Why are we still fighting smartphone bloatware in 2025?
I was excited to dive into my new smartphone only to once again waste precious time uninstalling bloatware before I could enjoy it.
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
It's 2024 though?
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.
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.
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.
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.
you can argue that iphones and pixel phones etc... have bloatware/spyware/malware as well.
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
And laptops, desktops, televisions ...
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)
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.
Capitalism
Is cancer
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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. 😢
It's a tradeoff for sure but it's worth it for a lot of people.
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.
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).
Anti-libre software steals our control.
It's 2024.
Because we let them.
Business people don't care what you want. They care exclusively about what they have to to do get you to accept what they want.
Because it's profitable.
Recently, my phone updated without my consent (even though I turned auto updates off) and added Gemini
Like WTF Samsung
Money makes everything possible
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
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.
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.
