Recently, my phone updated without my consent (even though I turned auto updates off) and added Gemini
Like WTF Samsung
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 device
adb shell
pm 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.
You get to feel like a super cool insider in a shadowy club secretly ruling over all the foolish little people who aren’t clever enough to be deemed worthy of receiving dark money!
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.
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
You ain’t wrong but it is currently the gold standard
You ain’t getting away from glowies, but at least corporate marketing trash can’t track you that easily
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 …
- buy a laptop/desktop
- boot up windows and setup with fake shit
- download and flash your favourite linux distro
- disable secure boot
- boot from usb.
- ???
- profit!
Sadly, there are a few programs I can’t run on Linux but I use it daily, no windows
What programs?
- Internet Download Manager (IDM): Yee, I know it may not increase your download speed but was kinda good to have the main folder of downloads and every file by category downloaded in a subdirectories: Images, Documents, videos, etc. Using JDownloader 2 but it’s not the same
- Affinity Designer: I know there is “Inkscape” but I still prefer affinity for it’s UI and because I’m used to it
- AMD Adrenaline: Yeah, maybe was a bloatware and shit but kinda liked the built in record feature and tweaks you could do
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
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.
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Basically, because we don’t own our devices. We are allowed to use our devices by the good graces of the manufacturers that charge a premium for them.
This really needs to change. I remember the preinstalled app antitrust suit(s) in the early 00s. Those need to happen again, but likely the EU will have to as the US is entering a dark age, and the US will continue to have inferior everything to the rest of the world for the foreseeable future.
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.
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.
Amazing how this one word is able to justify so much abuse of the pedon class.
Facebook, Netflix and Spotify are bloatware.
IMO all google and manufacturer apps are too, they should be optional during install.
Most people aren’t - they’ve given up the fight.
Companies want to spy on you and make money, it’s no secret. Just install stock Android or your favorite fork; it quite literally takes 5 minutes with a WebUSB installer.
it quite literally takes 5 minutes with a WebUSB installer.
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
I guess I only have one data point from installing Graphene on my phone. I can see why it would be harder on other devices. Though I was using Linux, and Windows is absolutely not required for WebUSB.
…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. 😢
- do you really need to pay with your phone?
- do you need to use a banking app and not call the automated system to check?
- What ID apps would you used on a phone? Having digital ID’s is in it’s own a huge breach of privacy and i would never consent to such a system
- do you really need to pay with your phone?
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
It’s a tradeoff for sure but it’s worth it for a lot of people.
Doesn’t’ the fork like Lineage OS or Graphene also need to support those phone models first?
Yep, Graphene only runs on Pixels but (IIRC) Lineage runs on most mainstream devices. Otherwise stock Android should work fine.
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.
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.
HW backdoors
Tell me more!
And lil papa google now forces GPlay Integrity so custom Roms are fucked
Nah you can easily bypass play integrity on a rooted phone, see my comment above.
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.
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.
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.
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).
