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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."
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.
Title should have read: "Disabled apps are disabled."
Android vs IOS debate in 3.....2.......
It's the link bait update report. V important if you want to stay up-to-date with the latest link bait.
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.
But there's still likely several you can't actually uninstall.
On my HTC phone, I can't uninstall Facebook, but I can disable it. On my Google Nexus, I've had Google re-enable some apps I've specifically disabled because I don't want them.
They all try to put their crapware on the devices, and can make it awfully difficult to remove or disable them. Because they like to pretend they still own the devices, and they figure their desire to monetize your device outweighs your desire to lock it down.
I specifically went with the Google branded Nexus so I wouldn't have to worry about the crap from a 3rd party, but that doesn't mean Google has made it any easier to strip out the shit you don't want -- I disabled the YouTube app altogether when the first time I launched it to look at it Google automatically signed me up for an account without asking.
Welcome to the exciting future, where you don't own the stuff you buy, and the company who made it has embedded everything possible to give them access to your information.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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 bet there isn't as much crapware on the phone as there is on that fucking IT World website.
This is why anytime someone says IT (as opposed to CS or engineering), I think moron.
How funny - I get the same impression from people who think IT, CS, and engineering are interchangeable terms.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Should have just posted a link to Cyanogenmod.
My Android phone is a pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile phone. No contract and I pick up a $35 card at the drugstore each month for unlimited data and 200 min voice. I had to give google one of my gmail addresses and some payment info to get set up with their app store, but little else. I specifically browse the web only with Firefox and never sign into any google property with it. Google keeps trying to encourage more Google+ connectivity, and lately every time I acquire something at the Play Store a dialogue pops up with them wanting my cell number for some form of SMS password recovery. The popup has my number all entered in it and it's an OK button click away from them having it. So their software already has the number, and I'm presumably just acknowledging that fact if I click OK.
The privacy issues with Android, since we've all dialed into the googleplex to have a Play Store account, deserve some thought.
I am so sick of Google being annoying as fuck. NO i dont want to sign new terms of service, i dont give a fuck about having an SMS emergency contact, no i will NOT provide my real name to youtube and SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT GOOGLE+. In the last year google has gotten incredibly annoying with notifications.
Good-bye
I know it is unpopular 'round these parts, but SSDs are still referred to as "hard disks" among the unwashed masses. I don't even mind, because it's preferable to the days where you had to teach people that there were different kinds of memory.
A better point might be: how the heck did this article get posted to Slashdot? Aren't we more of a custom ROM (also a misnomer) crowd than a "disable apps" crowd?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"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.
I agree. I've twice deleted the google+ accounts i didn't want,
getting rid of an adwords account is even harder.
1. Get a throwaway email address from gmail (or anywhere).
2. Log into your personal account.
3. Send invitation to the new email address.
4. Log out completely from all Google properties.
5. Click on the link in the email (the new address)
6. Select "I already have an account" and continue.
7. This adds the new address to your account.
8. Log out
9. Log back in with the old address.
10. Confirm the addition and promote new user to admin
11. Log out completely.
12. Log in with the new address.
13. Remove your old address from the account
14. Log out completely
15. Proceed to accept invitation to the new account. (Select "I already have an account")
WFT!
Seriously?????
What's next? A story about the great wonders of alternate current?
(including Edison vs Tesla flame wars, to boot)
I bought a Nexus 4 so I could immediately root it and install an Android OS without the Google tie-in (Cyanogenmod, for example). I only booted it once into stock Android to make sure it wasn't DoA.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
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
This really is one of the better reasons to get an iphone. Apple fought the carriers HARD to get their nickle-and-dime shitware off the iphone, and as a result only ATT was willing to pick up the iphone at first.
Who do none of you fandroids remember the bad old days of carrier phones where built-in features were turned off, replaced by carrier specific crapware and sold back to you at a subscription-only premium? Want music? Maps? Ringtones? Games? Share photos? That will cost you. Each time. And you have to pay a monthly fee just for the privilege of giving us more money each time.
I just got the 5c and it was effortless. (Previously had a 4)Turn on phone, choose restore, punch in icloud credentials Done. All apps, music, photos, settings, accounts all migrate back over. Easy. Done. Nothing I didn't want. (The fingerprint unlock isn't a gimmick by the way. Its fucking amazing. It's literally faster to unlock the phone than punching in a code, and you can easily and consitantly unlock the phone without looking at it)
My co-worker got a galaxy S4 at the same time. Nice looking, huge screen, great display. Loaded to the brim with throw-away features that half work, samsung's really awful attempt at copying icloud, and a full page of ATT shitware that actually makes the phone objectively and subjectively worse. She's still trying to get all of her stuff moved over. - The google services, though, migrated perfectly. Google has their shit down, but they lack the clout to tell carriers to go fuck themselves like apple can.
Ok.
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/
http://replicant.us/
+10 agree. Google are the NSA in disguise. The internet was built on anonymity and we're going to have to fight to keep it that way.
Maybe we should all start using "Luther Blisset" as our "Real Name" on anything that ask for one ?
Hell let's all actually change our names to Luther Blisset :)
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
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
Too bad only iPhones and Android phones exists.
If only there was other smart phones available...
PS: I heard that Blackberry phones let you remove almost anything you don't want and you can run android apps.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
yeah but its a blackberry
as do Windows phones, but no Android apps (ducking the flames lol)
...there is only cyanogenmod. What is this crapware you speak of?
"Android" hasn't, any more than "Windows" has. It's up to the individual retailer (of the phone or of the PC). My first phone had hardly any crapware; my second phone was chock full of it. Oddly enough, both phones were from Samsung, just different phones.
And it's not to prove anything in either case - it's completely to make them money by bundling crap you don't want. The only difference is, you can remove it off your PC generally just by uninstalling it the normal way - while you probably need to root your phone to get rid of most of the crapware from it.
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!
WFT!
WTF is that acronym?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
I know. It's not "Kewl".
Your friends might laugh at you.
If you don't like the options then your current situation isn't that bad if you are not willing to vote with your wallet or feet.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Just to be clear, I think that's a function of online services, not google specifically, and not android. Facebook is worse. It keeps asking me where I work, where I went to high school etc. It clearly has enough information to guess, as it makes suggestions which are pretty spot on based on my friends' data.
My android phone, I never get nuisances like that. My ipad is actually worse. It keeps asking me to sign in with gamecenter.
Not to say that google is superior, just that online services you use for "free" will always pester you like virtual paparazzi.
Wishful thinking. I had a blackberry and Verizon FORCED an app on it.... BING search of all things. You can't uninstall it. It set the default search engine to BING in the web browser, and plastered the icon everywhere. Sure, you can HIDE the icon, but the program is still installed.
Yep, you have to root for this.
The fault is not android or HTC, this is exclusively and explicitly the fault of the carriers.
This would be a really good opportunity to write an app that would present a false phone number to certain other apps. I bet they would stop sending unwanted texts if you told them your phone number was 911.
Even my venerable Nexus One had to be rooted to remove the twitter and facebook apks and that was a stock phone straight from google play. No crapware that I noticed on the Nexus 4, so at least that's alright. But it's nearly impossible to exit the Google ecosystem entirely and use an android phone.
What do you mean bad old days? Verizon still does this.
If you think that by using Firefox you can bypass Google, try the Lightbeam plugin from Firefox and see what all websites it actually refers while browsing various websites.
"Facebook is worse. It keeps asking me where I work, where I went to high school etc. It clearly has enough information to guess, as it makes suggestions which are pretty spot on based on my friends' data. "
Just do what I did - make it up. It might take some effort to make FB accept the information, but it definitely won't be a big challenge (FB wouldn't accept R'lyeh as my place of birth, so I had to be more subtle, etc.).
They have at least 3-4 years to go before you need to worry about that.
Subsidized phone contract last 2 years or so you'll be fine.
You should go back to whining about how bad your iPhone/Android is since nothing else is good enough.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
What else would you call an SSD? It's not an optical disc, USB drive, or floppy.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Why yes, I should run right out and buy a phone from a company I expect to be dead within the year.
Sorry, but I bought my wife a BB PlayBook ... and in my opinion it's a Steaming Heap of Innovative Technology (SHIT). It, in theory, ran Android apps -- in practice, well, it didn't. And then they stopped providing updates.
I have no interest whatsoever in the crap BlackBerry is selling.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If Apple was able to say "No" to the carriers when the carriers wanted to put their branding on their phone and install crapware, why can't Android manufacturers?
That's like blaming the carriers for not updating phones to the latest OS.
Not so much an issue with stock Android phones, and that's all I plan to ever own, unless I root a phone.
Flash drive?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
But there's still likely several you can't actually uninstall.
Article addresses this:
Just another second banana
Hmm... That'll work until the technology changes from Flash to something else. Perhaps it's time there was a generic term for persistent storage used to store files that isn't specific to the medium it's stored on.
Maybe there already is one that's not coming to mind...
the carrier software isn't what's annoying.. it's the handset manufacturer software.
Just another second banana
Well, like I said, I'm comfortable saying "hard drive" because it lets me communicate adequately. I don't complain when people say to "dial" a phone number, either.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
We have rewritten the OS. It's now called Cyanogenmod. :-D
What code have you committed to Cyanogenmod?
Nexus 4tw!
I think in the vernacular, 'flash drive' is already a synonym for 'USB drive' or 'thumb drive.'
Of course, not all drives connected over USB are thumb-sized, either...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
If you want to be really nerdy, I think you'd just say "persistent storage". But I'm cool with "hard drive".
By the way, remember how Palm kept everything in memory all the time, which is how they had such great performance on such spartan hardware? I think there might be some room for that on smartphones, which would further blur the line.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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?
So, tell it you were born in Auckland New Zealand, went to school at a Yeshiva in Morocco Spain, and currently live in Dublin Ohio and work at Starbucks.
Pollute their data. That was the only way I got them to stop asking (not with that particular combination, but run wild, have fun with it).
If they're so obsessed with having you fill in something, lie to them. What Facebook wants out of the deal isn't my concern.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No, but Apple installs some, and with less ways of exploring it. At least they did back when I had my 3G.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Risking my karma with an 'shill' opinion, but on Windows Phone the only apps that can't be uninstalled are the basic built-in OS ones like Mail, IE and Camera. ANY and ALL crapware can be completely removed with click-hold, uninstall. For this reason you don't see much crapware, at least on UK providers.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
But there's still likely several you can't actually uninstall. On my HTC phone, I can't uninstall Facebook, but I can disable it. On my Google Nexus, I've had Google re-enable some apps I've specifically disabled because I don't want them.
If you have root access you can just remove any apks you don't like from /system/app and they're gone for good. You can always get root if you buy the Nexus phones or the so-called "developer" phones. If you can't have root access because the your device is locked down from the bootloader (and no one has yet published an expliot to unlock it), then that essentially means you don't "own" the hardware.
They all try to put their crapware on the devices, and can make it awfully difficult to remove or disable them. Because they like to pretend they still own the devices, and they figure their desire to monetize your device outweighs your desire to lock it down.
Well, to be fair, they feel that way because they sold you a $600 phone for $200. So it's not really that outrageous they woud try to recoup that difference, by doing their best to force you to use their shitware. The confusion arises from the fact that you expect to fully own a device, while paying subsidized price.
If you really want to have full control of your device, then you'll need to adjust your expectations, that a high-end phone is $600 and not $200.
I specifically went with the Google branded Nexus so I wouldn't have to worry about the crap from a 3rd party, but that doesn't mean Google has made it any easier to strip out the shit you don't want
AFAIK all Nexus devices are bootloader unlocked, which means you can do whatever you want with the device, up to ripping out the whole operating system and installing your own. Does Google make it easy for you to remove their stuff? No. But that's no different from say a laptop. Does Microsoft make it easy for you to remove IE? When I buy a Thinkpad, there's Microsoft shit and Lenovo shit, and they don't make it easy for me remove their shit, but there's nothing stopping me from installing Linux. Same goes for smart phones, which are essentially small computers.
Welcome to the exciting future, where you don't own the stuff you buy, and the company who made it has embedded everything possible to give them access to your information.
The fact is, it really isn't that bad, at least not yet. The phone manufacturers are more than happy to sell you "developer" devices at a full price, and if that's too expensive then get a Nexus. The subsidized pricing model seems to flourish especially in the US market, presumably because the carriers make back much more than loss on the initial hardware sale over the long run. But the consumers are not without blame, as they've basically voted with their wallets saying that it's OK to trade their freedom (to tinker) and their privacy for a couple hundred bucks off their new shiny device. Luckily the choice is still there, but just don't expect to pay $200 for a $600 device and still be able to do whatever you want with 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
It's a stretch, but there you go!
("Hard" specifically refers to the platter, as opposed to "floppy" - which I always found funny as a technical term.)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
instead, the fuckers at apple require your credit card number to have an apple store account so you can get updates to your phone and computer
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
The internet was built on anonymity
Not really. It was built without consideration either way to anonymity. Then along came cookies and TOR.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I have to give you points for your comment on BB's tablet. This probably has to do with the fact that BB abandoned it.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Oh, I forgot.
It won't be dead within a year. Too many governments rely on its baked-in security.
Besides, why would anyone buy something different just to stick it to the 2 big corps that don't give a shit about their lemmings. (Face it. The only thing they care about are their stockholders)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
No, a better solution is to wipe the phone clean. It doesn't matter if it is BB, iPhone or Droid. WIPE IT Clean and install only the things you need. Anything less is NOT acceptable security wise.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
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!
Yep, lack of 'Kewlness' is exactly why millions have moved onto other platforms. Blackberry simply needs more bling and maybe a pic of Justin Beiber carrying one in blurry foreground in front of his toned rippling chest muscles to get the youngsters all hot for it.
You can always install Ubuntu on your Nexus, then everything is open and you can turn off what you don't like or remove it.