Why are we still fighting smartphone bloatware in 2025?
https://www.androidauthority.com/fighting-bloatware-2025-3505475/Open linkView original on discuss.tchncs.de367
Comments145https://www.androidauthority.com/fighting-bloatware-2025-3505475/Open linkView original on discuss.tchncs.de
Because money.
and the most delicious kind of money of all: dark money! ooooh it's so good because the sources of the dark money offer you a lot of it, and they specifically ask you not to ask questions, which is so good for you because these bloatware programs make your device sell worse and provides no value as a sales platform because it turns out that billboards and radio spots are, surprisingly, the most effective form of advertising.
but! you have a sense of solidarity. you have faith that by never offering a phone without bloatware, your entire industry will ensure that all phones won't have bloatware. you rest easy at night knowing your phone won't sell poorly, at the end of the day, because every phone is like this. your contributions to a surveillance and propaganda machine that should punish you in the market because won't because all your peers are your allies in this.
and it gets better! every time someone else's phone gets more bloatware and more dark money attached, then everyone else appears comparatively better, allowing them to get worse. ooooh you love it so much when you get to take more dark money. and all it costs you are several thousand lives far away from your big mansion. you don't even have to see the suffering
adb deviceadb shellpm list packages | grep 'packagename'you have to be careful what packages you remove, some can softlock your device.
The big one that matters is Verizon Software Manager. Used to be DT Ignite or something. They try to disguise that garbage forced installer as something genuine. I forget what it is on AT&T but I think it still has DT in the package name. The Verizon one is like some crazy package name thats not the name of the software at all. Must be the name of the company that makes it.
everytime i factory reset my device so much bloat/spy/malware gets installed automagically
Keep that thang (abd) on you
naw, it gets tiring. Either A) im going back to the flip phone i have or B) once i save up enough money ill get a pixel and install graphene.
For the same reason we have every fucking other problem in the world right now.
Capitalism.
You cannot align incentives towards growing the wealth of a microscopic yet astronomically lecherous group of monsters and expect society to not just crumble under the weight.
It's 2024 though?
Yep, time zones. Some places are in 2025 already and the US is stuck in 1940.
i just want to be in the 80s/90s with a text terminal using lynx
you suggestij we win this fight within this month?
press X to doubt
If you're still in 2024, you're already behind. Get on with the times and start grinding. DM for a link to my weebinar and 5% discount on my eebook.
Because it's profitable to include.
Why would companies care as much about the minor brand value decrease in the eyes of more technical users when they can make more money right now by making things shittier?
Because people keep buying Xiaomi and Samsung shit that's loaded with crap (at least over here, I understand this varies massively by region).
Base Android is also loaded with crap, directly from Google. Android is the worst mobile operating system, with the exception of all the others.
Base Android (AOSP) is not, what you probably mean is Google Android.
Look at GrapheneOS, that is a usable, privacy-focused Android without bloat.
It works on pixels only, I don't trust Google hardware
There are many other custom ROMs that don't need pixel. Try LineageOS.
I've used it for many years. Lineageos is a largest rom sure .
The issue is that google fucks with base android more and more. Now they made it that there is that yellow logo on boot - your android is insecure. Then banking apps are not working.
Updating from android to android on lineage was a chore on oneplus 8t.
And I ended up not being able to rollback to stock because I wanted to trade in for A new model.
It just makes it harder to use roms.
That's fair
Almost none of the devices are shipped with anything but Google's Android, and manufacturers don't provide you alternative versions of Android
Yes, Google owns Android as a whole, but (almost?) every single OEM customizes Android for their purposes. That is not the same thing.
Moto doesn't.
I guess we just have a simple task - to make sure that all android phones are running base android.
How do u propose that could be done?
Legislation to allow installing arbitrary OS and firmware on all consumer devices.
At least Samsung phones are only bloated with Samsung apps, which in most part you can uninstall or disable. Although it's still fucking stupid that when you buy a new phone you need to do a lot of maintenance just to make your phone work as it should, and not slow down because of shitty apps.
My Samsung tablet had a lot of non Samsung apps, some even duplicating Samsung ones.
I disabled no less than 10, there are other 10 I can't
my samsung phone had tiktok on install
Many budget phones get paid money to install other apps by default, this can be useful for you so you get more hardware for the money
This is a S21 Ultra, bought for $1000+ at launch.
Nvm
I mind the Google crap more than I mind the Samsung stuff. At least Samsung's browser supports ad blockers since ages. That Chrome POS is just useless.
i buy samsung cause parts aka easier to source parts.
fixing phones is the biggest scam ever. once you open the phone you are always going to have problems with the phone. they are not made to be opened and repaired.
As much as I hate this saying, it sounds like a skill issue
I've done repairs on all my phones. New buttons, screens, batteries, ports, etc. I've never caused an unforeseen new issue by doing so.
Its not so much a skill issue, more so phone repair stores are the scams. they break stuff that wasn't broken in the first place and get you to come back with the that issue or say it was also broken. Source: used to work in the phone repair industry and knew people who did this on the regular and is a standard.
What you describe is literally a skill issue though, if they're breaking unrelated components.
Depends on the model, and the manufacturers would certainly prefer you replaced it, but I've privately fixed a few phones for friends/family. Fucked up and broke the first one, but the ones after are pretty much all still running without issue.
you can argue that iphones and pixel phones etc... have bloatware/spyware/malware as well.
And laptops, desktops, televisions ...
Sadly, there are a few programs I can't run on Linux but I use it daily, no windows
What programs?
fair enough, nobody is forcing you to switch, but Inkscape is there, and i am pretty sure there is a replacement program for on-the-fly recording (never looked into it, i don't really play games like that)
I tried Xubuntu years ago because my PC was shit then kinda abandoned it, got tired of windows and installed Linux. After a big update, Linux broke and trying to reinstall it I... Picked the wrong partition and deleted windows lol
Inkscape is nice but in used to Affinity Designer and kinda love it. For Adrenaline I'm sure it exists but steam built-in feature is enough.
I love my Linux and fuck Micro$oft
I want to add here my deeply missed Playnite. There is nothing under Linux that comes close. I've settled for the combination of steam, heroic and lutris, but that is not even close for sure.
While I don't know all the details, and as far as I know there has been no official statement that it will support Linux, the current rewrite of the codebase that is going on will at least allow much easier compatability with Linux. So there's hope :)
It doesn't support steam but what about Heroic Launcher
i already use heroic, but my issue is that there is nothing where i can add ALL games regardless of source; in playnite i was able to add everything from amiga 500 games over ps2 games to current pc games, with great costumisation, integration of steamgriddb, addition of pcgameswiki links, the ability to start scripts and programs at the launch and the end of the game, is well controllable by gamepad (heroics gamepad support works, but where your selection jumps if you press up or down is a bit of a mystery; and pressing b to return to your library after looking at a game places you cursor somewhere not clearly defined, not to the last selection.) and offers a huge selection of plugins.
Most mainline Linux distro work pretty seamlessly with secureboot these days.
ugh. wanted to get a oled tv but will not buy a smart tv.
Just keep it offline and get yourself a Nvidia shield as a multimedia station. They are excellent.
yeah I really don't want to have to but that is what I had to do with my fridge. keep it offline.
Same for my dishwasher. I don't even understand why that thing asked for a wifi connection in the first place, it's not like I can remotely unload it or anything. And a notification is perfectly useless when I can just check my watch...
heck I was mad years ago when my microwave wanted to know the year. this stuff is getting rediculous. I need to start a thing like the amish but no internet connections allowed except for computers and phones. well ok cameras and sensors.
Luckily most devices work perfectly fine without internet. And I get the convenience of being able to switch on the heating or lower the window blinds and stuff from the office before leaving so that it's nice at home, but we did that back in the 90s with a simple timer.
most of the time a timer is more useful than remote access. I have been very tempted to pick up a clapper.
Honestly ... Just don't connect the TV to the Internet.
ive been pretty anti consumerist lately so I don't need much to get me to not buy things.
We're not. It's 2024.
You mean it'll all magically go *POOF!* come the new year?!? I'll wait until then to set up my new phone, then!
They are a prefect example of I'm a prviliged person who has not suffered so I refuse to believe that the current system causes suffering
It's called enshitification. Deshitification isn't so much a thing.
Is it really enshitification if it was like this from essentially the start?
Outside of like literally the very first few android phones when there wasn't even apps for the platform, they came bundled with all sorts of shit. I remember my HTC from 2010 drove me insane with the junkware bundled in, and that was about 2 years post Android's first phone. We're at like more or less steady state shitification. (varies by phone/brand)
I used to buy my phones with a specific eye towards avoiding bloat. It was still possible to avoid most of it 8-10 years ago, but not anymore.
This is a wild take for me. I had bloatware on my dumbphone. Hell, the old nokia phones had app/ringtone dlc bullshit in them too. My old palm pilot had bloatware. Where did you get a phone without it?
Not without it, just a lot less. 1plus used to be not too bad. Not like today where dozens of apps come with everything.
What's sad is how true this is. Companies enshitify once they have a solid hold on the market. But if they start to slip in numbers, do they ever deshitify to regain trust and users? Fuck no, they triple down on the enshitification to make one last cash grab as they prepare to abandon ship with life preservers full of bonuses for themselves
'Cos capitalism.
Facebook, Netflix and Spotify are bloatware.
IMO all google and manufacturer apps are too, they should be optional during install.
Capitalism
The problem is that most phones don't support ROM's like Graphene or Linage, as people installing custom roms is a relic of years past. Next time you get a phone, think about if you want this option for yourself. Also, do keep in mind that some phones have HW backdoors on them, so even installing a stock rom/graphene does not save you from privacy.
They made it very hard to install roms.
There is this orange warning on boot.
Then banking apps don't work.
With a rooted phone you can install Zygisk (magisk + zygote) and then a bunch of modules that simulate system integrity.
What you need are "play integrity fix" and "playcurl_NEXT".
The first module lets you bypass the google play integrity check, the second one will download updated integrity fingerprint files every 5 minutes to ensure that the bypass never fails.
If you know how to install custom ROMs, this part is not a big challenge.
Thank you. Yeah I was aware that there is magysk. Problem is - it's becoming too many hacks to deal with. And I bet it probably breaks from time to time and one has to hack/fix it again?
With playcurl next I didn't experience any issues yet, it's polling a new device fingerprint every couple minutes to make sure your device never ends up on a blocklist, and you can trigger this manually in the magisk app as well.
Can't guarantee it's never going to be blocked if Google changes the algorithm, but that would just mean they have to adjust the fingerprinting as well.
Tell me more!
And lil papa google now forces GPlay Integrity so custom Roms are fucked
I'm gonna look into getting Huawei os
Why Hauwei OS?
It's android but without google . Given how much google fucks with me, I'm willing to say fuck u to google
Google fucks with everyone, now more than ever with this "recommended" (forced) play integrity. Look at the recent ban from Uber, Authy (thank god I switched a few days ago) and some other apps
I was curious why Hauwei and not LineageOS, GrapheneOS, Calyx, etc
tbh recently I just don't have time to futs with roms.
Ive used lineage for many years. And would love to use it permanently but banking apps is a problem for me and having to hack things too much is a problem for me.
Obviously some linux mobile distro would have been ideal. but There isn't anything usable.
calyx/graphene - the model selection is just too limited. And I would never buy a google or apple device.
lineage os doesn't support oneplus 12R I use now (well there is unofficial rom).
so I would like to try huawei, the hope is - it's like android but naturally without google because its designed like that.
Nah you can easily bypass play integrity on a rooted phone, see my comment above.
https://infosec.pub/comment/13265730
I'm using Grapheneos and rooting the room will make it less secure 🤷♂️ and I don't see why root my phone
My primary use case was magisk to enable taking screenshots from otherwise protected apps. Was living in China for almost 7 years, and even though I speak it quite alright, reading is a whole other level. And there are quite a few apps there that I had to use on a regular basis that had this damned flag_secure enabled so I couldn't otherwise take screenshots to run them through a translation app.
The second one was system level adblock, since the alternative is for adblockers to install themselves as local VPNs routing traffic to 127.0.0.1; however being in China meant I actually had to use a real VPN to access the free internet, and I certainly didn't want to choose between ads or privacy. The latter still applies; I'm using a VPN on most days.
Lastly, being able to use magisk also gives me access to some advanced security apps such as Hibernator (freezes apps, meaning they are basically uninstalled and reactivated on press, so they can't use data, don't get updated etc.), Storage Isolation (lets you configure on a per-app basis which folders it might access), App Ops (advanced permission management, which also includes an ignore function that acts like as if a certain permission was granted, but would feed random data or zeros to the app).
Being able to uninstall everything including system apps is also nice, though that can still be achieved with adb. Browsing root folders when looking for specific data is also nice, but I used that twice in about 5 years, so it's probably not essential.
Well its known that SoC's have backdoors on them. Usually it calls home to China, so you can guess what that's for.
Honestly I don't really give a shit if China invades my privacy I have nothing they'd care about anyway. I just don't want American corporations doing it to try to sell me more shit.
I do. fuck china.
Fuck em sure. But they can't reach me , us corporations that block US gdpr legislation year after year - they want to use my data and fuck me over
fuck the CIA and fuck PRISIM
With u on this sentiment
So phone like Xiaomi? Sorry, I'm kinda dumb in this
Xiaomi is the biggest offender, but all of them do it.
Fair. Didn't know that
why do you think richard stallman doesn't use a smartphone?
That's true. Graphene is majorly Pixel limited, I guess. And even Lineage has a small set of devices when one considers the nos of OEMs and variants they manufacture per year.
Even pixel or Fairphone is fairly free of bloatware compared to Samsung and shitty Chinese brands as long as you are not privacy paranoid about Google services.
I am privacy paranoid.
And that's fine, but first people like you (and me to some extent) are in the vast minority and that's also not an issue of bloatware per se.
yeah the only problem is that i have to participate in this hellhole capitalist society. Im trying to figure out what the best VPN is to use, along side if tor is worth using.
Most people aren't - they've given up the fight.
Time to load up some custom Android OS. Lineage, Graphene, seem to be the best at the moment. Any others?
DivestOS seems like a solid choice too
Jesus, their device download page is a hot mess.
CalyxOS, if your posture isn't strick enough to require GrapheneOS (more strict than the Average Joe, but not as strict as Snowden).
With a supported phone, on a Chromium browser on Windows. It takes much more than that usually, depending on device, to unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM
Doesn't' the fork like Lineage OS or Graphene also need to support those phone models first?
...and then you're locked out of using your phone to pay for things, can't install banking apps and marginal ID apps, et cetera. 😢
Yes and not for me. Having my dad's card on my phone without having the physical card is not that bad
fair enough, a unique situation.
Switched a week ago to grapheneos, I love it and fuck google
Unlocking bootloader took me few hours.
I must register new account, install Windows application (Linux not supported, but Windows Server evaluation is free and works as a VM),
have valid SIM card with Internet access.
But worth it, much better experience.
Unfortunately, average person won't do all this things.
That sounds like Xiaomi. The best price to performance ratio of any OEM, but at the cost of terrible software and this... experience... when you want to get rid of it.
Worth noting that not all OEMs are like this.
Yeah, bingo.
I hope there are no backdoors in a firmware or modem.
Anti-libre software steals our control. When you see a licence text file like GPL missing, 🚩
It's 2024.
Because we let them.
Universal Android Debloater
Because it's profitable.
Money makes everything possible
Recently, my phone updated without my consent (even though I turned auto updates off) and added Gemini
Like WTF Samsung
This is most prevalent on androids, even stock pixel. As much as I like to shit on apple, they have less bloat on your phone. Of course whatever native app you have on there, you wouldn't able to delete, whereas on android you could delete it if you really wanted to.
Only on Android and Windows.
Zero issues on Linux and MacOS
iOS doesn't come with any preinstalled Apple bloatware either. Oh, wait.
It’s hardly intrusive, no pop ups or “hey I’m here” notifications. You can uninstall most of them in seconds without special tools.
Android crapware is much more deeper, it’s not stuff your grandma can uninstall.
Can you uninstall Apple TV, Apple Music, Books, FaceTime, Fitness/Health, Podcasts, and News?
Can you disable Safari or the App Store?
Can you install non–Apple-sanctioned apps?
Which isn't to say Android's situation is great for various manufacturers, just weird to not include iOS.
Yes for all of the first group.
No for Safari.
My need to install “unsanctioned” apps on my phone is on par with my need to install random apps on my PS5. Zero. YMMV.
Open source android apps has entered the hallway, I'm sorry but the amount of cool, open-source privacy respecting apps on android is MAGNITUDES higher than IOS, I wouldn't like having a locked down phone on my hand, it's painful. My need to use "unsanctioned" apps is on par with wanting to eat fruits after cutting them in even pieces instead of biting on the whole. It's a strong preference thing because I would not like having to eat whole apples(for example) EVERY TIME I eat.
If that's your definition of bloatware then this point:
Is pretty silly as Android has less apps built into the OS, and I can actually go into settings and disable them very easily. Specific phone carriers might add bullshit on top of that, but that's not Android doing that
Android is giving the carriers the option to do that. They don’t need to give the tools for crapware installation
Implying that we should not give anyone any freedom just because it can be abused, Developers can make better and more privacy respecting OS than vanilla android and we should just flush all that drown the drain and instead shove everything vanilla into everyone's ass. GREAAAT!
...
installs custom rom
Their problem.
Wait a second, iOS is chock full of garbage that you can't uninstall whatsoever. At least on Android you have a chance to get rid of everything.
With the exception of Safari, you can uninstall every application using the standard process.
Can you do that for Android carrier crapware that’s preinstalled? Just tap on it and choose uninstall?
I never buy phones from carriers, always directly from manufacturers, so no idea. Manufacturer bloat can be deleted pretty straightforward.
You do understand that you’re not in the majority?
The root problem is that Android lets carriers “enhance” their devices with crapware and also make it hard or impossible to install without technical know-how
While also, making device cheaper, if I can get the same device with the same specs with a diffrence of 100usd with extra bloatware(plus bootloader unlocking capabilities), you know what I'm buying
I don't know anybody buying those crappy carrier deals, to be honest. They had a place and time in the early 2000s, but beyond that they seemed to die out mostly. Maybe still a thing in the US, no idea.
Few people want to pay full price for their phone.
I mean, yeah, but there's also manufacturer bloatware. This model year, Samsung in particular has outdone themselves with the implementation of their AI chatbot nearly zero percent of their customer base wanted.