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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

#411

Post by ayoisaiah »

designtofly wrote: post #396

I'm glad this story has gone viral recently. Hopefully there will be more pressure to stop this practice. I've been using Android for a number of years now and between the handset manufacturers and the wireless providers, there has been undeletable crapware since the beginning. I've been slowly modifying my behavior in response. I stopped buying phones directly from the wireless providers (e.g. Verizon). This has not…

I don't think all Samsung apps are "crappy". I quite enjoy using some of them like Samsung Health and Secure Folder. What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps and then preventing the user from removing them easily.

Personally, I can live with this situation since I can always remove what I don't like with adb, and I quite enjoy a lot of the features and changes that Samsung added on top of stock Android.

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

#412

Post by diffeomorphism »

designtofly wrote: post #396

I'm glad this story has gone viral recently. Hopefully there will be more pressure to stop this practice. I've been using Android for a number of years now and between the handset manufacturers and the wireless providers, there has been undeletable crapware since the beginning. I've been slowly modifying my behavior in response. I stopped buying phones directly from the wireless providers (e.g. Verizon). This has not…

> Samsung, please get rid of Bixby and all of your crappy Samsung apps.

Samsung, please don't. Even if they are not great, having some counter to google's monopoly position is sorely needed.

... but then couldn't they just ship their internet browser or chrome and not both? No, they can't due to google's oppressive contract, which is what the EU fine was about.

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

#414

Post by Faark »

komali2 wrote: post #313
vorpalhex wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung devices are the worst. When I had an S8, I ran a toolkit that would constantly remove (and re-remove when it appeared again) almost all of the Samsung crapware, but even that is subpar since you need some of it like their Health product for basic phone features to work. Samsung is by far the worst at it. I won't buy their phones anymore.

Recently got an s9 and there's a whole button I can't use because it is bound to the "Launch Bixby" function. I'm not exactly sure what Bixby is or does, some sort of voice control (but I already have google now?), but it requires me to have a samsung account to use, which I don't want/need. So, unused button. Wish I could bind it to camera or something, no such luck.

> So, unused button. Wish I could bind it to camera or something, no such luck.

The reddit thread about this story mentions an app "bxActions" that sees to be doing exactly that and might be worth a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ae265u/samsung_...

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

#415

Post by perfunctory »

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.

"These are non-technical people ..."

Don't know. I have the same question. "can FB track me even if the app is disabled?" How the hell do we know it's impossible?

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

#416

Post by diffeomorphism »

ayoisaiah wrote: post #411
designtofly wrote: post #396

I'm glad this story has gone viral recently. Hopefully there will be more pressure to stop this practice. I've been using Android for a number of years now and between the handset manufacturers and the wireless providers, there has been undeletable crapware since the beginning. I've been slowly modifying my behavior in response. I stopped buying phones directly from the wireless providers (e.g. Verizon). This has not…

I don't think all Samsung apps are "crappy". I quite enjoy using some of them like Samsung Health and Secure Folder. What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps and then preventing the user from removing them easily. Personally, I can live with this situation since I can always remove what I don't like with adb, and I quite enjoy a lot of the features and changes that Samsung added on top of stock Android.

> What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps

That is not possible. They can either have only the google apps (great, just like ancient IE monopoly times) or "duplicate apps", but they can not omit the google apps if they want google play.

Also, preinstalls matter very much as can be clearly seen in the market share of IE, edge, chrome and safari.

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

#417

Post by vertexFarm »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #139
isodude wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason I've stopped surfing the web and stay on news aggregate sites. It's madness how many dependencies sites have. Having Little Snitch on and not allowing general port 80/443 will make you perfectly aware.

Please don't stop surfing the web, that is insane. You are staying locked in your news aggregator sites like someone with agoraphobia, that is even more unhealthy than whatever beasties you think are out there waiting for you.

The certainty with which you make this statement seems undeserved. There are situations when extreme deviations from cultural norms is perfectly healthy. Like abstaining from tobacco in the 1950s or something to that effect.

The jury's still out on the health effects of our digital culture. It's too strange and too young to really get clean long-term results on it. But I would be utterly floored if it was having no significant effect on our well-being and culture. There's probably some positive and some negative, but hey--cigarettes help aid digestion, after all.

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

#418

Post by soperj »

Someone1234 wrote: post #251
simulate wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the iPhones, phones distributed by Google, starting with the Google Phone G1 in 2008, and continuing to the Nexus phones and today's current Pixel phones (Pixel 1, 2, and 3), have never had crapware.

That isn't really accurate, you're just defining "crapware" is such a way so that Google's apps don't qualify. That's a double standard. Google Drive, Gmail, Google Photos, Play Music, Play Movies, Play Games, Play Books, Duo, Google+, and YouTube could all be called as crapware since they aren't required for core phone functions (and upsell for-profit services). I guess it is somewhat a discussion what we mean by "c…

Where does Siri fit in with your model there?

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

#420

Post by senoroink »

chrismeller wrote: post #323
mancerayder wrote: post #291

This story (and from different outlets) is now all over the press, which is great. Can I add another qualm in a similar vein? It involves Samsung TV's. I'm convinced Samsung is increasingly mean. I only use streaming services (Netflix, et. al.), and for the past year I've been pretty pleased with "Smart TV" functionality, which makes life easy. That is, until the following happened. After a recent update, the TV: * N…

I have a Roku for these and many other reasons. I have never seen or touched a smart TV that didn’t suck in multiple ways, even if it was just the laggy as hell Java interface. I’m not saying the Roku is perfect, it’s far from it (and I’d love to be able to give them feedback), but at least if they piss me off I can throw their device in the trash and replace it with an Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire, etc.…

Since it's relevant to the topic conversation, only use a Roku if you're blocking its outgoing requests. It sends out an insane amount of outbound data that goes beyond just your viewing habits (e.g. wifi name, "connection data") [1].

Installing pi-hole reveals how noisy a Roku is [2].

[1] - https://docs.roku.com/doc/userprivacypolicy/en-us [2] - https://imgur.com/a/n5zcAwl

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