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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

#461

Post by declnz »

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

Great tip, thanks.

TIL: adb shell has all sorts of goodies, so I went for the one-liner:

    pm list packages com.facebook | sed 's/package://' | xargs -n 1 -- pm uninstall -k --user 0
(There's a spurious warning at the end, seems their `xargs -n` likes adding a newline: `ls | xargs -n 1`)

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

#462

Post by ForHackernews »

pmontra wrote: post #459
ForHackernews wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I swap my SIM when I want to use it, but it would be less hassle to get a separate one.

But then, how do people contact you? Anything tied to your phone number wouldn't work. Perhaps only Telegram, Skype, Messenger work cross device. Phone calls and WhatsApp don't.

If I'm out cycling or paddling, I probably don't want to be all that reachable, anyway.

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

#463

Post by kofejnik »

simple_phrases wrote: post #202
RandomNewGuy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using a Xiaomi Mi A1 for some time now and so far so good. I was looking for a pure Android experience without all the crapware and custom UI's that come from any major phone brand and this is exactly what I got. Also, direct updates from Google for 2 years without interference from the brand (Xiaomi in this case). Which means I have security updates every month. I'm not going to buy anything that's not an Androi…

After doing research in order to buy a new phone, I find it strange that Xaomi products are being suggested as an alternative to vendor anti-privacy and bloat. MIUI is baked in and you need to register an account with Xaomi if you want to unlock your bootloader and put, say, LineageOS on your phone. Xaomi has a bootloader lockout period on their phones, during which you must wait and use MIUI for a period until your…

A couple of months ago, I started getting notifications for random alibaba crap on my Xiaomi phone. Turns out, there's a system app which sends you ads as push notifs. Switched to iphone the next day, privacy is the killer feature.

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

#464

Post by Kiro »

chrstphrknwtn wrote: post #438
Kiro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What service do you use for chatting?

My telephone

I want a phone without voice. I hate when people call me and I never call anyone. I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone forcing me to call them to interact.

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

#465

Post by i_cant_speel »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #416
ayoisaiah wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You only quoted the first half of their sentence. They said duplicate apps are only an issue when you aren't allowed to remove the one (or both) that you don't use.

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

#466

Post by vetinari »

tatami wrote: post #457
vetinari wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are easily disable-able.

Not all of them. I couldn't disable Chrome on my previous smartphone.

That's the manufacturer playing shenanigans. Unfortunately, it happens (Samsung?). It is still disable-able, just not as easily, as you need adb and usb cable.

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

#467

Post by qwerty456127 »

dijit wrote: post #354
qwerty456127 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, but let’s be honest, back in 2007 when the first iPhone came out it was a huge deal that Verizon, et al couldn’t install crap on it by default because it came straight from Apple. Good, nevertheless all my friends jailbroke their iPhones to install apps not available in the store. > No “normal human” is ever going to install their own OS on anything. Whoever cares about having at least minimal degree of priva…

Your friends are more technical than 99% of the population of earth. I applaud you for having friends who are so technically literate. I think you would do well to remember the rest of the human race though.

I'm curious what portion of people lack a geek friend they can trust to set-up whatever for them.

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

#468

Post by Double_a_92 »

vetinari wrote: post #244
Double_a_92 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also would have gone with Nokia because of their clean software and build quality... But they are doing weird strategies with the European market. E.g. it's almost impossible to get the 64GB version, or if you can it has a massive price increase. Or some good models just don't get released here, like the 6.1 Plus.

The 64GB versions are mostly dual-sim, and only some 30 EUR more expensive than the 32GB versions. I wouldn't call it massive price increase.

Then I was thinking of bying the Nokia 6.1, the 32GB version was 250$ while the 64GB one was 340$ and mostly out of stock.

The new 7.1 with 64gb is not available at all here. Only through imports with an 110$ surcharge.

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

#469

Post by propogandist »

perfunctory wrote: post #415
EpicEng wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

it's not necessarily the facebook app (if you have it disabled), but most free and even paid apps are 'phoning' facebook and sending up data when you open the app (as part of the FB SDK). This is what became big news recently.

I've noticed it for years and thought it was widely known. There are apps that will try to hit graph.facebook.com before they even connect to their own services. You can install a VPN based firewall to block this behavior.

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

#470

Post by llampx »

ajmurmann wrote: post #153
mariusmg wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Phones didn't had crap on them either. This is strictly a Android issue.

At least the Nexus phones I've had also never came with crap ware. This is yet another reason why I would only ever by a Android phone from Google. Of course the main reason are the longer update cycles that might even delay arrival of security updates. I really wish Google had gone the exact same route as Apple and only shipped Android phones themselves. To me the collaboration with random manufacturers also weakene…

OEMs have always made better phones than Google themselves by improving and enhancing Android. Many improvements to Android came from Samsung, HTC and Motorola - the OEMs. Post 5.0, Google has only ever made improvements to Android to benefit its own hardware and ecosystem. For example, the Galaxy Nexus had no MicroSD slot even though the Galaxy phone it was based on did. Even now, Samsung is offering a phone with a headphone jack whereas Google has made their last two phones without, in a completely anti-consumer move.

Today's "Samsung crap" is tomorrow's "Brand-new Android feature that you need to enable Google tracking to use"

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