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Samsung Faces Lawsuit In China Over Smartphone Bloatware
An anonymous reader writes: Samsung is being sued in China for installing too many apps onto its smartphones. The Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission is also suing Chinese vendor Oppo, demanding that the industry do more to rein in bloatware. The group said complaints are on the rise from smartphone users who are frustrated that these apps take up too much storage and download data without the user being aware. Out of a study of 20 smartphones, Samsung and Oppo were found to be the worst culprits. A model of Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 contained 44 pre-installed apps that could not be removed from the device, while Oppo's X9007 phone had 71.
I like my s4, but this is the one thing that has made me consider other manufacturers
My S4 Mini has a crapton of preinstalled, irremovable apps I have no use for, nor do I intend to ever use.
The worst thing was that there was some "update available" for some apps which required more rights and I never agreed to those updates, and I thought they would remain "stuck" on an older version. They didn't. After a few months I saw they got updated on my phone without me approving anything.
TripAdvisor, looking at you!
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Once systemd assimilates all those apps, the number will be much lower.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Funny how when government runs a country, you get government looking out for people/consumers. When corporations runs a country, people/consumers get screwed! Examples: Comcast, AT&T, Sprint, and many others.
Don't like the crap-ware? Don't buy the device.
Went with the Nexus 6 right from the Google Play store.
Sure you can root and remove them as I did on my Note 2. You can get cool custom ROMS even, but my Note 2 was still pretty powerful but ROM makers moved on and it was getting less and less support.
I have several apps on my Samsung Rugby I'll never use. Some are duplicates from Google, Samsung, and my service provider. Some are unremovable games (I don't play games on my phone). Facebook keeps trying to push it's crappy messenger at me that weighs in at over 20 meg, screw that. Options are good, as long as they are optional.
I installed Mobiwol no root firewall (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netspark.firewall) and turn on an off what can get on Wi-Fi and 3G whenever I want. Pretty much everything is always turned off for both, with Wi-Fi only enabled for a few things. Lock access to Mobiwol with something like Avast, and then if someone gets your cellphone unlocked from the main screen (or you just hand the phone to them to use for a few minutes), they won't be able to use certain apps as you've turned off their wifi/xG access and they can't get into Mobiwol unless they have another password.
The free hand of Capitalism should be able to install as much junk and spyware as possible.
And if these apps are useful why not offer free downloads from the play store instead of preinstalling them and making them non-removable? Samsung must be getting paid by software vendors to install these apps or the apps are free and Samsung is selling data collected by these apps.
That's no excuse to install something useless that wastes flash memory and RAM.
Bought a Q8H tablet from China & discovered that it came delivered with two types of very malicious malware (Trojan.coudw.a and another) built right into the factor ROM. If you remove it and do a factory reset then you get it back because it's right there in the NAND recovery image. Perhaps the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission could look into that since it appears to be a rather common problem.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
How much of the bloatware is actually the manufacturer's fault though?
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
The laws that China have on this subject are the same as anywhere else: consumer protection laws.
Really, it's that "can't be removed" part that's the problem. Sure, they should be able to load the phone up with whatever they please before they sell it to you because it's "their" phone. But once your payment has been processed and you walk out of the store with phone in hand, it's no longer "their" phone; it's "your" phone. As long as you can delete programs to create the storage space that they advertise the phone contains, accepting of course that reasonably used space may include the actual OS and system files, but there should never be any cause for any pre-installed app that isn't required for the operation of the OS to be unremovable (spell-check says 'irremovable'; is that even a word?). Especially when that app is eating up your data caps to send information that you don't want it sending and can't stop it from sending.
Where was this answer when Microsoft was bundling IE with Windows and Slashdot was foaming for an AT&T style break up?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
China does have some good points.
[puts on nationalist 'murican hat] It's probably just a propaganda campaign to make the USA look bad
[takes off hat] It's working.
Install CyanogenMod
Absolutely not. Those guys paid their bribes on time. No point in harassing them.
You know something is wrong when you get a new phone, and the first thing you need to do is wipe the OS and install cyanogenmod just so the phone works properly.
This of course assumes that there's a version of cyanogenmod for your phone.
It seems pretty simple to me; if you prefer a device with little or no bloatware, get a device with little or no bloatware.
The same ones in the US and EU that determined that the IE pre-install was anti competitive, and consumer-harming. But the hammer coming down on MS was hailed as a good thing, but coming down on Samsung and Oppo is a bad thing?
Learn to love Alaska
There are no apps installed in "android". There is an android fork called TouchWiz or ColorOS that includes those apps. Why have desktop environments in Linux? After all, they can just download it themselves later, if they wanted it.
Learn to love Alaska
Dont like bloatware? Dont buy phones that come with bloatware.
This is exactly why I only buy Google Nexus devices. 100% stock android with very little bloatware.
Samsung must be getting paid by software vendors to install these apps
Seriously? You sound like you are offering up this excuse as some kind of new theory. Everyone knows that the device manufacturers (phones, PCs, etc.) get paid to put the shitware on their devices.
Appropriate timing. Got 3 notifications from NFL Mobile yesterday. Thanks to whomever mentioned disabling above.
And oddly, I somehow feel safer with the preinstalled Chinese malware vs. the preinstalled NSA malware. Really, it isn't the Chinese that are going to come knocking on my door. But alas, they probably share their data anyway, with some free-trade like spy agreement.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
...but is this something that should be sued over? It's not like the bloatware is harming anyone; it's just freaking annoying.
I feel a company should have the right to choose whether or not to put bloatware on its devices, just like I have a right to avoid purchasing from that company because they're being retarded.
"Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
-Londo Mollari
But once your payment has been processed and you walk out of the store with phone in hand, it's no longer "their" phone; it's "your" phone.
Not if you want to keep your manufacturer's warranty. If you don't care about it, then sure, you are free to do whatever you want with it.
And it includes rooting and flashing custom ROMs, something that is easy to do on Samsung and Oppo phones without using exploits.
I see they mentioned User Dictionary right in the article. I consider User Dictionary to be malware.
I have to lock my version of Google+ to the factory version or else User Dictionary gets stuck in such a tight crash-restart loop that it only yields to the GUI for a split second before presenting the crash dialog. It eats all battery capacity in a few hours while the phone is sitting completely idle.
I have no idea what uses User Dictionary, but you certainly cannot disable it. Also, technically speaking, I don't know whether this is a bug in User Dictionary or Google+ but it should be my choice to chuck a useless, possibly not buggy app in favor of the incredibly useful app I happen to use to backup my photos which may or may not have a bug of its own.
No word from Google on the bug/interaction. I've posted about it, Tweeted about it, and my review of Google+ mentions the issue. I don't know what other forums might be of use, but I don't want to waste any more time on it.
P.S. I plan on using my smartphone for 5-6 years, so throwing away my hardware is not an option. I think people who get new smartphones every 2 years are fools (whether you pay for your phone in cash up front or pay via a jacked up phone bill every month you're still paying for something you don't need). My 3-year-old model still works great, aside from software bugs.
It's still your phone, warranty and all. A warranty doesn't grant a manufacturer ownership of your phone. It even only restricts what you can do with your phone if you want to receive service from the manufacturer. As you say, you can still completely ignore the warranty and do whatever you want with your phone because it is indeed your physical property. And in this case, China at least is saying that the OS owner can't force you to use parts of the OS that you don't want to use, even if that OS is only being used on license and not a transfer of ownership.
Maybe Microsoft will take the hint from this lawsuit and allow you to uninstall the built-in apps that come with Windows 10. Its great that they provide apps like "XBox" and "OneNote" gratis, but I've no interest in them and it bugs me that you can't uninstall them.
Wait, there's a new release version of the Win10 Preview. Maybe that's one of the things they've changed.
Nope, still can't uninstall. I guess Microsoft is really glued to the idea of making your desktop like a crappy smartphone...
unremovable (spell-check says 'irremovable'; is that even a word?).
I only have English as a second language so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I would probably have written 'non-removable'.
Not that it matters, all three versions are perfectly legible so unless 'irremovable' has some archaic implications beyond the obvious they could all be used without confusion.
I hate the practice BUT I think that they should be allowed to include these things provided they are open and honest with the potential customer. They should be required to include the information (outside of the packaging and on advertisements) that says how much space is actually free and how many applications are not able to be removed. I am not a fan of limiting what a business can do by default. So, if they make it clear then I would be okay with it.
Now, not as a demand but as an opinion, I think it would be wise to move to the above type of system. I think that this should also be coupled with an open version which has no applications installed (or can be easily removed) and is easily updated to the newest Android versions as well. They could charge extra for these features. Those phones should also say exactly how much internal storage is available as well. I had an HTC that had something like 32 GB of internal storage and 1/8 or so was already used up with the various applications and whatnot that came with it. Those figures are not, of course, exact but it was kind of surprising how much data was already on the phone and there was not much that I could uninstall.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Umm... Unless I am mistaken that is what they said. Maybe I am reading it wrong? It is in the first sentence...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
To be fair, and honest, the NSA (while detestable) is not going to come knocking on your door unless you are doing something horribly inappropriate according to their rules. I strongly suspect you are not doing anything that they care about. They, on the other hand, are doing something YOU care about and what they are doing is wrong. But, no... They are not going to come knocking on your door at this point in time. Not even if you are pirating software or music. Not even if you badmouth them online - NSA is a bunch of goat fuckers (I will test it and let you know). So you are safe. Hyperbole is not going to help. Just be honest and call them the assholes that they are.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."