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Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

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Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#341

Post by Yizahi »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #227
ProAm wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im also not paying to visit the website.

Imagine truth in advertising, if the phone/laptop said "price reduced $17 due to included crapware!" Probably still wouldn't dissuade most buyers, unfortunately.

If I had to guess without any real numbers I'd say that spyware is a) not reducing the cost of the device anyway (no reason to cut price), b) real profits per device are closer to cents than dollars.

I imagine advertising "Hey, User, remember that amazing Phone Model 1 you could buy for 600$? Now you can buy it with included spying software for your convenience, for the same amazing 600$ and we will earn 20 cents more from each deal! How cool is that, heh?! You want it too, right?!" :)

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#342

Post by culot »

nkozyra wrote: post #266
culot wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an LG G7 with Android One. That seems like it could be a great mix of flagship hardware with stock android.

It's the best option out there but still a lower range phone. It's actually a different phone than the non Android one version.

Oh! I did not know that, I assumed they were equally specced.

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#343

Post by kodablah »

zanny wrote: post #321
kodablah wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Instead it's showing the signal to noise ratio has reached a level where the content doesn't outweigh the category. People are in fact slowly falling back asleep to it.

The arguments against Facebook at this point have basically shown that the whole platform and every service they provide is tainted and exploitative. Anyone still using Facebook after all that will never stop using Facebook. The repetition is more to reach new ears, not try to again to convince those who already decided otherwise.

There aren't new ears here, where we're all subject to this repetition. The commenter was commenting here about fatigue, not as a new-to-tech user on some other site. The issue is not that things are annoyingly written over and over, it's that they are annoyingly promoted over and over to devolve into the same discussion over and over.

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#344

Post by rahoulb »

madeofpalk wrote: post #328
iscrewyou wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can remove most of the non-essential apps like Music, iTunes Store, Maps, News. I consider Photos and essential app to the phone. But the push to iCloud could be annoying (I haven’t experienced it because I already have it). If I remember correctly, android phones come with a Gallery App for Photos and then additionally Google Photos. This was a few years ago, I’m not sure if it has changed. Whereas iPhones come…

Well, no, you can just hide the icon on the screen. That’s all that does, just like how you can ‘disable’ Facebook on the Samsung phones.

There are functional differences on iOS. For example if you “delete” Apple Music, Siri loses the ability to tell you what song is playing on Spotify (although I haven’t tried it since the original option to delete was added)

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#345

Post by Bartweiss »

azeirah wrote: post #65
LeonM wrote: post #20

It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too. But this is nothing new, Samsung phones have came preloaded with bloat since forever. When buying a new phone I always spend some time deleting all Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook and carrier related apps. Yes, you can delete 'undeletable' apps through ADB, without rooting the device. pm uninstall -k --user 0

My note 9 got preinstalled with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and LinkedIn. Is that what you call crapware? I mean, I don't use LinkedIn nor OneDrive, and I only occasionally use the others, but these are high-quality pieces of software, you can completely disable these apps natively as well, they're not removed, but they don't impact the system in any way aside from taking up a small chunk of your memory.

It's probably worth distinguishing 'bloatware' from 'crapware', even if Wikipedia does consider them synonyms.

Roughly, I'd say that bloatware is anything preinstalled that's not filling a core use-case for the device, plus literally anything unremovable that isn't part of core functionality. So Messages isn't bloatware, but Messages+ and Samsung Health are. The first standard is sort of a fuzzy with general-purpose devices like computers and tablets, the second is pretty clearcut.

Crapware, to my mind, is "bloatware + shovelware". It's preinstalled stuff that's broken, malicious, redundant, or outside of standard use. Samsung Gallery is crappy, Superfish was malicious, VZ Navigator is basically a scam (paid, bad Google Maps), and the NFL app is worthless to a huge fraction of users.

The Office suite is very popular and highly functional, so I'd give it a pass if it could be uninstalled. Since it can't, it's bloatware. OneDrive is on the line; it's a popular complement to Office, but it's vendor-specific in a way that opening documents isn't. (Low-impact is not at all a defense; the 'disabled' state is nice for quick reinstalls, but there's no user-friendly argument for not allowing deletion.)

LinkedIn is absolutely crapware of the worst kind. It can't be uninstalled. It's irrelevant to a huge fraction of users (anyone who doesn't work). Its provided for the benefit of one company in a crowded space, whereas Office is a clear market leader. It's redundant functionality with a simple website, where Office is only partially duplicated by OpenOffice and Google Drive.

And worst of all? It actively hurts users. When LinkedIn lost its user data in 2012, the breach was made substantially worse because their iOs app scraped and uploader user data (including calendar info!) without permission. Permanently preinstalling an app that's largely useless and has already contributed to a major data breach is far outside what I consider acceptable behavior.

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#346

Post by sangnoir »

partiallypro wrote: post #238
sangnoir wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reporting on terrible things doesn't need a conspiracy. Can you imagine someone saying "I'm no Ebola fan, but doesn't it feel..."

Except they don't report on Google. That would be like reporting on Ebola as a #1 killer, but then ignoring the Opioid crisis.

> That would be like reporting on Ebola as a #1 killer, but then ignoring the Opioid crisis.

No need to couch this as a hypothetical - wall-to-wall coverage of Ebola (and later, Zika) did while "ignoring" higher number of deaths caused by falling in the shower. Again, it wasn't a conspiracy, it's just that the news-cycle has positive feedback loops between newsrooms and the public- certain topics become more popular because they are popular.

Edit: replaced the flu with shower deaths. I couldn't find number for flu deaths for the period.

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#347

Post by dragonwriter »

dalore wrote: post #326
dragonwriter wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Amazon Fire platform which is Android No, while it is an AOSP-derivative, it is not Android.

You better update Wikipedia with that information then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_OS > Amazon Fire OS is an Android-based mobile operating system produced by Amazon .... The A in AOSP stands for Android. Android Operating System Guess you're splitting hairs and trying to say Android based isn't the same as saying Android. I would argue that the AOSP is Android (and that's what Wikipedia confirms here https:/…

> You better update Wikipedia with that information then

I'm under no obligation to correct every error in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia> Amazon Fire OS is an Android-based mobile operating system

It's actually AOSP-based, more than Android-based (whether the relationship between the two is such that the former is a subset of the latter is...another discussion.) But even Android-based isn't Android (OS X is BSD-based, but not BSD; MariaDB is MySQL based, but not MySQL; the legal systems of much of the US are English Common Law-based, but not English Common Law)

Android devices, Android-compatible (per the ACP) devices, and devices running derivatives of the AOSP source code constitute a sequence in which each item describes a superset of the set described by the preceding item.

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#348

Post by vetinari »

untog wrote: post #293
vetinari wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does Android have undeletable apps anyway? It was explained only zillion times, but I will try one more: In android, you have storage in two partitions: /system and /data. /system is read-only, this is where anything that is shipped with phone is stored. Outside of system updates, it is not being touched. /data is, where user data, installed applications, configuration, etc. is stored. To factory reset the phon…

What you're saying is that Android has undeletable apps because Android was created in such a way that it allows undeletable apps. Which is circular logic. And the issue here is pretty clearly that users have to resort to adb to disable these apps. Why does Android force this? There is no reason, it could easily be built into the Android GUI.

If you are so much bothered by Android design, adjust your POV slightly: consider /system to be recovery partition (you cannot delete anything from any recovery partion of any system, so Android is no exception here) that shares data blocks with main system, created at boot in RAM. Because that it effectively is.

You don't have to resort to ADB to disable these apps for the most part; You can do it in Settings. For some apps you cannot do that in GUI - for Settings itself, for example, so the users don't shoot themselves in the foot. Unfortunately, some manufacturers abuse this and mark as undisable-able apps, that they shouldn't. Over ADB, they can't disable it, so it works for any app, including Settings.

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#349

Post by detaro »

dragonwriter wrote: post #264
dalore wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all Android platforms. The Amazon Fire platform which is Android is clearly lacking the Google apps and it's pain to install them.

> The Amazon Fire platform which is Android No, while it is an AOSP-derivative, it is not Android.

Android.com shows Amazon Fire devices as examples of the wide freedom Android offers, so apparently Google disagrees with your definition of "Android".

Re: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

#350

Post by pbalau »

EpicEng wrote: post #318
habitue wrote: post #213

I'm not a huge facebook fan but this thing about only being able to disable but not delete the app is misleading about how sinister it is. All it means is that the app comes installed by being part of the ROM image. It can be disabled which is essentially the same as deleting it, except you don't get the space back (which is fine since it's the rom, you can't use it without reflashing anyway). Once disabled, the Face…

Agreed, but from what I've been reading/hearing, the primary concern is "can FB track me even if the app is disabled?" These are non-technical people who don't trust FB. It's a valid question.

FB can't track you because the app cannot be deleted, they can track you because other apps, not even other FB apps, voluntary send FB info about you. But this doesn't match the narrative that FB is bad, so the Murdoch empire will be quiet about it.
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