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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.
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.
One little problem with this: I bought a Samsung and it has been installing tons of unremovable bloatware ever since. The stuff was not all there at the start.
It's not like there was a sticker on the box saying "Comes with 50 mandatory apps, will install 50 more once you've paid" either. I'd read a ton of reviews and still had no idea about the extent of the iron-fist they take over your device.
And yes, there's no way I'm buying another Samsung ever again, so whether this changes anything is largely immaterial to me.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
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
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.
Install CyanogenMod
Same. I have unsuccessfully tried to root my Samsung Galaxy S5 in an attempt to rid myself of the bloatware that is installed upon it.
Crying baby monitor ? Really ? :|
It is unlikely I will utilize another Samsung device assuming I even bother to go with a smartphone at all.
Deaf people have babies, too.
Rooting isn't so bad on an S5, either: Downgrade the phone to a version that towelroot works on (using odin). Install towelroot, safestrap (in that order). Flash a rooted Lollipop ROM of your choosing using Safestrap.
Being able to understand and complete the rooting process for a given device is something that I do before I even consider buying it.
Kid-proof tablet..