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Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

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Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#101

Post by logicIsTruth »

hadrien01 wrote: post #48

Most of the bloatware comes from Google itself: on my Samsung Phone I have Google Chrome, multiple Google Play stores, Google Keep, Google Photos (sends your photos to the Google cloud), Google Drive, Google office apps, etc. I've never wanted all those apps, I don't even have a Google account...

Hmm. I use literally all of those.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#102

Post by deogeo »

ShamelessC wrote: post #75
Arnt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an orthogonal question. AIUI. Android One phones have to follow certain rules, but bootloader locking isn't on the list (or if it is I haven't noticed). That said, what do you prefer: The ability to install a ROM of your choice, or a guarantee that what you boot is what you bought?

Why not both?

To cut off anyone claiming this is a dichotomy - on LG phones, you already get both. They come locked, but if you root them, you get a warning saying it's rooted during every boot.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#103

Post by asdf21 »

true_religion wrote: post #59
hadrien01 wrote: post #48

Most of the bloatware comes from Google itself: on my Samsung Phone I have Google Chrome, multiple Google Play stores, Google Keep, Google Photos (sends your photos to the Google cloud), Google Drive, Google office apps, etc. I've never wanted all those apps, I don't even have a Google account...

I think calling Chrome bloatware is a bit much. Is Safari bloateare on an iPhone? Is the Play store bloatware? How would you even get anything on your phone the first time without the Play store or Chrome being installed?

>Is Safari bloateare on an iPhone?

It is when you only use Firefox..

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#105

Post by MiddleEndian »

simfoo wrote: post #100

I think this could be easily addressable by Google: remove the option to have uninstallable apps

All applications should be removable and all notifications should be disableable. Even Windows 10, which comes with all sorts of useless irritants, lets you do this.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#106

Post by farisjarrah »

ahartmetz wrote: post #24

Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. (The preinstalled Moto apps are very small and actually quite useful, like accelerometer-based gestures for quick acces to camera or flashlight) I buy phones as a platform for software, so it makes sense to pay attention to more than the hardware.

I disagree, Google and Motorola branded phones most certainly DO come with bloatware. The Google app is not necessary for the phone's functionality(this is, if you don't use google assistant) and I can not uninstall it from my Pixel 2. This is true for many Google apps that Google would have you believe is necessary for the functionality of the phone. These are all the google apps that came preinstalled on my phone that I can't uninstall normally that are absolutely non-essential to have on a phone:

Google Chrome( I use firefox)

Google Drive (Fastmail)

Google App (I can use Firefox as a search provider on android)

Google Play Movies and TV

Google Play Music

Google Play Services for AR

Google VR Services

Playground

Youtube (Frankly, with the amount of advertisements on Youtube these days, Firefox on android with ublock origin installed is a few better user experience then the actual YouTube app for android)

These are just the apps that I personally have disabled, I am a fastmail user, so Gmail is getting disabled soon as well as Google Calendar.

Even Google's "stock" Android on the Pixel phones has plently of blaotware. LineageOS has much less bloatware.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#107

Post by MiddleEndian »

salex89 wrote: post #27

I'm blaming mostly Samsung for this. Because of some, for me mind-boggling, reason, Samsung grew to be The Android manufacturer, and still is today. In earlier days I really don't recall their phones being any much better than their competition. But their software was and is bloated beyond good taste. And I guess because of that, other manufacturers just followed along.

It's still a problem with Android. If you buy a Dell laptop running Windows, it will come with a bunch of useless bloatware. But you can just uninstall it. On Linux, obviously you can uninstall whatever you want. On Android, you cannot, unless you happen to find the right incantations at the right time for your device before an update stops them.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#108

Post by nradov »

simfoo wrote: post #100

I think this could be easily addressable by Google: remove the option to have uninstallable apps

All of the major device manufacturers fork Android so they could easily block that and make it impossible to uninstall certain apps. Google could potentially force it in the licensing terms, but that might run into antitrust concerns.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#109

Post by nradov »

tobenortobe wrote: post #33
datashow wrote: post #21

The two most common sources of bloatware I saw when I was using Samsung phones were: AT&T and Samsung. Not only the number of bloatwares is crazy, they keeps coming back (from OS update?).

As a samsung user i can confirm this , maybe it has its own contribution to competition, but i dont see any excuse creating and dictating your own ecosystem for every single bit of mobile functionality but i am pretty sure its not limited to samsung. Also what is wrong in my opinion is that they do prevent flashing stock images

Samsung doesn't want to be dependent on Google for a core business. They are hedging their bets by building out a parallel ecosystem to enable a future switch to another OS.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#110

Post by lern_too_spel »

farisjarrah wrote: post #106
ahartmetz wrote: post #24

Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. (The preinstalled Moto apps are very small and actually quite useful, like accelerometer-based gestures for quick acces to camera or flashlight) I buy phones as a platform for software, so it makes sense to pay attention to more than the hardware.

I disagree, Google and Motorola branded phones most certainly DO come with bloatware. The Google app is not necessary for the phone's functionality(this is, if you don't use google assistant) and I can not uninstall it from my Pixel 2. This is true for many Google apps that Google would have you believe is necessary for the functionality of the phone. These are all the google apps that came preinstalled on my phone t…

You can disable them, which is the same thing as far as the user is concerned. Uninstalling from a read-only partition doesn't make sense.
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