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.
It's 2025 already?
Shit, I overslept again.
Wake me up when this eternal September ends
Money
Now I got that Pink Floyd song in my head
I moved from samsung's trash-filled bloat os to lineageos, and my only regret is not doing it sooner.
You mean recent Samsung devices are compatible?
The frustrating thing is all the information and materials to support Samsung devices is out there, but the custom ROM development community is so ridiculously toxic and unhelpful to newcomers that few people are willing and able to mainline new devices (and supporting a new device is complicated enough that you pretty much can't get started without someone more experienced to point out the decades of cruft, pitfalls, and vendor-specific workarounds that the build processes have accumulated). More of the old guard leaves every year without enough new blood to replace them.
I buy my device only based on if I can load a differenti os
This is the mandatory prerequisite for me.
So i bought a refurbished s20u (same spec of s24u except for camera and CPU basically)
Search for lineage os your phone model if you're lucky someone will have ported the project to your device, the more popular it was the more likely
There are reasonable instructions
Your phone will need an unlocked bootloader, and it will not be able to be locked again while running lineage. This will prevent the use of any secure software which includes most bank apps, login authenticators. Local security is entirely bypassed by the unlocked bootloader
Use it Google free
Because Google and Samsung are rich and powerful.
I thought it is still 2024
You think the problem will go away this month?
Of course not! But it doesn't go away even in 2026 and I wouldn't write that in the article.
I just install LineageOS. It doesn't have any bloatware or Android modifications that the manufacturer added
That's great if you have one of the handful of phones supported, but for the rest of us, not so much.
GrapheneOS > LineageOS, but unfortunately the list of supported devices is even smaller.
I don't even pay any attention. I boot the phone for the very first time, go through the setup thing, and click no to as many things as possible, get into the home screen, open settings, open developer settings, turn on USB debugging, and turn the phone off and install lineage OS with no Google apps.
There's bloatware?
continues on using GrapheneOS
Not only is there bloatware, a fuckton of things prevent you from installing a custom OS on many phones ranging from DRM built into the phone, to the carrier your service is provided by. My phone is compatible with Graphene and I want Graphene; but TMO won't let me unlock my phone to install Graphene (even though it's fully paid off). 😠
Shizuku + canta and you can forget about bloatware
Worthless article. But the point is valid...
I'm switching to FairPhone as soon as my current phone dies. https://www.fairphone.com/
I haven't considered Google android as usable for like a decade, went down the custom ROM route and it's the best thing I've ever done when it comes to mobile use.
Being able to install what ever operating system I want is a hard make or break for me when it comes to purchases ever since.
They bought it...
Not my problem if someone doesn't read the tiniest bit about a $600+ product before purchase.
