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Protect Your Android Phone By Killing All Its Crapware
jfruh writes "Like Windows, Android has built a dominant market share because any hardware manufacturer can license it — and as they did with Windows, those manufacturers are loading up Android devices with their own proprietary crapware. Although the process is a bit convoluted, you can get this crapware off your phone — and in doing so you'll actually make the device more secure."
And this is news how?
Some guy found new button in application management settings... good for him! However the summary is misleading, it does not get the crapware off, it just disables the applications.
The article is meaningless for a slashdot crowd. Don't bother wasting your time.
On my Galaxy S3, which is loaded only with genuine Samsung crapware, disable is disabled on those apps.
But root your phone to remove them. Yeah, because rooting doesn't make the phone inherently more vulnerable.
Oh and it's nice that he's recommending basic Android 101 stuff (i.e. disable the app) which is presumably meant for a novice. He then recommends rooting to this same group knowing full well that these people shouldn't ever root their phone because it will cause more harm than good. Nice.
As reviled as Apple might be by gearheads about issues like flexibility and not letting samsung et all reap all the rewards for taking none of the risks, Apple stands up to telcos and don't let them put crapware on the phone, and the stuff Apple themselves makes and puts on the phone they actually attempt to make decently. The walled garden keeps the bad people out as much as it keeps the good people in. Stuff like this generates loyalty, folks. It's not just fanboyism.
Not every article published with a date has to be news. Sometimes the news is just that the mainstream media have come to realize something that the geeks have known for months or years. In this case, the news is that the mainstream media has realized that 1. Android has preinstalled crapware, 2. this crapware has vulnerabilities, 3. this crapware can be disabled since 4.0 so as not to cause any damage, and 4. it's enough of a problem that the ad impressions are worth writing and editing a story about it.
We can still get on your phone and install whatever whoever whenever would like us to install ;-) Sure it's your phone..
but what you do with it IS BELONG TO US.
So disable or root. Except that the rooting is a bad idea for average person. And this was published in IT world! This is why anytime someone says IT (as opposed to CS or engineering), I think moron.
Stock Android. Nothing disabled, I can tether my phone at no charge, no crapware...
Other phones may be faster, but not enough to justify the headache of crapware.
It's the same reason I stick with Asus for laptops. Well built machines with minimal crapwear that are pretty easy to open up if you need to.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
I know RTFA will get me banned from /. but to quote:"Disabling the app, won't actually remove it from your system, which means it will take up hard disk space"
I bet there isn't as much crapware on the phone as there is on that fucking IT World website.
Just rewrite the OS, bitches. Come on, show us the power of Open Source.
Dalvik not Java.
Should have just posted a link to Cyanogenmod.
Some of us just got our new Android phone and don't know everything about it. Certainly was not expecting crapware on it. So we come to news sites like these for a heads-up. Thanks from a newbi for the occasional article like these, we're not all techeads (yet).
"Like Windows, Android has built a dominant market share because any hardware manufacturer can license it."
If that is the only reason that Android has for having a dominant market share, any old phone manufacturer can load it with crapware and sell it to the gullible?
Nothing like competing on merit is there.
Seriously?????
What's next? A story about the great wonders of alternate current?
(including Edison vs Tesla flame wars, to boot)
Android is licensed under the Apache Software License, Version 2.0* and GNU GPL Version 2.0 (the Kernel), for everyone and for free. The license is telling you: here is the code, do what ever you like. To compare that with the restricted Windows EULA or license that you have to buy for at least 3$ per phone** is very deceptive.
* Android Open Source Project License
** Windows Phone licensing cost revealed by ZTE: $23 – $30
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
...now there's Hashcode's SafeStrap and it's available for those locked Verizon and ATT Samsung Galaxy S4s. SafeStrap is very cool in that it allows you to have multiple roms on your phone and choose which one to boot at startup time. Search the XDA Developers forums for more info on SafeStrap.
This is what annoyed me about the Samsung Galaxy S4 all the cool features only seem to work with their crapware like the Air View in browser (very original name Samsung) but not in Dolphin. I am so glad I root my phones and run custom roms and kernels on them. If a company had a my phone my way plan I would so be a customer.
Chris Sheppard
Is it really this bad? I recently got a Q10. Turned it on. Used it. All the built in apps were just fine and I don't know of any major security holes. I didn't realize Android had gone the windows PC route. Sad, really. I guess it comes with there being so many more apps in the Android app market, phone manufacturers feel compelled to put extra crap on just to prove the major feature Android has over competitors.
...there is only cyanogenmod. What is this crapware you speak of?
For this reason and this reason alone is why I will never use a stock-carrier and manufactorer bloated ROM on a Android phone. My Galaxy S4 from AT&T had SO MUCH junk bundled. Even the default Dialer/Contacts app was replaced with this AT&T junk that forced and bugged you to make a account to backup your contacts to AT&T that would cause a 15-20 second lag whenever I opened the contacts app. Add to it the number of bundled AT&T apps and Google Apps that are bundled that I could not remove (Only Disable, and even then they would magically reenable themselves). Even rooting and removing them in some cases were impossible. So that's when I got into Custom Roms. I absolutely love CyanogenMod. I have had it on my phone since a little over a week after owning it with CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2) and currently running a custom build of CM10.2 (Android 4.3.1) nightly builds. Phone is SO MUCH faster without bloatware running in the background. And I can pick and choose every app I want. The only downfall is the stock Camera app doesn't work as well as the stock Samsung camera. For which I dual boot my phone with a stock-Samsung based ROM that has all carrier and Samsung crap removed and use it just for taking photos. And I will be running Android 4.4 (CM11) nightly builds as soon as they are released. The current holdup is a updated camera binary blob thats compatible with Android 4.4 as well as 4.4 Compatible releases from Qualcom to make it work. (Which either will will be working fine once the Google Edition Galaxy S4 Android 4.4 firmware image is released, bits can be taken from that to finish it).
Oh, no! Daleks are even worse!
I got my phone from my provider (Sony Xperia something or other, if it matters), and it has garbage in my apps that doesn't even show up in the setup list.
Not so much an issue with stock Android phones, and that's all I plan to ever own, unless I root a phone.
What kind of retarded person must you be to think that's not flamebait?
80% of the world's cell phone is running on Android right now as we speak. Yes, "around here" is modding and such but even the most popular mod (Cyanogen) only has several million downloads compared to the billions of Android devices out there. The average user doesn't give a damn about modding, and that's not exclusive to any particular phone or platform. I suspect "around here", a lot of iusers have jb'd their devices and could make the same proclamation the OP did (it'd still be totally wrong, but I could say it as truth)
Unless, of course, you're saying that 80% of the world is "super-smart" people are capable of modding their phones? If you say yes, then SWB must be giving you a blowob to back him up (or you're the same account)
Add to the "oh, I can't uninstall but I can move it somewhere out of the way"... well, so can every other phone out there, Android included? Heck, Android's two better - they're hidden in the app drawer and not on your homescreen - which most people don't use on a day-to-day basis. You can also disable the app so it doesn't even show up there if you're so inclined.
Nexus 4tw!
iOS doesn't have this problem. Why is it your OS chose to cower underneath the feet of the phone company?
( yes I'm baiting, why do you ask? )
cLock -- WTF? Serioysly?
I'm not arguing, but for such a small app, Clock seems to really piss people off and I've always wondered why. Is it too simple, or complicated, or invasive, or clumsy? What is it doing wrong or not doing? What's a good replacement for it?
Getting down to basics, that's it.
I've got an older HTC Android phone with lots of crapware, and a Coby Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with almost none. The HTC phone includes one really important feature that's not included in the extremely vanilla Coby, which is syncing the calendar and contacts with MS Outlook over USB. There are some non-free apps that claim to be able to sync the calendar (haven't tried them), and a couple of freewares (one couldn't connect successfully; the other is a "limited to 20 events" demo that worked very well once.)
Yes, I can sync my tablet calendar with Google Calendar and theoretically sync my work calendar with Google Calendar also. But I don't want Google messing with all my data and metadata, and I don't think work really wants me to sync calendar entries titled "Name of Secret Program" with "SecretProgram.ppt" and "SecretProgramRequirements.doc" attachments. I just want to export an iCal calendar and have Android's calendar app import it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
1) The installed crapware is on main storage. That means you have less room for the apps and data you really want.
2) The crapware running in the background chews up CPU cycles and RAM, slowing down the programs you really want to run.
3) The crapware running in the background uses power, so you can't go a s long on one charge.
4) Syncing with Google+Facebook and that cute weather app that displays the weather and forecast at your location consumes data; and crapware updates require a whole bunch of data. This can use up a significant chunk of your monthly data quota. And woe unto you if you're roaming outside your carrier's territory, or even worse overseas, when your crapware decides to update. This is the root cause of all those horror stories of people who took along their phones on vacation for-emergency-use-only. They don't make or receive a single call or message, but have a thousand dollar roaming fee when they get home.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
flash it
So you can only do this if you have Android 4 or newer? That doesn't help users on prepaid networks that have never recieved OTA updates to their devices, and my Galaxy model does NOT have a Cyanogenmod build, and rooting the device would kill support for some of my apps.
I would love to get rid of some of the MetroPCS crapware - that is killing my device worse than anything else.
If anyone can find a way to disable crapware on 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 without rooting, please let me know!
That's why I bought a Google Nexus 4 directly from the Google Play store.
Does Google track your information? Sure, but they do so without installing crapware on
the phone.