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This kind of thing is hardly new. PC makers have been preloading software for a fee at least since the 90s. It should come as no surprise that such software doe

by Zak 9y ago

This kind of thing is hardly new. PC makers have been preloading software for a fee at least since the 90s. It should come as no surprise that such software doesn't always align with the user's best interests. It's common with phones too. My new Sony phone came with several Sony apps as well as Facebook installed as non-removable system apps. None of these are necessary for proper function, as it can run a third-party build of Android that doesn't include any of them. Facebook in particular is an odd one. I can understand preloading it since it's very popular, but why the hell is it a system app?

Nursie 9y ago
Because they paid Sony, most likely. I'm assuming that's why Evernote came as a system app on my Samsung too. And a load of other crap.
michaelmrose 9y ago
Its a system app because on the majority of androids sold the user doesn't have root access to their own device and can't remove system apps. They could potentially be getting some useful saleable data from you, possibly even if you don't use facebook.
vbernat 9y ago
On Android, system apps cannot be uninstalled but can usually be disabled. In "Settings", "Apps", select the app and choose "Disable".
- romanovcode 9y ago
  "Disabled" https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/ https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...
- dabber 9y ago
  This was annoying to me when I had an older phone with less available memory. Many of the system apps were useless to me and just served to take up space. The system partition had to take up enough space to accommodate these apps whether I used them or not which resulted in less available space for what I did use. Pretty annoying.
- Zak 9y ago
  Correct. My (mostly rhetorical) question is why is Facebook installed in this way? It certainly doesn't need to be. It runs just fine on phone/roms that don't preload it, installed as a user app. My phone is rooted, and I've uninstalled it properly using Titanium Backup. There were also hidden Facebook "app installer" and "app manager" apps, which I removed.
  - woodrowbarlow 9y ago
    doesn't the "chat bubbles" feature require being installed as a system app?
    - Zak 9y ago
      There's a permission for drawing over other apps.
    - AlphaWeaver 9y ago
      You're thinking of Facebook Messenger, and no, it doesn't.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    My understanding is that "system app" just means it's baked into the ROM. So it's not actually possible to uninstall it without flashing. Disabling removes it from all the application lists except the one in settings where you can re-enable it. [0] My guess is that the rooted uninstall is removing it from all system lists. But the binary is still there in your ROM, unless you've flashed a new ROM that removes it. [0] This is also why the disable button dialog discusses uninstalling the updates to an application. Because updates are obviously not written into the ROM; they're in normal application storage.
    - Zak 9y ago
      ROM might imply that it's a different hardware storage device or some such. That's not normally the case; it's just a different partition mounted at /system. User apps are in /data/app while system apps are in /system/app. /system shouldn't normally be writable at runtime on non-rooted devices, so updates get installed to /data/app like user apps. A proper uninstall with root, e.g. using Titanium Backup does remove the app from /system/app.
- kibwen 9y ago
  Fun fact: disabling Chrome on my phone (flagship Google) causes every single app to crash on every interaction, including third-party apps like Signal.
  - dylz 9y ago
    Try installing another browser and the AOSP webview and set it to default
- kuschku 9y ago
  Fun fact: On Nexus devices, the Google app can not ever be disabled, nor can Google Now Launcher – not even if you don’t use them for anything, and have alternatives set as default for everything. Here’s a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/QbJF1AG.png https://i.imgur.com/QbJF1AG.png
pc86 9y ago
I just switched to Android after being an iOS user since the iPhone 4. Honestly the fact that I have this stupid "Bixby" button on the side of the Note 8, almost perfectly in the middle, that I hit by accident maybe every third time I pick the phone up, is infuriating. No way to uninstall it, no way to turn it off, just a ~30% chance of launching some stupid app I don't want to use every time I pick the phone up. I'm sure it will get better over time but I don't want to have to change the way I pick up my phone to avoid Samsung's garbageware.
- kalcode 9y ago
  The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it. Like why buy it? Did you not see the button when you looked at the product? Did you not read any reviews? So many other phones to select from and users are buying a phone with a button they don't want. Companies continue to get away with these poor design decisions and forcing this system-wide apps because we continue to buy their products.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it. If it's the best phone otherwise, why not buy it? It's not a deal-breaker; it's just annoying.
    - Zak 9y ago
      > If it's the best phone otherwise Is it? I'm not up to date on the latest models, but in the past when I've compared Samsung's flagships to others, there wasn't a really obvious winner. I always found it a little weird that Samsung got such a large share of the market.
      - pavel_lishin 9y ago
        I have absolutely no idea if the actual phone in question is objectively the best one, but it might be the best one for pc86 - except for the Bixby button, which might be the price they're willing to pay for everything else.
andrewaylett 9y ago
Because it's part of the factory install, and should be available after a factory reset. Much easier to do it that way than to either add a first-boot process to install it as a non-system app (thereby taking twice the space) or have the factory flash include it in the user partition, which means that a factory reset doesn't actually return the device to the state in which it left the factory.
- Zak 9y ago
  > Because it's part of the factory install, and should be available after a factory reset. That does make a bit of sense, though I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to tell Google Play to install a list of apps after the first boot.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    In most cases that's all those apps are. At least in the case of things like "Google Sheets" and "Google Docs" the preinstalled apps are only like 1kb, and are basically just placeholders telling google to go to the play store and download the current version of the app once the phone is started (unless you disable and uninstall updates, at which point it's back to the 1kb placeholder)
ksk 9y ago
I don't agree with that. I think it aligns well with what the average user expects. 1) Give me all the stuff I need pre-loaded. 2) Don't make me do system management. Do it all for me.

by Zak 9y ago

Nursie 9y ago

Because they paid Sony, most likely. I'm assuming that's why Evernote came as a system app on my Samsung too. And a load of other crap.

michaelmrose 9y ago

Its a system app because on the majority of androids sold the user doesn't have root access to their own device and can't remove system apps. They could potentially be getting some useful saleable data from you, possibly even if you don't use facebook.

vbernat 9y ago

On Android, system apps cannot be uninstalled but can usually be disabled. In "Settings", "Apps", select the app and choose "Disable".

romanovcode 9y ago
"Disabled" https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/ https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locatio...
dabber 9y ago
This was annoying to me when I had an older phone with less available memory. Many of the system apps were useless to me and just served to take up space. The system partition had to take up enough space to accommodate these apps whether I used them or not which resulted in less available space for what I did use. Pretty annoying.
Zak 9y ago
Correct. My (mostly rhetorical) question is why is Facebook installed in this way? It certainly doesn't need to be. It runs just fine on phone/roms that don't preload it, installed as a user app. My phone is rooted, and I've uninstalled it properly using Titanium Backup. There were also hidden Facebook "app installer" and "app manager" apps, which I removed.
- woodrowbarlow 9y ago
  doesn't the "chat bubbles" feature require being installed as a system app?
  - Zak 9y ago
    There's a permission for drawing over other apps.
  - AlphaWeaver 9y ago
    You're thinking of Facebook Messenger, and no, it doesn't.
- jdmichal 9y ago
  My understanding is that "system app" just means it's baked into the ROM. So it's not actually possible to uninstall it without flashing. Disabling removes it from all the application lists except the one in settings where you can re-enable it. [0] My guess is that the rooted uninstall is removing it from all system lists. But the binary is still there in your ROM, unless you've flashed a new ROM that removes it. [0] This is also why the disable button dialog discusses uninstalling the updates to an application. Because updates are obviously not written into the ROM; they're in normal application storage.
  - Zak 9y ago
    ROM might imply that it's a different hardware storage device or some such. That's not normally the case; it's just a different partition mounted at /system. User apps are in /data/app while system apps are in /system/app. /system shouldn't normally be writable at runtime on non-rooted devices, so updates get installed to /data/app like user apps. A proper uninstall with root, e.g. using Titanium Backup does remove the app from /system/app.
kibwen 9y ago
Fun fact: disabling Chrome on my phone (flagship Google) causes every single app to crash on every interaction, including third-party apps like Signal.
- dylz 9y ago
  Try installing another browser and the AOSP webview and set it to default
kuschku 9y ago
Fun fact: On Nexus devices, the Google app can not ever be disabled, nor can Google Now Launcher – not even if you don’t use them for anything, and have alternatives set as default for everything. Here’s a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/QbJF1AG.png https://i.imgur.com/QbJF1AG.png

pc86 9y ago

I just switched to Android after being an iOS user since the iPhone 4. Honestly the fact that I have this stupid "Bixby" button on the side of the Note 8, almost perfectly in the middle, that I hit by accident maybe every third time I pick the phone up, is infuriating. No way to uninstall it, no way to turn it off, just a ~30% chance of launching some stupid app I don't want to use every time I pick the phone up. I'm sure it will get better over time but I don't want to have to change the way I pick up my phone to avoid Samsung's garbageware.

kalcode 9y ago
The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it. Like why buy it? Did you not see the button when you looked at the product? Did you not read any reviews? So many other phones to select from and users are buying a phone with a button they don't want. Companies continue to get away with these poor design decisions and forcing this system-wide apps because we continue to buy their products.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > The weird part about people complaining about the Bixby button is the fact they bought it. If it's the best phone otherwise, why not buy it? It's not a deal-breaker; it's just annoying.
  - Zak 9y ago
    > If it's the best phone otherwise Is it? I'm not up to date on the latest models, but in the past when I've compared Samsung's flagships to others, there wasn't a really obvious winner. I always found it a little weird that Samsung got such a large share of the market.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      I have absolutely no idea if the actual phone in question is objectively the best one, but it might be the best one for pc86 - except for the Bixby button, which might be the price they're willing to pay for everything else.

andrewaylett 9y ago

Because it's part of the factory install, and should be available after a factory reset. Much easier to do it that way than to either add a first-boot process to install it as a non-system app (thereby taking twice the space) or have the factory flash include it in the user partition, which means that a factory reset doesn't actually return the device to the state in which it left the factory.

Zak 9y ago
> Because it's part of the factory install, and should be available after a factory reset. That does make a bit of sense, though I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to tell Google Play to install a list of apps after the first boot.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  In most cases that's all those apps are. At least in the case of things like "Google Sheets" and "Google Docs" the preinstalled apps are only like 1kb, and are basically just placeholders telling google to go to the play store and download the current version of the app once the phone is started (unless you disable and uninstall updates, at which point it's back to the 1kb placeholder)

ksk 9y ago

I don't agree with that. I think it aligns well with what the average user expects. 1) Give me all the stuff I need pre-loaded. 2) Don't make me do system management. Do it all for me.