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My debloating experience with Poco F3

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Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#2
Does debloating using this method actually eliminate the phone-home/telemetry functionality? Or is there still some left from the packages that can't be disabled (eg. telemetry code is in frameworks-base)? Personally I don't trust xiaomi enough to settle for a bunch of pm disable commands. It has to be a clean install (eg. lineageos).

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#3
> Unfortunately, this list doesn’t cover all installed bloatware because some applications are breaking the phone if you remove them... Uninstalling the Security Center application (com.miui.securitycenter) or the Find Device service (com.xiaomi.finddevice) puts the phone in a boot loop.

those are the only two apps truly necessary for the manufacturer to recoup the costs of producing the device

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#4
The best way to debloat and prevent phones from calling home servers in China is simply by running LineageOS; don't even bother with anything else. I use Lineage on multiple devices (OnePlus, Poco F1), and it's at least as good as plain Android on a Pixel.

Warning: Poco F3 is different from the Poco F3 GT available in some regions - GT uses Mediatek Dimensity 1200 instead of Snapdragon 870. Mediatek SoCs don't work well with LineageOS.

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#5
Xiaomi makes great hardware for the price but the software is simply terrible. I would not recommend buying their hardware if you come from a high end Samsung or iPhone and expect to be able to debloat it easily without wiping the entire thing and installing something like LineageOS.

I've bought a Mi 9 which had a similar price to features ratio in the hope the it'd become popular with the LineageOS community so I could run the latest and greatest open source ROM (it didn't) and the phone is pretty great.. . except for the terrible Xiaomi software. Nothing quite makes a premium piece of hardware feel cheap like a shitty "storage cleaner" application and ads (which you can disable, luckily) built right into the OS.

I'll probably buy Xiaomi again because of the hardware value for money, but this time I'll probably wait until LineageOS support is there officially instead if just hoping someone will add it eventually.

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#6
post #5

Xiaomi makes great hardware for the price but the software is simply terrible. I would not recommend buying their hardware if you come from a high end Samsung or iPhone and expect to be able to debloat it easily without wiping the entire thing and installing something like LineageOS. I've bought a Mi 9 which had a similar price to features ratio in the hope the it'd become popular with the LineageOS community so I co…

I had lots of luck with https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/wiki on Mi Max 3. In general any recent phone should work with these ROMs.

On Mi Max 3 it works perfectly with only a few tweaks after flashing.

https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/issues/1...

This one, and one more for Bluetooth audio

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#7
Quote: "It was funny because I was removing these applications to stop sharing my personal data"

and goes later to

Quote: "Here is the list of apps that I deleted from my phone.

    com.android.chrome

        Alternative: Microsoft Edge"
Really? How about Firefox instead!!? I mean if you really want to stop sharing your personal data why you'd go to the other evil dude across the street, huh?

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#8
post #6
post #5

Xiaomi makes great hardware for the price but the software is simply terrible. I would not recommend buying their hardware if you come from a high end Samsung or iPhone and expect to be able to debloat it easily without wiping the entire thing and installing something like LineageOS. I've bought a Mi 9 which had a similar price to features ratio in the hope the it'd become popular with the LineageOS community so I co…

I had lots of luck with https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/wiki on Mi Max 3. In general any recent phone should work with these ROMs. On Mi Max 3 it works perfectly with only a few tweaks after flashing. https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/issues/1... This one, and one more for Bluetooth audio

Fingerprint reader: Works Broken on Always on Display (turn screen on first)

Kind of a big deal. Do you still need to apply to unlock your own device and hope they let you?

Re: My debloating experience with Poco F3

#9

Quote: "It was funny because I was removing these applications to stop sharing my personal data" and goes later to Quote: "Here is the list of apps that I deleted from my phone. com.android.chrome Alternative: Microsoft Edge" Really? How about Firefox instead!!? I mean if you really want to stop sharing your personal data why you'd go to the other evil dude across the street, huh?

+1 for Firefox.

Some think that a local evil dude is less evil than a foreign evil dude. As an European, I would be less concerned if my data was pwned by Xiaomi rather than Microsoft; should my government ask for my data, they're more likely to be served by Microsoft than Xiaomi.

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