.55)
Evidence (1 signal)
Analysis: Corsair iCUE software disables hardware on uninstall, drops support for older products
Technical analysis found iCUE consumes 400+ MB of RAM, disables manual keyboard control on uninstall, and new versions drop support for older hardware, pushing upgrade cycles.