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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

#211

Post by Zarel »

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.

Hm, if a phone is to support a factory reset feature at all, everything it's bundled with needs to be there somewhere in read-only memory.

And everything I've read says that disabling an app and removing updates removes it from everywhere _except_ read-only memory.

I don't think there's any other way to do this at all, unless you want to give up on having a factory reset feature entirely. I think the only problem is that Android doesn't just call it "uninstall" and hide it better.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#212

Post by ajnin »

jandrese wrote: post #118
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?

Isn't it way way past time for smartphones to standardize the booting process the way PCs did back in the 80s? The old excuses of "we couldn't fit a generic kernel on our tiny built-in storage" rings hollow in these days of 16GB storage in the base model phones. This isn't a hard problem. We solved it decades ago. There should be an "Smartphone Kernel" that gets updated like the Linux kernel with drivers for all vari…

This isn't that easy, you'd need support from SOC manufacturers, board manufacturers, also I believe ARM chips don't have feature enumeration as x86 chips do. Not to mention that your kernel would need to embed a whole lot of binary blobs since many things like modems are not open at all.

I'd like that as well of course but vendors don't seem very interested in cooperating with each other right now.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#213

Post by kelnos »

wpietri wrote: post #116

Does anybody understand the economic point of making apps nonremovable? From the point of view of a vendor paying for access, presumably their goal is to spark interest and shift default choices. So I get why LinkedIn would pay to be on the phone when it leaves the factory. But if somebody doesn't want it, what do they gain by preventing removal? To me it seems kinda like DRM: I'm sure some executives get woodies at…

IIRC it's actually a technical limitation. Pre-installed apps are installed on the system partition, which is read-only. If they installed them on the user partition, they wouldn't survive a later factory reset. That's why you can remove them if you root the phone.

They could of course fix this limitation, but I guess the incentive isn't there for them to do so.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#214

Post by kelnos »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #165
ehsankia wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're downvoted. If I, as an average consumer, bought a phone that didn't come with a browser, maps and music software, I'd think there was something wrong with it and would return it. There may be an argument to make about allowing the user to pick their browser during onboarding, but calling the browser "bloatware" is completely ridiculous. You may not want Chrome, but 99% of people buying a Pixel…

But that is the definition of bloatware. Software that you don't want on your device. Might not be bloatware for you, but it is for me and the op.

No, it's not. Bloatware is software that most people wouldn't want on a device.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#215

Post by pdimitar »

lobotryas wrote: post #142
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…

I wouldn’t. Why is the knee-jerk reaction to solve problems (especially trivial ones like this) with more red tape and bureaucracy? Remember that HN is a bubble. We might care about bloatware, but maybe millions of regular users don’t (or even find some of the bloat useful).

> We might care about bloatware, but maybe millions of regular users don’t (or even find some of the bloat useful).

Users don't care about technical details as "bloatware" one bit. That's true.

They do care about their phones running slower and having a much worse battery life though (compared to iPhones with background app refresh turned off).

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#216

Post by kelnos »

ralphie02 wrote: post #168
ehsankia wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're downvoted. If I, as an average consumer, bought a phone that didn't come with a browser, maps and music software, I'd think there was something wrong with it and would return it. There may be an argument to make about allowing the user to pick their browser during onboarding, but calling the browser "bloatware" is completely ridiculous. You may not want Chrome, but 99% of people buying a Pixel…

Quite frankly, I think the post should get downvoted more. It's not an opinion, it's a fact that those apps are NOT necessary for the phone's functionality. The user even mentions that the apps are a 'want' to some users, not a need. What makes the bloatware annoying is that they cannot be fully uninstalled, only disabled. I'm one of the users who disabled these google apps and it annoys me that I cannot remove them.

That's moving the goalposts, though. The only options aren't "necessary for the phone's functionality" and "bloatware". There's also "apps that most people would find useful", and a calculator, note-taking app, browser, etc. certainly qualify.

Yes, it's (marginally) annoying that you can't uninstall them, but the majority of users won't care.

> I'm one of the users who disabled these google apps and it annoys me that I cannot remove them.

Unless you are running low on space on your phone and really could use those extra megabytes, your annoyance is illogical. That doesn't make it invalid, but it does make it unsurprising that this issue hasn't been addressed.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#217

Post by kelnos »

jackewiehose wrote: post #111
lern_too_spel wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then installing/deploying these apps on a read-only partition doesn't make much sense in the first place.

The idea is that they should survive a factory reset, so the read-only partition is the right place for them. Obviously many of us would be fine if they didn't survive, but that's not really the point.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#218

Post by kazinator »

I'm afraid it's impractical to ask Google to do anything about this, because they don't control what a non-Google device vendor gets to put on a device.

In order to have that control, Google would have to supply a completely locked down pre-built image to all the third party vendors that they are no able to customize.

And, so then, how would the end users have any modicum of freedom.

No, this has to go from the bottom up: users have to be able to get a blank device from a vendor with nothing, and then install a clean OS of our choosing (whether that be Google or whoever else).

The idea that Google can somehow, or should force vendors to give users a clean(-er,-ish) image is downright wrongheaded. The image cannot pass through third party hands such that they have no control over it, yet the end user somehow does.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#219

Post by pdimitar »

MBCook wrote: post #193
niffydroid wrote: post #16

This will be good for the low end phones. My partner mother had an lg with 8gb of storage, it came bundled with all sorts of nonsense, 2 calculators, 2 alarms, some office suite. It made installing things like whatsapp or Facebook hard because of the bloat taking up the space. This only damages the reputation of these brands for me that do this sort of thing. Skins/ui and other functions are fine, but at least let me…

That’s the thing that astounds me about buying an android phone. When you buy an iPhone you get one app from Apple for each task. Because it would be ridiculous to get more than one. But if you buy an android phone you might get a copy of Google Chrome. And some sort of rebadged Samsung browser. And maybe a Sprint browser because you bought a Sprint phone. Now repeat that for email. And text messaging. And a couple o…

They are adding value alright but it goes to invisible (to us) shareholders, not to the end users.

Re: Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware

#220

Post by NikolaeVarius »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #164
Waterluvian wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a moto because of this. It has _almost_ no bloatware. LinkedIn, DropBoxNativeClient, and a few other apps I don't use cannot be uninstalled. Edit: some others I can't uninstall from my international, unlocked Moto G6: Google Drive, Duo, Chrome, YouTube,

“It has _almost_ no bloatware. LinkedIn, DropBoxNativeClient, and a few other apps I don't use cannot be uninstalled.” Sounds like a serious case of Stockholm syndrome.

How? Stockholm syndrome is when a hostage befriends their captor, presumably thinking their captors cause is just. How is thinking that a situation is not "completely" terrible stockholm syndrome?
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