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South Korea Rules Pre-Installed Phone Bloatware Must Be Deletable (zdnet.com)
New industry guidelines in South Korea will allow smartphone users the option of deleting unnecessary pre-installed bloatware. "The move aims to rectify an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players," said the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, in a press release. ZDNet reports: The measure will also help give users more data storage and improve battery life, said the ministry. Under the new guidelines, telcos are required to make most of their pre-installed apps deletable except for four necessary items related to Wi-Fi connectivity, near-field communication (NFC), the customer service center and the app store.
And headphone jacks, let's bring those back...
When the market fails us, call in the cavalry
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Microsoft's app sent 1MB of data from my phone to their servers. It came pre-installed, and I never used it. At what point exactly did I agree for Microsoft to slurp down 1MB worth of my private data from my phone?
Does it mean that there will be a special firmware version just for Korea with deletable bloatware and the same old for everybody else?
In noticing that the article linked is 5 years old?
I mean, I know /. usually lags a little, but this is crazy.
...
No. There's an out.
the ADB interface allows the installation of apk files over a usb cable.
No need for special lobbying - store needs to remain to allow installation of new software. Otherwise people would delete everything and be left with no way to fix it themselves.
No. There's an out.
the ADB interface allows the installation of apk files over a usb cable.
Or it could be a function in the customer service app.
Granny wont be the one doing the fixing. That's "what she has you for, dear."
Since it is you that needs to know, why bother telling her?
Just turn on developer mode, plug in the damn cable, do the one liner from the console, and stop being a bitch about it. :P
In case you were wondering, it's
abd install [somefile.apk]
AND-- if you want to back up all of granny's stuff, modern android versions support a backup operation, so you can back up all of granny's apps and their associated private data too, and restore it just as easily. (so when she deletes everything and corks up her phone, you can just restore everything and say fuckit.)
See this handy little article for details.
https://9to5google.com/2017/11...
You need to buy a phone from Korea sold after the law have become active first.
Isn't it interesting how the market haven't provided you with what you want and you have to rely on the legislation in another country for companies to get it.
It is almost as if market capitalism doesn't work as advertised unless there are more than a hundred vendors to choose from.
Agreed, I was point out that you can potentially get the playstore back again if somebody deletes it.
(and a properly backed up system image will have a legit copy in the backup.)
Sideloading is intended for testing apps, and for installing private apps that are not on the app store. However, it can be used to get out of the sticky problem that was posed-- what happens when end user deletes the store app.
It explicitly does not mean that. It means "except for four necessary items related to Wi-Fi connectivity, near-field communication (NFC), the customer service center and the app store." Basically, boatware is anything that doesn't need to be on a restore image to make the phone immediately functional and allow convenient re-installation of desired apps.
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"Installation of APK files is a big security risk. Having an properly manged app market that checks packages are safe is the best way to make sure people don't install malware on their devices. Apple are doing the best job at that bet Google is catching up."
Apple and Google have both delivered malware through their app stores. App stores don't make you safe.
"Sideloading is so fcking dangerous."
Do you need the ghost of Steve jobs to hold your dick for you while you piss, too? Loading software from any source is an inherently risky activity, but taking the ability to sideload away from the user is turning their general purpose computing device into a toaster.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"