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Many preinstalled apps that aren't essential are just a stub, a few kb that points to the app store to be downloaded on first boot. When these are "disabled" a

Many preinstalled apps that aren't essential are just a stub, a few kb that points to the app store to be downloaded on first boot. When these are "disabled" all that remains on the device is a pointer to the app store in a disabled state. It's a few KB of data, and in my opinion a fantastic trade-off to actually allowing deletion then not being able to "factory reset" since that data is no longer on the device.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
"Many preinstalled apps that aren't essential are just a stub" I've never seen this. Just about every preinstalled app on the phones I've had are the actual app.
- Tijdreiziger 8y ago
  I bought a Samsung Galaxy S9 a few days back. The preinstalled Facebook app (which I immediately disabled) has a listed version of 'stub (23.1.1)', and it's only 127 kB large.
StudentStuff 8y ago
This is definitely not the case on any Android I've recently worked with, disabling Facebook, Google Play Games, Google Newsstand, etc all just delete the user data and supposedly disable the app. I hate that this shovelware is on my phone in any form, and it makes me regret buying a non-ROMmable phone in the first place.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  It's during that "delete the user data" that it removes any updates to the app leaving behind only the part installed on the system partition (which is read only). But I should have been more clear. not all preinstalled apps are like this, just a lot of the less important ones (at least on google-branded phones, I have no idea what samsung or lg are doing to facebook). I believe it does require the developer of the app to actually implement it though. But either way there is literally no benefit to removing those apps from the system partition. You won't get the space back (different partition), and if they allow users to delete these things they can very easily get their phone into a state that you can't recover from (factory reset won't work because there's nothing to reset to). I'm 100% with you that non-essential apps should be uninstallable as much as possible, and preferably I'd like them to not be installed at all, but that's an entirely different issue than what Google was just fined for. At the end of the day, i MUCH prefer Android's handling of removing/disabling factory installed apps over something like MacOS where if you "factory reset" the device, you can't use it again until you connect to a network and re-download the entire image.
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    Shovelware shouldn't be in the system partition in the first place. A factory reset should get you plain Android, not Android plus whatever your carrier got paid to dump on your phone. Few Android users will ever experience a Google branded phone, mainly due to price and availability. I personally will never buy one after my friend's Pixel 2 XL started smoking, though that is her third failed Google phone. I joked that she should put it on the stack next to her Nexus 5X (defective solder joints) and OG Pixel (died of another hardware defect), but she shipped it back and is on week 3 of waiting to get the sucker back. Comparatively, I've only ever seen one LG phone smoke that way, and an RMA request later I had an overnight shipping label and a new phone 2 days later. Wireless charging still worked in the meantime :P
    - master-litty 8y ago
      >A factory reset should get you plain Android, not Android plus whatever your carrier got paid to dump on your phone. Disagree. It's nice for the technically-inclined but terrible for everyone else. It's scummy that carriers get paid to shovel this crap on, but I'd think many consumers expect some of these apps and suffer without them. They just want their phones "to work."
      - StudentStuff 8y ago
        The non-technically inclined can easily download Facebook and the like, its nothing they're unfamiliar with. The big difference is whether or not a horribly out of date version of that app is permanently embedded in the phone's storage.
        master-litty 8y ago
        Without the play store? Which was wiped to make a clean android installation? :) Maybe they could figure it out with some help but I'm certain that's frustrating for many consumers regardless. Two different arguments here honestly. Apps should never be permanently embedded.
    - 8y ago
- effingwewt 8y ago
  Oddly enough, all of this locking down by google has me checking if a phone can be rooted and bootloader unlocked before I buy...then I have to make sure the newer phones arent shipped updated as then I can no longer root. If I can't root then I can't remove bloatware crap. If I can't have adblock and lineageOS I'm simply not interested. No note 8 for me, probably not 9 either, which is a shame, as I would love to give them my money. Oh and the best part of ROMs? You can make them as Google free as you want, I quite literally only use their play store. So Google claiming necessary integration is BS pure and simple.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

"Many preinstalled apps that aren't essential are just a stub" I've never seen this. Just about every preinstalled app on the phones I've had are the actual app.

Tijdreiziger 8y ago
I bought a Samsung Galaxy S9 a few days back. The preinstalled Facebook app (which I immediately disabled) has a listed version of 'stub (23.1.1)', and it's only 127 kB large.

StudentStuff 8y ago

This is definitely not the case on any Android I've recently worked with, disabling Facebook, Google Play Games, Google Newsstand, etc all just delete the user data and supposedly disable the app. I hate that this shovelware is on my phone in any form, and it makes me regret buying a non-ROMmable phone in the first place.

Klathmon 8y ago
It's during that "delete the user data" that it removes any updates to the app leaving behind only the part installed on the system partition (which is read only). But I should have been more clear. not all preinstalled apps are like this, just a lot of the less important ones (at least on google-branded phones, I have no idea what samsung or lg are doing to facebook). I believe it does require the developer of the app to actually implement it though. But either way there is literally no benefit to removing those apps from the system partition. You won't get the space back (different partition), and if they allow users to delete these things they can very easily get their phone into a state that you can't recover from (factory reset won't work because there's nothing to reset to). I'm 100% with you that non-essential apps should be uninstallable as much as possible, and preferably I'd like them to not be installed at all, but that's an entirely different issue than what Google was just fined for. At the end of the day, i MUCH prefer Android's handling of removing/disabling factory installed apps over something like MacOS where if you "factory reset" the device, you can't use it again until you connect to a network and re-download the entire image.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  Shovelware shouldn't be in the system partition in the first place. A factory reset should get you plain Android, not Android plus whatever your carrier got paid to dump on your phone. Few Android users will ever experience a Google branded phone, mainly due to price and availability. I personally will never buy one after my friend's Pixel 2 XL started smoking, though that is her third failed Google phone. I joked that she should put it on the stack next to her Nexus 5X (defective solder joints) and OG Pixel (died of another hardware defect), but she shipped it back and is on week 3 of waiting to get the sucker back. Comparatively, I've only ever seen one LG phone smoke that way, and an RMA request later I had an overnight shipping label and a new phone 2 days later. Wireless charging still worked in the meantime :P
  - master-litty 8y ago
    >A factory reset should get you plain Android, not Android plus whatever your carrier got paid to dump on your phone. Disagree. It's nice for the technically-inclined but terrible for everyone else. It's scummy that carriers get paid to shovel this crap on, but I'd think many consumers expect some of these apps and suffer without them. They just want their phones "to work."
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      The non-technically inclined can easily download Facebook and the like, its nothing they're unfamiliar with. The big difference is whether or not a horribly out of date version of that app is permanently embedded in the phone's storage.
      - master-litty 8y ago
        Without the play store? Which was wiped to make a clean android installation? :) Maybe they could figure it out with some help but I'm certain that's frustrating for many consumers regardless. Two different arguments here honestly. Apps should never be permanently embedded.
  - 8y ago
effingwewt 8y ago
Oddly enough, all of this locking down by google has me checking if a phone can be rooted and bootloader unlocked before I buy...then I have to make sure the newer phones arent shipped updated as then I can no longer root. If I can't root then I can't remove bloatware crap. If I can't have adblock and lineageOS I'm simply not interested. No note 8 for me, probably not 9 either, which is a shame, as I would love to give them my money. Oh and the best part of ROMs? You can make them as Google free as you want, I quite literally only use their play store. So Google claiming necessary integration is BS pure and simple.