Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware • Hacker News Board

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#201

Post by sprayk » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 12:46 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #196

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android mostly fixed this ages ago. You can "disable" non removable apps which makes them go away from the app list and hopefully prevents them running in the background.

They're still on your phone taking up space, though.

for better or worse, they are on the read-only partition, meaning removing them would change the checksum and result in the system partition failing signature validation at boot. Disabling is the best we will get as long as this practice continues.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#202

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

sprayk wrote: post #201

saagarjha wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still on your phone taking up space, though.

for better or worse, they are on the read-only partition, meaning removing them would change the checksum and result in the system partition failing signature validation at boot. Disabling is the best we will get as long as this practice continues.

I can see this working if checksums are calculated per-item instead of as a group.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#203

Post by tjoff » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:02 AM UTC

el_nino wrote: post #140

Barrin92 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. Yes, vote with your wallet, but also vote with your actual votes. I'd very much like to see a decision from the EU or FCC to finally stop this practice of making it impossible for people to remove the software from the phones they own. Consumer rights when it comes to mobile devices which are arguably already t…

This might be a bit of a rabbit hole. My OnePlus has a relatively clean Android but comes with a few apps like Calculator, Notes, or Chrome that don't seem to be removable. They're also not core functionality. So I wonder how easy is it to draw the line between these and the crap that many phones come with. Also stuff like Play services or the Google Store are somewhat replaceable. How could these be categorized?

So what if someone wants to remove a non-core functionality calculator?

Let them.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#204

Post by throw_14JAS » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #197

lern_too_spel wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person I'm responding to hasn't given any reason why the end result is meaningfully different. As far as we can tell, they just don't like the word "disable." If Android replaced the word with "uninstall," they would presumably be happy, which sounds like a minor complaint.

They take up space.

Isn't it in a read-only partition, where, by definition, you wouldn't be able to reuse the space? Wouldn't it only be users at their storage capacity who would be affected?

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#205

Post by asveikau » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

sprayk wrote: post #201

saagarjha wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still on your phone taking up space, though.

for better or worse, they are on the read-only partition, meaning removing them would change the checksum and result in the system partition failing signature validation at boot. Disabling is the best we will get as long as this practice continues.

But if an OEM does this to a lot of apps, that adds up and it's a lot of disk space the customer paid for, purchased, and cannot use.

I apologize for being blunt, but yours seems like a very lame technical excuse to justify existing behavior, at cost to customer experience. They could just as well put it somewhere where it's (1) still signed and (2) doesn't affect the signature of the base OS.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#206

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #194

asveikau wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There probably should be some apps marked non-removable, because they would break core functionality of the phone, and even if they are made re-installable via Play Store [many of them aren't], would generate tons of complaints and support calls from confused users who uninstalled by mistake. I'm thinking of: dialer app, SMS app, contacts app, settings app. The problem seems to be that OEMs mark apps as non-removable…

Android mostly fixed this ages ago. You can "disable" non removable apps which makes them go away from the app list and hopefully prevents them running in the background.

Thanks, I needed to deal with preinstalled fb apps on my phone

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#207

Post by asveikau » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #194

asveikau wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There probably should be some apps marked non-removable, because they would break core functionality of the phone, and even if they are made re-installable via Play Store [many of them aren't], would generate tons of complaints and support calls from confused users who uninstalled by mistake. I'm thinking of: dialer app, SMS app, contacts app, settings app. The problem seems to be that OEMs mark apps as non-removable…

Android mostly fixed this ages ago. You can "disable" non removable apps which makes them go away from the app list and hopefully prevents them running in the background.

That is not at all fixing the problem. The problem is disk space. There are cost conscious markets (the same places where a microSD slot is mandatory -- so Google has already decided they are not relevant for its devices) that care a lot about disk space. Huge numbers of users in those markets.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#208

Post by ajnin » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #110

farisjarrah wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They still take up significant space, and they often are re-enabled automatically whenever the device gets updated.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#209

Post by ajnin » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:48 AM UTC

throw_14JAS wrote: post #204

saagarjha wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They take up space.

Isn't it in a read-only partition, where, by definition, you wouldn't be able to reuse the space? Wouldn't it only be users at their storage capacity who would be affected?

The fact they they are installed in a read-only partition is what makes them non-removable, if they were installed in the regular partition then the "system" partition wouldn't need to be so big, they would be removable and you could reclaim the space.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#210

Post by Polylactic_acid » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #207

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android mostly fixed this ages ago. You can "disable" non removable apps which makes them go away from the app list and hopefully prevents them running in the background.

That is not at all fixing the problem. The problem is disk space. There are cost conscious markets (the same places where a microSD slot is mandatory -- so Google has already decided they are not relevant for its devices) that care a lot about disk space. Huge numbers of users in those markets.

Thats why I say mostly. I totally understand wanting them entirely gone but for most users you can do the next best thing and the space is not a huge issue.