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Debloat non-rooted Android devices

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Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#121

Post by oliwarner »

VladTheImpalor wrote: post #68
oliwarner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us you've never run this on a Samsung without telling us you've never run this on a Samsung.

Don’t mind me saying it, but I’ve always found this comeback insufferable. It is smug, especially since it is overused as an argument terminator all over Reddit. In this case I actually agree with your “side” of the argument, but not the construct.

I don't mind, you're right.

I made the mistake of only lending the same amount of effort as the comment I was replying to: not a lot. Everyone else has said it, but these tools are essential to avoid a lot of the awful OEM software that Samsung forces on its users.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#122

Post by osmsucks »

morsch wrote: post #18

I bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through th…

I had a similarly appalling experience with a Samsung smartphone in, I think, 2012? Since then, I swore to never but anything Samsung again.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#123

Post by crtasm »

Dudhbbh3343 wrote: post #113
Defletter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible It's insane how prevalent this is. The other day, I opened my calculator app and was met with a cookie banner ( https://imgur.com/a/njJEiqY ) - I uninstalled it on the spot out of sheer incredulity. The irony was that I originally installed Simple Calculator because it was simple and open source, so I presumed it would escape being a trojan horse f…

All the "Simple" apps were recently sold to a company that's apparently filling them with ads. There's a group that forked the original open source apps: https://github.com/orgs/FossifyOrg/repositories

Wow, terrible news aboue the sale. I trust the copies I installed from f-droid won't be updated then.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#124

Post by switch007 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #89

If, according to this thread, Samsung is so bad and I don't t want buy a Chinese phone... What are my options for an Android phone? Is there any Android phone brand/model that is not exploiting its users?

I'm no Android expert but Pixel 7a had a price drop recently (plus good deals on contracts), and GrapheneOS supports Pixel phones. Also quite a few are now made in Vietnam I believe

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#125

Post by coolg54321 »

morsch wrote: post #18

I bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through th…

For me i've felt Samsung flagships have the best hardware, OneUI is very good compared those TouchWiz days. Then you have these bloatwares, first thing i do after getting any Samsung phone is doing `pm uninstall –k ––user 0 ` the linked tool does the same in a more user friendly way. One thing which that still blocks is i see you can't still remove some things like samsung account stuff, knox related stuff..etc, unless you flash a custom rom.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#126

Post by paulryanrogers »

hulitu wrote: post #76
autoexec wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first time I had a samsung phone I noticed after about two weeks that every single word I typed into any application was being collected and sent to a third party whose privacy policy said it was used to collect data about my interests, my social life, to make guesses about my intelligence level and education, and that the data would be sold for "market research" among other things. No user would ever suspect tha…

> No user would ever suspect that the keyboard that came with their cell phone would be letting third parties read all their texts and emails When we were young, this was called a keyloggger and one running was a sign that your computer was compromised. I guess times have changed.

Keyloggers are generally installed without consent. These keyboards are chosen, even if there terms are buried in a EULA it would take days to read.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#127

Post by lozenge »

resource_waste wrote: post #25
daniel_reetz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was furious when I found out that the default keyboard was infested with Grammarly, sending all my keystrokes without consent. Embarrassing for a $1200 flagship device.

This is a user/psychology problem. No one in their right mind is suggesting Samsung. Heck, similar to Apple, you have swaths of people warning you about Samsung. Samsung lives and dies off their huge marketing budget. Buying their phone is more of a psychology thing, than 'I did lots of research and I bought a high quality phone'.

"No one in their right mind is suggesting Samsung. Heck, similar to Apple, you have swaths of people warning you about Samsung."

Apple and Samsung are the two most popular phone brands in the world, so it's not like "everybody knows not to use them" as you suggest. Actually, it's the complete opposite.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#128

Post by rchaud »

morsch wrote: post #18

I bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through th…

In Canada, Samsung phones sometimes have the Facebook app pre-installed, but that can be disabled, and won't show up again. Besides that, there's no bloatware on my phone other than the default Google apps (Google Meet, Google Pay etc).

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#129

Post by morsch »

numpad0 wrote: post #103
silversmith wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that it's a US-specific thing? My last three phones have been EU-sold Samsung S series, and the only things I'd consider "third party bloat" were pre-installed versions of Facebook and MS Office, both easily removable. The Samsung replacement apps is down to personal preference, I find them easier to use than Google "originals". Having casually interacted with phones from other brands, I consider Samsung…

I think it's sales channel dependent. Most carrier locked phones run carrier tailored OS that often include bloatware. Unlocked phones and/or phones sold in rights conscious regions would contain less. I've used couple carrier branded phones, that `pm list` commands I posted in a different comment returns literally more than dozen of com.carrier.carriertrademark packages.

This was a retail (unlocked, non-carrier) phone in Europe. The sales channel was Amazon.

Re: Debloat non-rooted Android devices

#130

Post by idle76 »

autoexec wrote: post #23
morsch wrote: post #18

I bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through th…

The first time I had a samsung phone I noticed after about two weeks that every single word I typed into any application was being collected and sent to a third party whose privacy policy said it was used to collect data about my interests, my social life, to make guesses about my intelligence level and education, and that the data would be sold for "market research" among other things. No user would ever suspect tha…

I suspect it's npt just Samsung. Both google and microsoft (SwiftKey) does the same thing.

The worst part is that the most used national ID-function now stops you from using third party "approved" keyboard due to (misguided) security reasons. Both AnySoftKeyboard and AOSP keyboard is banned.

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