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Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook

848 points by ourmandave 8y ago

nojvek 8y ago
FaceBook is scammy on many levels. Their ads business always reports very inflated numbers. We spend $1000/mnth on FB ads. They show millions of impressions and 20k link clicks. However only 2k visits are shown by both google analytics and Mixpanel on the actual website. It really seems like an empire that will crumble some day.
- lapnitnelav 8y ago
  Ah funny you mention that. Years ago I was doing tech support for a 3rd party ad management software mostly focused on Search (Google + Bing) but had also a FB part. While digging into some discrepancy issues, I realised our own tracker was picking up way less clicks than what FB alleged. Across all the cases (a handful at best) I was involved in, this appeared over and over. I remember going back to our internal FB team highlighting that. Never heard back from them and had too much on my plate to bother with it. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that picked up on that.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  That sure seems like fraud. If they claim X and you can only prove .1X " they are either incompetent (doubtful) or they are defrauding you.
- jannes 8y ago
  Maybe some of your users block Google Analytics/Mixpanel while not blocking Facebook ads. For example, because they are using the mobile app or because Facebook ads are harder to block...
  - driverdan 8y ago
    There is no way that 90% of their traffic is blocking both GA and Mixpanel.
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  Sounds like facebook counts accidential clicks. It often happens to me that I click on ads on my phone accidentially, but click back before the page actually loads.
- Havoc 8y ago
  >20k link clicks. However only 2k visits are shown by both google analytics Worth pointing out that if you run say cloudflare and g analytics you get similar discrepancy numbers. (Also about 1:10 in my experience). Read various theories on why - most focus on js tracking vs pure traffic.
raarts 8y ago
If the pre-installed Facebook app is just a stub, why is it needed in the first place? To keep the data around for a reinstall?
Bahamut 8y ago
While I like using FB, this is type of behavior by Android OEMs that largely drove me to the iPhone. The main reason I rooted my phone prior was to get rid of crappy apps I don't use from being on my screen. Around 4-5 years ago, Android phone manufacturers started locking down their phones more while not letting them be rooted. They didn't solve the problem of having undeleteable apps waste my time & space with clear advertising plays. After my experience with the Galaxy S5, I quickly jumped to the iPhone 6 when it came out, and haven't looked back. I've used Android for a period of time in parallel with a second phone, but it only confirmed my reasoning for bailing for the iPhone - the Android experience is just way behind.
- KingMachiavelli 8y ago
  It's the carriers that want the phones locked down so that they can have their bloatware installed and irremovable, Verizon in particular is the most notorious for mandating this. Additionally, among manufactures, Samsung wants to appeal to enterprise and gov environments and so also has their own suite of security features branded as KNOX and typically locked the bootloaders of the American/Snapdragon models. The good news is that you can buy almost any Android phone off Amazon and with the exception of Samsung it is most likely bootloader unlockable. Motorola is especially good in this regard.
- higginsc 8y ago
  I've been an iPhone user for a decade and am a huge Apple fanboy, but even with that bias, I have to say this is a load of crap. Apple has been adding loads of undeletable bloat since forever. they only really let you start deleting the Apple pre-installed apps very recently. I still have a folder on my devices called "iCrap."
  - Bahamut 8y ago
    There's a huge difference between Apple's built in apps and the third party apps doing who knows what background processing/data mining on phone usage. The effects on performance such as battery life is very noticeable.
iamben 8y ago
I feel like Facebook is getting more and more desperate. There have been times I've loved it, but in the last year or two I've dialled back my usage to almost nothing. Now I get regular emails / (and when I log in a whole load of) red dot notifications - both things that used to be alerts about just _ME_ - that say things like "[friend name] just posted". With an undeletable app, I wonder how far away we are from someone embedding Facebook notifications in the OS?
- lapnitnelav 8y ago
  Yeah, I've had the same feeling the last 8 weeks or so, my phone is regularly spammed by FB's notifications about some random crap that is irrelevant to me. I was discussing that with a friend and sure enough, within the minute, a FB notification about adding some random dude popped up.
- macNchz 8y ago
  I kind of casually fell off of using facebook like 5 years ago–it just kind of slowly lost my interest. Those useless notifications–via push, sms and email–wound up prompting me to unsub from all facebook communications and ultimately delete the app.
- djohnston 8y ago
  this embedding is common with fb google and microsoft products, and has been around for years. this is not new and no one is desperate
anonu 8y ago
Yes - FB s*cks. But as a long time Android user - this is more disheartening from the perspective of my continued use of Android. What Apple and the iPhone have demonstrated over the last few years is that they really care about their user's privacy and control over their apps. This does not seem to be true for Google and Android.
caiocaiocaio 8y ago
Mouse over the green icon in the corner, and you will see a 'like this on Facebook' button. I have never seen a single article criticising Facebook that didn't have one.
- codq 8y ago
  The most effective crapware is ever-present, pervasive crapware.
ccnafr 8y ago
Fortunately I can still remove it from my current/older device
natch 8y ago
I haven’t been following... is Android open source, or isn’t it?
- CivBase 8y ago
  Android is open source, but a lot of the functionality delivered by modern phones relies on the closed-source app suite provided by Google (namely Google Play Services).
  - jannes 8y ago
    And closed-source hardware drivers.
partiallypro 8y ago
I'm no Facebook fan, but doesn't it feel like there is a coordinated media effort to destroy Facebook? It's quite strange. Outside of WSJ, Google seems to get away with it almost the same things Facebook is doing. I'm not sure what to make of it.
- Permit 8y ago
  FWIW A lot of these media organizations derive a lot of their inbound traffic from Facebook. Last January[1] Facebook changed how the news feed algorithm worked. My understanding is that this severely impacted the traffic to many of these media outlets as they no longer showed up as frequently on people's news feed. For example, from a site for content marketing[2]: >Since Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 announcement that the Facebook algorithm will prioritize “meaningful interactions” from friends and family over content from brands, it has become trickier than ever to ensure your organic content gets the screen time it deserves. [1] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-people-closer-together/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-... [2] https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/
- bogomipz 8y ago
  Oh the tiresome conspiracy theory. Right, editors from different media publications are "coordinating." They are actively strategizing and communicating with one another in order to "destroy" one of the most powerful companies in the world. Because there's zero possibility that given involvement of FB in everything from violence in Myanmar, Philippines and Sri Lank to fake political ads in US elections, FB's further encroachment on our lives is an actual topical interest story? Yes "quite strange."
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    Except those had been going on for years, and now all of a sudden, after Facebook changes their algorithm, journalists notice that Facebook has a problem.
    - 8y ago
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
This kind of anti-consumer behavior should be outright illegal.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
> Bloomberg spoke to a U.S. owner of a Samsung Galaxy S8 who, after reading forum discussions about Samsung devices, found his own pre-loaded Facebook app could not be removed. It could only be “disabled”, with no explanation available to him as to what exactly that meant. First thing I do when I upgrade my LG phone (I've had the LG G2, LG G5, and now the LG G7, I don't think it was preinstalled in the G2 but I can't be certain) is to disable Facebook and related uninstallable apps. If I bothered to root my phone I'd remove them as well. It's obnoxious that phone manufacturers include more than just vanilla Android, which is why I will likely get Nokia or Motorola for my next phone, they're usually unlocked and not riddled with crapware, funny how much cheaper they are too...
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  The bundled crapware is the reason I switched from Samsung to OnePlus. I've actually gone one step further and run LineageOS now. I've been an Android user since the original Samsung Galaxy, but to be honest my next phone will probably be an iPhone.
  - helloguillecl 8y ago
    Same here, I never bought Samsung because of their pre-installed software. I switched to Google phones starting with Nexus 4, which at least has pre-installed apps I generally like and use.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    The reason you can't uninstall the crap is that you aren't by default root. The same "root" problem exists on the iphone.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    > The bundled crapware is the reason I switched from Samsung to OnePlus. I'm not sure I trust them either, unless this apparent backdoor situation has since been resolved? I'd rather stick to Nokia or Motorola. https://www.wired.com/story/oneplus-phones-have-an-unfortunate-backdoor-built-in/ https://www.wired.com/story/oneplus-phones-have-an-unfortuna...
helloguillecl 8y ago
Also, they will endlessly re-suscribe you to their spam even after you unsubscribe. Some months after unsubscribing from friend's posts email alerts, I changed my password to something I did not want to remember, only to be automatically re-subscribed, without notice, to their post updates.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  There's a setting I saw on Instagram about this where it will send you emails if you're inactive for too long. It's an entirely distinct setting from all other email spam. There was one setting on Instagram I would toggle, and come back two seconds later to find it retoggled, it was to suggest my account to other people to follow, I've managed to acquire like 20 follow requests from total strangers, I can't make it stop. Something is seriously wrong with IG. I'm a programmer, this is the sorta thing if I heard from someone else I wouldn't believe, but it's fundamentally broken imho.
  - helloguillecl 8y ago
    This is probably what it was. But I can tell you, I never saw such an option in the "unsubscribing" form.
    - giancarlostoro 8y ago
      In the case of IG: https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/6emails.png https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/6emails... It's under "Reminder Emails" which most people don't disable usually cause they don't think about disabling it.
  - 2sk21 8y ago
    I'm testing this hypothesis. I have not logged into Facebook for three months and am still getting daily emails with links to posts
    - Consultant32452 8y ago
charlysl 8y ago
Am I the only one experiencing "Facebook is so bad" fatigue? I am not implying that there should be no criticism, I believe quite the opposite, but I think we have heard all of this before, many times over.
- ionised 8y ago
  I say keep it coming until the message gets across to everyone. I'm fatigued by Facebook's existence.
- helloguillecl 8y ago
  No, I'm not getting tired of seeing one of the most powerful companies in the world to face some scrutiny, given their past behaviour and non-transparent "growth" tactics (And his founder's).
- c16 8y ago
  Repetition is in some ways emphasis. The fact that you are getting fatigued is showing that it is slowly working, and that people are slowly waking up to it.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    Disagree. Instead it's showing the signal to noise ratio has reached a level where the content doesn't outweigh the category. People are in fact slowly falling back asleep to it.
    - zanny 8y ago
      The arguments against Facebook at this point have basically shown that the whole platform and every service they provide is tainted and exploitative. Anyone still using Facebook after all that will never stop using Facebook. The repetition is more to reach new ears, not try to again to convince those who already decided otherwise.
      - kodablah 8y ago
helloguillecl 8y ago
I see all this dark patters and user-unfriendly tactics as a way to deceive the market with metrics that wont matter if in the long term you lose user's trust. It might increase the perceived value of a company to retain some users, but in the long term such tactics are damaging the company reputation, thus effectively diminishing the value of the company/product.
LeonM 8y ago
It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too. But this is nothing new, Samsung phones have came preloaded with bloat since forever. When buying a new phone I always spend some time deleting all Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook and carrier related apps. Yes, you can delete 'undeletable' apps through ADB, without rooting the device. pm uninstall -k --user 0 <name of package>
- AlexandrB 8y ago
  > It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too. But this is nothing new, Samsung phones have came preloaded with bloat since forever. I'm old enough to remember when this was standard. Before smartphones almost all cellphones were bought through carriers and came pre-loaded with a bunch of carrier crapware (often unremovable). One of the best things about the first iPhone was that Apple retained control of the pre-installed apps and AT&T was not allowed to put a bunch of their own garbage on it. 12 years later the lack of crapware remains a key differentiator for iPhones. But what's most surprising is that in an industry where everyone seems keen to copy even Apple's worst ideas (no headphone jack, notches) only a few are copying some of their best.
  - mariusmg 8y ago
    Windows Phones didn't had crap on them either. This is strictly a Android issue.
    - ajmurmann 8y ago
      At least the Nexus phones I've had also never came with crap ware. This is yet another reason why I would only ever by a Android phone from Google. Of course the main reason are the longer update cycles that might even delay arrival of security updates. I really wish Google had gone the exact same route as Apple and only shipped Android phones themselves. To me the collaboration with random manufacturers also weakened the Nexus brand. I have zero brand loyalty to Samsung, LG or HTC. I wanted a Google phone. My iPhone doesn't say "Foxconn" on it, so why did my Nexus say "LG" and the next one "Samsung"?! I'm always surprised that these concerns apparently aren't shared by the market and people are happily buying Samsung phones with crap on it and unnecessary changes to Android that just result in getting updates super late.
Yizahi 8y ago
Says the site with ~20-30 crapware JS trackers (12 blocked by uBlock, 23 by uMatrix). I'm not forgiving FB here, just pointing out that others are often similarly bad.
- isodude 8y ago
  This is the reason I've stopped surfing the web and stay on news aggregate sites. It's madness how many dependencies sites have. Having Little Snitch on and not allowing general port 80/443 will make you perfectly aware.
  - kowdermeister 8y ago
    Why don't you use a blocker extension?
    - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
      I trust ublock well enough, but it's a risk - Adblock Plus on the one hand basically started collecting advertising data and selling whitelisting to advertisers, and plugins generally have an evergreen auto-updating system. It's happened hundreds of times that a plugin was bought and malicious tracking, ad-injecting and/or cryptocurrency mining code was injected without the user being made aware or the party responsible for delivering updates (Google, Mozilla) taking action against these practices or at the very least warning their users. TL;DR: Blocker extensions are easy but they can be compromised.
      - mtreis86 8y ago
        https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix is opensource and is basically a firewall built in a browser extension
      - kowdermeister 8y ago
        Everything can be compromised. Going outside of the building is a risk. In case of uBlock it would probably turn out pretty quickly if something fishy is going on. My point is that the benefits are greater for me than the risks. You could actually roll your own uBlock extension: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock then write a script that updates it in your browser. Is that safe enough? :)
macawfish 8y ago
It's the old crapware too
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I hate to be one of "those people" but I logged out of Facebook on all of my devices on New Year's Eve and haven't been back since. I used to check the site multiple times per day. I thought I'd miss out on a few groups but to be honest the people I know from those groups IRL keep me updated on the rare important announcement - ie a couple of upcoming events. I haven't missed it at all. Full Disclosure: I do still have Messenger Lite on my phone, but with notifications disabled so I only check it a couple of times per day.
- RankingMember 8y ago
  Good for you, but it's only been 9 days mate, and leaving one of its tendrils in place makes it more likely you'll gradually get sucked back in.
- Kiro 8y ago
  What service do you use for chatting?
  - chrstphrknwtn 8y ago
    My telephone
    - Kiro 8y ago
      I want a phone without voice. I hate when people call me and I never call anyone. I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone forcing me to call them to interact.
      - chrstphrknwtn 8y ago
        Yeah, I've also thought a phone without voice would be great; an iPod touch with data sort of thing. Having said that, voice calls are simply more productive for quite a few things. Making "must not interact via telephony" a condition of friendship seems a bit much. Is meeting in person also out of the question?
stuaxo 8y ago
My Android TV has undeletable facebook inside it :(
chrismorgan 8y ago
This is nothing new. Google especially has been in this position since the start of Android. I have quite a list of apps that I’ve disabled but can’t uninstall: Chrome, Drive, Galaxy Apps, Gmail, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Music, Google Text-to-speech engine, Hancom Office Viewer, Launcher3, Memo, Photo Screensavers, S Planner, Samsung Billing, Samsung Push Service, TalkBack, Weather, YouTube. I’m going to try LeonM’s technique to see if I can in fact uninstall them without rooting the device (which I have failed to accomplish; it seems to me that you’re basically stuck if you don’t use a flagship device, and my Samsung J1 (2016) isn’t flagship). Then there are plenty of others that I’d like to disable but can’t; including but not at all limited to: Email, Email, Email composer, Email storage, Email sync, Internet, S Planner, Samsung account, Samsung Cloud Data Relay.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  Samsung devices are the worst. When I had an S8, I ran a toolkit that would constantly remove (and re-remove when it appeared again) almost all of the Samsung crapware, but even that is subpar since you need some of it like their Health product for basic phone features to work. Samsung is by far the worst at it. I won't buy their phones anymore.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Recently got an s9 and there's a whole button I can't use because it is bound to the "Launch Bixby" function. I'm not exactly sure what Bixby is or does, some sort of voice control (but I already have google now?), but it requires me to have a samsung account to use, which I don't want/need. So, unused button. Wish I could bind it to camera or something, no such luck.
    - Faark 8y ago
      > So, unused button. Wish I could bind it to camera or something, no such luck. The reddit thread about this story mentions an app "bxActions" that sees to be doing exactly that and might be worth a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ae265u/samsung_phone_users_perturbed_to_find_they_cant/edmeti2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ae265u/samsung_...
CaptainZapp 8y ago
Will they also pull such shit with KaiOS? I thought I'm a happy camper, when Nokia reissued the 8110. Ahh, no Google spyware, no Apple extorcionist paricing. How wrong I was. First of all it comes with Google Maps and Google Assistant. Then after the first software update it puts in Twitter and three crappy games, which full versions need to be bought and which cannot be removed. Their privacy statement is also noo what I would call encouraging. Do I really need to shell out for an IPhone after all?
- quantum_magpie 8y ago
  Unfortunately, iphones are exactly the same shit. Bunch of crapware that you can't remove or disable.
- culot 8y ago
  I wonder what developer access you can achieve with that 8110 device? For FirefoxOS devices the debugging and developer stuff used to be fun via Firefox browser and was simply Android on the low level. Also FirefoxOS devices were generally not locked down in any meaningful way. Curious to see what you can hack with their devices on that FirefoxOS fork. Hmmm. Need to get me one of those phones, so cool looking anyway.
StreamBright 8y ago
Happens when tech is largely driven by ad companies.
- glenrivard 8y ago
  Samsung is NOT an "ad companies"? Google phones do NOT have this issue. You do NOT get bloatware on Pixels or Android One for that matter.
justtopost 8y ago
Hardly new. It was unwanted a decade ago, when forced down my throat. It just seems people are wising up to the monopoly status. I thought the IE case would have preempted this preinstalled crap. What kind of law can help us seperate hardware, software, and personal rights?
bnolsen 8y ago
Not sure if 4+ years is "new".
glenrivard 8y ago
Buy a Pixel or an Android One phone and you do NOT have this issue.
syntaxing 8y ago
This kind of crap is why I always buy phones that have stock Android. I have been a long time Nexus customer but after Google dropped the line I went for the Essential Phone during the $250 sale. Easily one of the best phone with stock Android .
- Steltek 8y ago
  The reviews of the Essential PH-1 were hilarious in this regard. People were annoyed that they had to install "obvious" apps for their Essential that every other manufacturer forcibly included.
  - syntaxing 8y ago
    Yeah, I'm not sure why the PH-1 didn't take off. 128 GB storage, Snapdragon 835, and ceramic backing is amazing for less than $300 after tax. The only "downside" is the non-OLED screen, weird reception for T-mobile, and subpar camera app (which the pixel 3 port fixes). The screen is still great and vibrant though.
    - culot 8y ago
      They would have needed to get on Verizon or T-Mobile to really make a dent in the US, being only available on Sprint was never going to be enough.
infinity0 8y ago
I use https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ these days, a lot of things do work fine with a fake Google Play Services. https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ for more technical tips, half-finished and badly-written.
Eli_P 8y ago
If a giant like Facebook had bought Match Group and Tinder, would it be possible for it to manipulate dating and thus breeding people up to statistically significant scale? I feel it like being "@" in somebody's Dwarf Fortress. World's so narcissistic.
- CodeSheikh 8y ago
  What makes you think Match Group and Tinder are not already statistically matching people based on their algorithms? They are part of IAC and IAC is a giant publishing conglomerate based out of NYC.
  - Eli_P 8y ago
    Yikes! There's only hope they'll add some paid service where I can find love and hunt deer with a crossbow in special national park, wild way. Just like those two domains, wild and artificial, from Huxley's Brave New World.
- mtberatwork 8y ago
  If they match too precisely though wouldn't they lose out on tons of recurring revenue?
  - Eli_P 8y ago
    You are correct, Tinder is designed keep you on hook, sustain finger-swiping reflex, and all that. But I've been pondering from a zoomed-out, conspiracy-ish perspective. If FB merges with dating apps, I bet there will be no premium accounts at all, as revenue from them won't matter much. Because, having FB's stat-models of social groups combined with dating app leverage, they can be forced to gravitate towards or divided not only by superficial forces such as personalized news-feeds and ads, but your children potentially will become a content for you and the product for population, recycle. The biological function of love is to reproduce as many DNA of yours as possible, or support closest neighborhood DNAs as well. It is interesting what it will be like when we'll have substituted natural love with statistically predicted one? We've been doing this already with politics and culture, only this time it will be more real-time.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
FWIW, this might be a carrier pre-load thing rather than a Samsung thing: on the S8+ that I bought unlocked direct from Samsung, the Facebook app can be uninstalled.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dd36 8y ago
I think all of these privacy problems can be traced back to contract law and contracts of adhesion where consumers are automatically opted into terms consumers would never wittingly opt into voluntarily.
jannes 8y ago
Even my Galaxy S7 Edge from 2015 came with an undeletable Facebook app. Why is the article portraying this as a recent development?
- culot 8y ago
  I think it's mostly a Facebook hit piece. And actually since back then Facebook apps have become easier to disable on most Android phones. Used to be that you couldn't delete them nor disable them on most phones. Nowadays is usually possible to disable the apps, and they are usually just stubs, so their impact is minimal to null. Still would rather not that have them shipped, but when it comes to bloatware I'd say Google was a much bigger culprit.
tempodox 8y ago
Corollary: Every post with “Facebook” in its title appears on HN.
habitue 8y ago
I'm not a huge facebook fan but this thing about only being able to disable but not delete the app is misleading about how sinister it is. All it means is that the app comes installed by being part of the ROM image. It can be disabled which is essentially the same as deleting it, except you don't get the space back (which is fine since it's the rom, you can't use it without reflashing anyway). Once disabled, the Facebook app won't be able to track you or be loaded into memory. What this deal is really about is the Facebook app coming preinstalled on new Samsung phones. Bloatware: yes. But don't make too big a deal about the "undeletable" thing.
- zhobbs 8y ago
  Agree 100%. This is the same bloatware Android has seen since day one, nothing new here.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Agreed, but from what I've been reading/hearing, the primary concern is "can FB track me even if the app is disabled?" These are non-technical people who don't trust FB. It's a valid question.
  - pbalau 8y ago
    FB can't track you because the app cannot be deleted, they can track you because other apps, not even other FB apps, voluntary send FB info about you. But this doesn't match the narrative that FB is bad, so the Murdoch empire will be quiet about it.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      I think you're missing the point. I'm not saying FB can track you via their disabled app. I'm saying many don't trust Samsung or FB when they say they cannot. The majority of people don't even come close to understanding how data gets bought and sold or how impactful it can be in the long term.
  - habitue 8y ago
    I can understand nontechnical people becoming distressed by the fact that it can't be deleted. But Bloomberg (and Techcrunch) should not be making a big deal out of those fears. Both articles seem to be stoking the angle "ooh, you can't delete it! Sinister..."
usefulcat 8y ago
"Not cool, Facebook, not cool." I mean, yeah, but what about the device makers? It's not like FB can force them to do this..
dang 8y ago
Url changed from https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/facebook-is-the-new-crapware/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/facebook-is-the-new-crapwa..., which points to this.
anoplus 8y ago
This is my motivation to switch to iPhone. Samsung must be punished. Hope Samsung read this.
loop0 8y ago
After years of using android I just moved from my galaxy s8 to an iphone xs max, and I was surprised to see that apple allows to uninstall most of their apps. What I usually did on my former samsung was to disable the apps I didn't needed, it is not the same as uninstalling it but it does the job.
- wvenable 8y ago
  On iOS, the built in apps aren't "uninstalled" either as they're stored in the OS image just like on Android. So when you delete them, you're just disabling them the same way, and you can put them back just as easily. The difference is that Apple makes the operation appear to be the same as deleting them and that's a good thing from a UI perspective. Clearly the "disable" option in Android is too confusing for some people.
  - iscrewyou 8y ago
    But when you redownload a now-deleted-preloaded app, it actually downloads it. Which makes me think that Apple actually removes the App package from the phone. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
  - moogleii 8y ago
    I think that was true of older versions, but newer versions will also offload them, either via the user or via the "unused apps" feature.
grawprog 8y ago
Every samsung smartphone i've ever owned came with an undeletable facebook app(along with a bunch of other undeleteable crap) preinstalled since at least android 2 days.
novaRom 8y ago
Same problem in my Android TV set. Lesson learned: will never buy anything with Android TV anymore.
mancerayder 8y ago
This story (and from different outlets) is now all over the press, which is great. Can I add another qualm in a similar vein? It involves Samsung TV's. I'm convinced Samsung is increasingly mean. I only use streaming services (Netflix, et. al.), and for the past year I've been pretty pleased with "Smart TV" functionality, which makes life easy. That is, until the following happened. After a recent update, the TV: * Now starts up automatically onto some broadcast TV station, I think it's some sports station. There is No Way to turn this off, because it's not an app, but a new functionality built into the TV. By "broadcast TV" I don't mean the old-school antenna or cable, I mean the equivalent of live broadcast TV streaming via the Internet. If I turn the TV off, for example, while the YouTube app is up, when it turns back on, I get that streaming broadcast crap again. * The broadcast crap has commercials, and sound on. * Ads have ALSO popped up in place of one of the "buttons" in the Apps menu. You're not enraged yet? Let me save the best for last: * When using the voice functionality on the remote during a search (either on YouTube or someplace), a popup jumped up telling me that I needed to accept THREE terms and conditions (three checkmarks), and click OK, or I could not use the voice functionality. The TOC involved aggregating my searches and data for ad purposes, and it said something about other Samsung devices. Luckily, I don't own any. I went back to plugging my PC into the TV. Folks, please do not buy any Samsung products.
- bo1024 8y ago
  The idea (and implementation) of Smart TVs is very frustrating to me, so I'm glad to see others reaching this conclusion-- > I went back to plugging my PC into the TV. It's a perfect example of what Stallman has always warned us about -- companies using software in products to control and exploit us rather than empower us. All the things you mention, planned obsolescence, and more.
- cududa 8y ago
  I was exceptionally displeased to find this functionality on all the Samsung TVs at my vacation home this winter. Threw a FireTV Cube on all of them and couldn’t be happier with the experience. IMO, it’s cable box integration is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. But I’d suggest you checkout the FireTV 4K if you don’t have cable
- 8y ago
foobaw 8y ago
This is fear-mongering. The app is a stub and it doesn't do any tracking. I used to work at an OEM - this is just an agreement that Samsung and Facebook signed.
qwerty456127 8y ago
Don't use default smartphone firmwares, don't buy smartphones you can't install a custom firmware to.
- chrismeller 8y ago
  Sure, but let’s be honest, back in 2007 when the first iPhone came out it was a huge deal that Verizon, et al couldn’t install crap on it by default because it came straight from Apple. No “normal human” is ever going to install their own OS on anything. At least Apple enforces some standards...
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    > Sure, but let’s be honest, back in 2007 when the first iPhone came out it was a huge deal that Verizon, et al couldn’t install crap on it by default because it came straight from Apple. Good, nevertheless all my friends jailbroke their iPhones to install apps not available in the store. > No “normal human” is ever going to install their own OS on anything. Whoever cares about having at least minimal degree of privacy will at least get root access, remove bloatware and install tools like droidwall and xprivacy on their android phones.
    - dijit 8y ago
      Your friends are more technical than 99% of the population of earth. I applaud you for having friends who are so technically literate. I think you would do well to remember the rest of the human race though.
      - qwerty456127 8y ago
        I'm curious what portion of people lack a geek friend they can trust to set-up whatever for them.
        chrismeller 8y ago
        I'm curious what portion of people you think even know that jailbreaking exists, let alone why they would want it done on their phone. This is, without any sort of exaggeration, a 1% issue.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sizzle 8y ago
This is why I'll always run rooted Android and take back control.
mark-r 8y ago
I quick pulled my new Moto out of my pocket to make sure they didn't do the same thing - they didn't. I have never used Facebook and I never will, haven't trusted them from the beginning.
hiergiltdiestfu 8y ago
This news is so old, I was sure the date on the article was 2009.
drugme 8y ago
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.
yellowapple 8y ago
Hasn't this been the case for years now? Why is this only now newsworthy?
designtofly 8y ago
I'm glad this story has gone viral recently. Hopefully there will be more pressure to stop this practice. I've been using Android for a number of years now and between the handset manufacturers and the wireless providers, there has been undeletable crapware since the beginning. I've been slowly modifying my behavior in response. I stopped buying phones directly from the wireless providers (e.g. Verizon). This has noticeably improved my experience. Every time I upgrade my phone, I look into the Google flagship Android phones, but they always have some critical flaws that drive me to buy the Samsung Galaxy phones. The same thing happened a few months ago when I chose the Galaxy S9+ over the Pixel 3's. I also always think about switching to Apple iPhone, since I do think they take user experience and privacy more seriously than Google Android. While I'm on the subject. Samsung, please get rid of Bixby and all of your crappy Samsung apps. I hate the feeling that there's two OS's loaded on my phone... the Android layer and the Samsung layer (which I never use but always get prompted for unless I figure out how to disable it).
- ayoisaiah 8y ago
  I don't think all Samsung apps are "crappy". I quite enjoy using some of them like Samsung Health and Secure Folder. What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps and then preventing the user from removing them easily. Personally, I can live with this situation since I can always remove what I don't like with adb, and I quite enjoy a lot of the features and changes that Samsung added on top of stock Android.
  - diffeomorphism 8y ago
    > What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps That is not possible. They can either have only the google apps (great, just like ancient IE monopoly times) or "duplicate apps", but they can not omit the google apps if they want google play. Also, preinstalls matter very much as can be clearly seen in the market share of IE, edge, chrome and safari.
    - i_cant_speel 8y ago
      You only quoted the first half of their sentence. They said duplicate apps are only an issue when you aren't allowed to remove the one (or both) that you don't use.
apocalypstyx 8y ago
Sometimes, I wish Rick Roderick were still around to comment on the present, then I realize that he did / is, even if he did it in 1990. But in the matrix of needs, in such a possible future system, as if it weren’t already kind of like that. Within such a possible future system, the only command or need that the machine would not respond to would be the one command that I have a feeling some of us would most want to type into the machine. Which is the demand that it destroy itself, you see, that would be my problem with the machine. It would meet all the needs except my need to see it destroyed. It would take every other command well, and meet every other need well, but the need to just shut it down. http://rickroderick.org/108-philosophy-and-post-modern-culture-1990/ http://rickroderick.org/108-philosophy-and-post-modern-cultu...
userbinator 8y ago
This is one of the reasons why I bought a generic MTK phone: they come with an unlocked bootloader (and at least several years ago when I did this, it seemed to be the case that they even couldn't be locked because the hardware had no such feature), and the first thing I do is a full flash dump for backup purposes. Then I root it, delete the stuff I don't need (surprisingly little comes with these generic phones; they usually don't come with much more than the stock Android install), and customise it to my needs. The fact that Android is Java-based and quite modular helps a lot with the modding too. (Some of these phones do come with ad/spy/malware, but since they're easily rootable, it's not hard to remove. One could say the relative lack of security means the user is on an equal footing with the crapware authors and the manufacturer, whereas locked-down devices from companies like Samsung trade off user-control for company-control.)
usr1987 8y ago
Lineage OS an option... I love having a minimal OS
kentf 8y ago
iPhone
16bytes 8y ago
I'm not quite sure why this is controversial. "Undeletable" applications is as old as keeping factory-reset images on devices. Would people prefer that you could "remove" apps even if that meant they were still part of what's stored on the phone? If you factory reset the phone, people expect it to look like whatever it looked like whenever you first started the device after taking it out of the box. That's why you can't uninstall it; it's part of the system image. If there's an issue with how this work, the issue is that there are bundled apps, not that you can't uninstall them.
- mjevans 8y ago
  What I would like is a bootloader that has the following features: * End user management of trusted keys * Keep most major manufacturer keys pre-loaded (even if disabled for current use) * Factory reset online, not from device contents. When a 'factory reset' or other base-reinstall is requested, look at an indirect URI associated with the preferred active key (this means WiFi, Ethernet, or other network connection must be made). Similar to how SYSLINUX (in various flavors) looks for different identifiers from specific to generic, query for an existing 'file' that matches the device model and serial / MAC in a pre-defined way. When a possible file is found download the bootstrap, validate that it is signed with an allowed key* (if it has a valid sig, but the key isn't allowed, ask the end user), if it's valid run downloaded bootstrap. The downloaded bootstrap should, ideally, validate and re-configure the flash layout, possibly update system firmware if desirable, then apply the current version (or maybe offer a choice of back versions if applicable) of the 'factory' image for the device. This way updates to the core image can be shipped with factory resets instead of some fossilized version of the software that should never be used for security or incompatibility reasons. The above also applies to how generic computers should work, I understand that Apple devices are fairly close to this obvious process but I believe (offhand) that they lack end-user empowerment / management of authorized authorities at a bios level.
NoPicklez 8y ago
In Australia the ACCC which is our competition and consumer watchdog, released a preliminary report in December, into the dominance of the likes of Google and Facebook. One of things they are proposing is stopping likes of Google from being a default search engine in Australian devices. In that consumers will be offered a choice rather than provided one as default. I would really like to see this extend through to bloatware applications where possible such as the myriad of random Microsoft apps that get installed, as well as the Google suite in non-Google devices. I should be able to remove the applications that are on my device and use the applications only I want to. If I use Spotify for music, then I should be able to remove Google Music and Samsung Music. In the same way that I can remove Apple music and use Spotify on my iPhone.
TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
As anyone really surprised or "perturbed" by this? This nonsense has been going on for years. I can't remember a Samsung phone without garbage, undeletable apps. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 8. I like it. I took all the undeletable apps and removed them from my home screen. I hardly notice they are there. You can also shut down their permissions in the settings menu. They are basically inert.
willart4food 8y ago
2019: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook 2023: iPhone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't logout from Facebook 2025: Google Phone Users Perturbed to Find Their photos are automatically posted on Facebook 2027: Facebook Branded Phone Users Perturbed to Find Their life is cached 24/7 and automatically posted on Facebook
benchplz 8y ago
No carrier installs vanilla copies of OSes on their phones, every phone literally has pre-installed apps. Just because this is facebook it's getting headlines. I mean this is the same way with computers too. Why is this even news?
sleepydog 8y ago
I also noticed when troubleshooting a VPN and doing some tcpdumps that my Xperia Z5C was making pretty frequent DNS lookups of mqtt-mini.facebook.com . From what I could find on Google search my best guess was that this endpoint is used by facebook messenger, but I don't have that installed. This is despite the fact that I've disabled the facebook app. I took a second look while writing this comment and there's an addtional "Facebook services" app, which I've just gone ahead and disabled. Maybe that will stop the requests.

848 points by ourmandave 8y ago

FaceBook is scammy on many levels. Their ads business always reports very inflated numbers. We spend $1000/mnth on FB ads. They show millions of impressions and 20k link clicks. However only 2k visits are shown by both google analytics and Mixpanel on the actual website. It really seems like an empire that will crumble some day.

lapnitnelav 8y ago
Ah funny you mention that. Years ago I was doing tech support for a 3rd party ad management software mostly focused on Search (Google + Bing) but had also a FB part. While digging into some discrepancy issues, I realised our own tracker was picking up way less clicks than what FB alleged. Across all the cases (a handful at best) I was involved in, this appeared over and over. I remember going back to our internal FB team highlighting that. Never heard back from them and had too much on my plate to bother with it. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that picked up on that.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
That sure seems like fraud. If they claim X and you can only prove .1X " they are either incompetent (doubtful) or they are defrauding you.
jannes 8y ago
Maybe some of your users block Google Analytics/Mixpanel while not blocking Facebook ads. For example, because they are using the mobile app or because Facebook ads are harder to block...
- driverdan 8y ago
  There is no way that 90% of their traffic is blocking both GA and Mixpanel.
thecatspaw 8y ago
Sounds like facebook counts accidential clicks. It often happens to me that I click on ads on my phone accidentially, but click back before the page actually loads.
Havoc 8y ago
>20k link clicks. However only 2k visits are shown by both google analytics Worth pointing out that if you run say cloudflare and g analytics you get similar discrepancy numbers. (Also about 1:10 in my experience). Read various theories on why - most focus on js tracking vs pure traffic.

raarts 8y ago

If the pre-installed Facebook app is just a stub, why is it needed in the first place? To keep the data around for a reinstall?

Bahamut 8y ago

While I like using FB, this is type of behavior by Android OEMs that largely drove me to the iPhone. The main reason I rooted my phone prior was to get rid of crappy apps I don't use from being on my screen. Around 4-5 years ago, Android phone manufacturers started locking down their phones more while not letting them be rooted. They didn't solve the problem of having undeleteable apps waste my time & space with clear advertising plays. After my experience with the Galaxy S5, I quickly jumped to the iPhone 6 when it came out, and haven't looked back. I've used Android for a period of time in parallel with a second phone, but it only confirmed my reasoning for bailing for the iPhone - the Android experience is just way behind.

KingMachiavelli 8y ago
It's the carriers that want the phones locked down so that they can have their bloatware installed and irremovable, Verizon in particular is the most notorious for mandating this. Additionally, among manufactures, Samsung wants to appeal to enterprise and gov environments and so also has their own suite of security features branded as KNOX and typically locked the bootloaders of the American/Snapdragon models. The good news is that you can buy almost any Android phone off Amazon and with the exception of Samsung it is most likely bootloader unlockable. Motorola is especially good in this regard.
higginsc 8y ago
I've been an iPhone user for a decade and am a huge Apple fanboy, but even with that bias, I have to say this is a load of crap. Apple has been adding loads of undeletable bloat since forever. they only really let you start deleting the Apple pre-installed apps very recently. I still have a folder on my devices called "iCrap."
- Bahamut 8y ago
  There's a huge difference between Apple's built in apps and the third party apps doing who knows what background processing/data mining on phone usage. The effects on performance such as battery life is very noticeable.

iamben 8y ago

I feel like Facebook is getting more and more desperate. There have been times I've loved it, but in the last year or two I've dialled back my usage to almost nothing. Now I get regular emails / (and when I log in a whole load of) red dot notifications - both things that used to be alerts about just _ME_ - that say things like "[friend name] just posted". With an undeletable app, I wonder how far away we are from someone embedding Facebook notifications in the OS?

lapnitnelav 8y ago
Yeah, I've had the same feeling the last 8 weeks or so, my phone is regularly spammed by FB's notifications about some random crap that is irrelevant to me. I was discussing that with a friend and sure enough, within the minute, a FB notification about adding some random dude popped up.
macNchz 8y ago
I kind of casually fell off of using facebook like 5 years ago–it just kind of slowly lost my interest. Those useless notifications–via push, sms and email–wound up prompting me to unsub from all facebook communications and ultimately delete the app.
djohnston 8y ago
this embedding is common with fb google and microsoft products, and has been around for years. this is not new and no one is desperate

anonu 8y ago

Yes - FB s*cks. But as a long time Android user - this is more disheartening from the perspective of my continued use of Android. What Apple and the iPhone have demonstrated over the last few years is that they really care about their user's privacy and control over their apps. This does not seem to be true for Google and Android.

caiocaiocaio 8y ago

Mouse over the green icon in the corner, and you will see a 'like this on Facebook' button. I have never seen a single article criticising Facebook that didn't have one.

codq 8y ago
The most effective crapware is ever-present, pervasive crapware.

ccnafr 8y ago

Fortunately I can still remove it from my current/older device

natch 8y ago

I haven’t been following... is Android open source, or isn’t it?

CivBase 8y ago
Android is open source, but a lot of the functionality delivered by modern phones relies on the closed-source app suite provided by Google (namely Google Play Services).
- jannes 8y ago
  And closed-source hardware drivers.

partiallypro 8y ago

I'm no Facebook fan, but doesn't it feel like there is a coordinated media effort to destroy Facebook? It's quite strange. Outside of WSJ, Google seems to get away with it almost the same things Facebook is doing. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Permit 8y ago
FWIW A lot of these media organizations derive a lot of their inbound traffic from Facebook. Last January[1] Facebook changed how the news feed algorithm worked. My understanding is that this severely impacted the traffic to many of these media outlets as they no longer showed up as frequently on people's news feed. For example, from a site for content marketing[2]: >Since Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 announcement that the Facebook algorithm will prioritize “meaningful interactions” from friends and family over content from brands, it has become trickier than ever to ensure your organic content gets the screen time it deserves. [1] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-people-closer-together/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-... [2] https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/
bogomipz 8y ago
Oh the tiresome conspiracy theory. Right, editors from different media publications are "coordinating." They are actively strategizing and communicating with one another in order to "destroy" one of the most powerful companies in the world. Because there's zero possibility that given involvement of FB in everything from violence in Myanmar, Philippines and Sri Lank to fake political ads in US elections, FB's further encroachment on our lives is an actual topical interest story? Yes "quite strange."
- partiallypro 8y ago
  Except those had been going on for years, and now all of a sudden, after Facebook changes their algorithm, journalists notice that Facebook has a problem.
  - 8y ago

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

This kind of anti-consumer behavior should be outright illegal.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

> Bloomberg spoke to a U.S. owner of a Samsung Galaxy S8 who, after reading forum discussions about Samsung devices, found his own pre-loaded Facebook app could not be removed. It could only be “disabled”, with no explanation available to him as to what exactly that meant. First thing I do when I upgrade my LG phone (I've had the LG G2, LG G5, and now the LG G7, I don't think it was preinstalled in the G2 but I can't be certain) is to disable Facebook and related uninstallable apps. If I bothered to root my phone I'd remove them as well. It's obnoxious that phone manufacturers include more than just vanilla Android, which is why I will likely get Nokia or Motorola for my next phone, they're usually unlocked and not riddled with crapware, funny how much cheaper they are too...

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
The bundled crapware is the reason I switched from Samsung to OnePlus. I've actually gone one step further and run LineageOS now. I've been an Android user since the original Samsung Galaxy, but to be honest my next phone will probably be an iPhone.
- helloguillecl 8y ago
  Same here, I never bought Samsung because of their pre-installed software. I switched to Google phones starting with Nexus 4, which at least has pre-installed apps I generally like and use.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  The reason you can't uninstall the crap is that you aren't by default root. The same "root" problem exists on the iphone.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  > The bundled crapware is the reason I switched from Samsung to OnePlus. I'm not sure I trust them either, unless this apparent backdoor situation has since been resolved? I'd rather stick to Nokia or Motorola. https://www.wired.com/story/oneplus-phones-have-an-unfortunate-backdoor-built-in/ https://www.wired.com/story/oneplus-phones-have-an-unfortuna...

helloguillecl 8y ago

Also, they will endlessly re-suscribe you to their spam even after you unsubscribe. Some months after unsubscribing from friend's posts email alerts, I changed my password to something I did not want to remember, only to be automatically re-subscribed, without notice, to their post updates.

giancarlostoro 8y ago
There's a setting I saw on Instagram about this where it will send you emails if you're inactive for too long. It's an entirely distinct setting from all other email spam. There was one setting on Instagram I would toggle, and come back two seconds later to find it retoggled, it was to suggest my account to other people to follow, I've managed to acquire like 20 follow requests from total strangers, I can't make it stop. Something is seriously wrong with IG. I'm a programmer, this is the sorta thing if I heard from someone else I wouldn't believe, but it's fundamentally broken imho.
- helloguillecl 8y ago
  This is probably what it was. But I can tell you, I never saw such an option in the "unsubscribing" form.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    In the case of IG: https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/6emails.png https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/6emails... It's under "Reminder Emails" which most people don't disable usually cause they don't think about disabling it.
- 2sk21 8y ago
  I'm testing this hypothesis. I have not logged into Facebook for three months and am still getting daily emails with links to posts
  - Consultant32452 8y ago

charlysl 8y ago

Am I the only one experiencing "Facebook is so bad" fatigue? I am not implying that there should be no criticism, I believe quite the opposite, but I think we have heard all of this before, many times over.

ionised 8y ago
I say keep it coming until the message gets across to everyone. I'm fatigued by Facebook's existence.
helloguillecl 8y ago
No, I'm not getting tired of seeing one of the most powerful companies in the world to face some scrutiny, given their past behaviour and non-transparent "growth" tactics (And his founder's).
c16 8y ago
Repetition is in some ways emphasis. The fact that you are getting fatigued is showing that it is slowly working, and that people are slowly waking up to it.
- kodablah 8y ago
  Disagree. Instead it's showing the signal to noise ratio has reached a level where the content doesn't outweigh the category. People are in fact slowly falling back asleep to it.
  - zanny 8y ago
    The arguments against Facebook at this point have basically shown that the whole platform and every service they provide is tainted and exploitative. Anyone still using Facebook after all that will never stop using Facebook. The repetition is more to reach new ears, not try to again to convince those who already decided otherwise.
    - kodablah 8y ago

helloguillecl 8y ago

I see all this dark patters and user-unfriendly tactics as a way to deceive the market with metrics that wont matter if in the long term you lose user's trust. It might increase the perceived value of a company to retain some users, but in the long term such tactics are damaging the company reputation, thus effectively diminishing the value of the company/product.

LeonM 8y ago

It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too. But this is nothing new, Samsung phones have came preloaded with bloat since forever. When buying a new phone I always spend some time deleting all Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook and carrier related apps. Yes, you can delete 'undeletable' apps through ADB, without rooting the device. pm uninstall -k --user 0 <name of package>

AlexandrB 8y ago
> It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too. But this is nothing new, Samsung phones have came preloaded with bloat since forever. I'm old enough to remember when this was standard. Before smartphones almost all cellphones were bought through carriers and came pre-loaded with a bunch of carrier crapware (often unremovable). One of the best things about the first iPhone was that Apple retained control of the pre-installed apps and AT&T was not allowed to put a bunch of their own garbage on it. 12 years later the lack of crapware remains a key differentiator for iPhones. But what's most surprising is that in an industry where everyone seems keen to copy even Apple's worst ideas (no headphone jack, notches) only a few are copying some of their best.
- mariusmg 8y ago
  Windows Phones didn't had crap on them either. This is strictly a Android issue.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    At least the Nexus phones I've had also never came with crap ware. This is yet another reason why I would only ever by a Android phone from Google. Of course the main reason are the longer update cycles that might even delay arrival of security updates. I really wish Google had gone the exact same route as Apple and only shipped Android phones themselves. To me the collaboration with random manufacturers also weakened the Nexus brand. I have zero brand loyalty to Samsung, LG or HTC. I wanted a Google phone. My iPhone doesn't say "Foxconn" on it, so why did my Nexus say "LG" and the next one "Samsung"?! I'm always surprised that these concerns apparently aren't shared by the market and people are happily buying Samsung phones with crap on it and unnecessary changes to Android that just result in getting updates super late.

Yizahi 8y ago

Says the site with ~20-30 crapware JS trackers (12 blocked by uBlock, 23 by uMatrix). I'm not forgiving FB here, just pointing out that others are often similarly bad.

isodude 8y ago
This is the reason I've stopped surfing the web and stay on news aggregate sites. It's madness how many dependencies sites have. Having Little Snitch on and not allowing general port 80/443 will make you perfectly aware.
- kowdermeister 8y ago
  Why don't you use a blocker extension?
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    I trust ublock well enough, but it's a risk - Adblock Plus on the one hand basically started collecting advertising data and selling whitelisting to advertisers, and plugins generally have an evergreen auto-updating system. It's happened hundreds of times that a plugin was bought and malicious tracking, ad-injecting and/or cryptocurrency mining code was injected without the user being made aware or the party responsible for delivering updates (Google, Mozilla) taking action against these practices or at the very least warning their users. TL;DR: Blocker extensions are easy but they can be compromised.
    - mtreis86 8y ago
      https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix is opensource and is basically a firewall built in a browser extension
    - kowdermeister 8y ago
      Everything can be compromised. Going outside of the building is a risk. In case of uBlock it would probably turn out pretty quickly if something fishy is going on. My point is that the benefits are greater for me than the risks. You could actually roll your own uBlock extension: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock then write a script that updates it in your browser. Is that safe enough? :)

macawfish 8y ago

It's the old crapware too

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

I hate to be one of "those people" but I logged out of Facebook on all of my devices on New Year's Eve and haven't been back since. I used to check the site multiple times per day. I thought I'd miss out on a few groups but to be honest the people I know from those groups IRL keep me updated on the rare important announcement - ie a couple of upcoming events. I haven't missed it at all. Full Disclosure: I do still have Messenger Lite on my phone, but with notifications disabled so I only check it a couple of times per day.

RankingMember 8y ago
Good for you, but it's only been 9 days mate, and leaving one of its tendrils in place makes it more likely you'll gradually get sucked back in.
Kiro 8y ago
What service do you use for chatting?
- chrstphrknwtn 8y ago
  My telephone
  - Kiro 8y ago
    I want a phone without voice. I hate when people call me and I never call anyone. I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone forcing me to call them to interact.
    - chrstphrknwtn 8y ago
      Yeah, I've also thought a phone without voice would be great; an iPod touch with data sort of thing. Having said that, voice calls are simply more productive for quite a few things. Making "must not interact via telephony" a condition of friendship seems a bit much. Is meeting in person also out of the question?

stuaxo 8y ago

My Android TV has undeletable facebook inside it :(

chrismorgan 8y ago

This is nothing new. Google especially has been in this position since the start of Android. I have quite a list of apps that I’ve disabled but can’t uninstall: Chrome, Drive, Galaxy Apps, Gmail, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Music, Google Text-to-speech engine, Hancom Office Viewer, Launcher3, Memo, Photo Screensavers, S Planner, Samsung Billing, Samsung Push Service, TalkBack, Weather, YouTube. I’m going to try LeonM’s technique to see if I can in fact uninstall them without rooting the device (which I have failed to accomplish; it seems to me that you’re basically stuck if you don’t use a flagship device, and my Samsung J1 (2016) isn’t flagship). Then there are plenty of others that I’d like to disable but can’t; including but not at all limited to: Email, Email, Email composer, Email storage, Email sync, Internet, S Planner, Samsung account, Samsung Cloud Data Relay.

vorpalhex 8y ago
Samsung devices are the worst. When I had an S8, I ran a toolkit that would constantly remove (and re-remove when it appeared again) almost all of the Samsung crapware, but even that is subpar since you need some of it like their Health product for basic phone features to work. Samsung is by far the worst at it. I won't buy their phones anymore.
- komali2 8y ago
  Recently got an s9 and there's a whole button I can't use because it is bound to the "Launch Bixby" function. I'm not exactly sure what Bixby is or does, some sort of voice control (but I already have google now?), but it requires me to have a samsung account to use, which I don't want/need. So, unused button. Wish I could bind it to camera or something, no such luck.
  - Faark 8y ago
    > So, unused button. Wish I could bind it to camera or something, no such luck. The reddit thread about this story mentions an app "bxActions" that sees to be doing exactly that and might be worth a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ae265u/samsung_phone_users_perturbed_to_find_they_cant/edmeti2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ae265u/samsung_...

CaptainZapp 8y ago

Will they also pull such shit with KaiOS? I thought I'm a happy camper, when Nokia reissued the 8110. Ahh, no Google spyware, no Apple extorcionist paricing. How wrong I was. First of all it comes with Google Maps and Google Assistant. Then after the first software update it puts in Twitter and three crappy games, which full versions need to be bought and which cannot be removed. Their privacy statement is also noo what I would call encouraging. Do I really need to shell out for an IPhone after all?

quantum_magpie 8y ago
Unfortunately, iphones are exactly the same shit. Bunch of crapware that you can't remove or disable.
culot 8y ago
I wonder what developer access you can achieve with that 8110 device? For FirefoxOS devices the debugging and developer stuff used to be fun via Firefox browser and was simply Android on the low level. Also FirefoxOS devices were generally not locked down in any meaningful way. Curious to see what you can hack with their devices on that FirefoxOS fork. Hmmm. Need to get me one of those phones, so cool looking anyway.

StreamBright 8y ago

Happens when tech is largely driven by ad companies.

glenrivard 8y ago
Samsung is NOT an "ad companies"? Google phones do NOT have this issue. You do NOT get bloatware on Pixels or Android One for that matter.

justtopost 8y ago

Hardly new. It was unwanted a decade ago, when forced down my throat. It just seems people are wising up to the monopoly status. I thought the IE case would have preempted this preinstalled crap. What kind of law can help us seperate hardware, software, and personal rights?

bnolsen 8y ago

Not sure if 4+ years is "new".

glenrivard 8y ago

Buy a Pixel or an Android One phone and you do NOT have this issue.

syntaxing 8y ago

This kind of crap is why I always buy phones that have stock Android. I have been a long time Nexus customer but after Google dropped the line I went for the Essential Phone during the $250 sale. Easily one of the best phone with stock Android .

Steltek 8y ago
The reviews of the Essential PH-1 were hilarious in this regard. People were annoyed that they had to install "obvious" apps for their Essential that every other manufacturer forcibly included.
- syntaxing 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure why the PH-1 didn't take off. 128 GB storage, Snapdragon 835, and ceramic backing is amazing for less than $300 after tax. The only "downside" is the non-OLED screen, weird reception for T-mobile, and subpar camera app (which the pixel 3 port fixes). The screen is still great and vibrant though.
  - culot 8y ago
    They would have needed to get on Verizon or T-Mobile to really make a dent in the US, being only available on Sprint was never going to be enough.

infinity0 8y ago

I use https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ these days, a lot of things do work fine with a fake Google Play Services. https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ for more technical tips, half-finished and badly-written.

Eli_P 8y ago

If a giant like Facebook had bought Match Group and Tinder, would it be possible for it to manipulate dating and thus breeding people up to statistically significant scale? I feel it like being "@" in somebody's Dwarf Fortress. World's so narcissistic.

CodeSheikh 8y ago
What makes you think Match Group and Tinder are not already statistically matching people based on their algorithms? They are part of IAC and IAC is a giant publishing conglomerate based out of NYC.
- Eli_P 8y ago
  Yikes! There's only hope they'll add some paid service where I can find love and hunt deer with a crossbow in special national park, wild way. Just like those two domains, wild and artificial, from Huxley's Brave New World.
mtberatwork 8y ago
If they match too precisely though wouldn't they lose out on tons of recurring revenue?
- Eli_P 8y ago
  You are correct, Tinder is designed keep you on hook, sustain finger-swiping reflex, and all that. But I've been pondering from a zoomed-out, conspiracy-ish perspective. If FB merges with dating apps, I bet there will be no premium accounts at all, as revenue from them won't matter much. Because, having FB's stat-models of social groups combined with dating app leverage, they can be forced to gravitate towards or divided not only by superficial forces such as personalized news-feeds and ads, but your children potentially will become a content for you and the product for population, recycle. The biological function of love is to reproduce as many DNA of yours as possible, or support closest neighborhood DNAs as well. It is interesting what it will be like when we'll have substituted natural love with statistically predicted one? We've been doing this already with politics and culture, only this time it will be more real-time.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

FWIW, this might be a carrier pre-load thing rather than a Samsung thing: on the S8+ that I bought unlocked direct from Samsung, the Facebook app can be uninstalled.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dd36 8y ago

I think all of these privacy problems can be traced back to contract law and contracts of adhesion where consumers are automatically opted into terms consumers would never wittingly opt into voluntarily.

jannes 8y ago

Even my Galaxy S7 Edge from 2015 came with an undeletable Facebook app. Why is the article portraying this as a recent development?

culot 8y ago
I think it's mostly a Facebook hit piece. And actually since back then Facebook apps have become easier to disable on most Android phones. Used to be that you couldn't delete them nor disable them on most phones. Nowadays is usually possible to disable the apps, and they are usually just stubs, so their impact is minimal to null. Still would rather not that have them shipped, but when it comes to bloatware I'd say Google was a much bigger culprit.

tempodox 8y ago

Corollary: Every post with “Facebook” in its title appears on HN.

habitue 8y ago

I'm not a huge facebook fan but this thing about only being able to disable but not delete the app is misleading about how sinister it is. All it means is that the app comes installed by being part of the ROM image. It can be disabled which is essentially the same as deleting it, except you don't get the space back (which is fine since it's the rom, you can't use it without reflashing anyway). Once disabled, the Facebook app won't be able to track you or be loaded into memory. What this deal is really about is the Facebook app coming preinstalled on new Samsung phones. Bloatware: yes. But don't make too big a deal about the "undeletable" thing.

zhobbs 8y ago
Agree 100%. This is the same bloatware Android has seen since day one, nothing new here.
EpicEng 8y ago
Agreed, but from what I've been reading/hearing, the primary concern is "can FB track me even if the app is disabled?" These are non-technical people who don't trust FB. It's a valid question.
- pbalau 8y ago
  FB can't track you because the app cannot be deleted, they can track you because other apps, not even other FB apps, voluntary send FB info about you. But this doesn't match the narrative that FB is bad, so the Murdoch empire will be quiet about it.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    I think you're missing the point. I'm not saying FB can track you via their disabled app. I'm saying many don't trust Samsung or FB when they say they cannot. The majority of people don't even come close to understanding how data gets bought and sold or how impactful it can be in the long term.
- habitue 8y ago
  I can understand nontechnical people becoming distressed by the fact that it can't be deleted. But Bloomberg (and Techcrunch) should not be making a big deal out of those fears. Both articles seem to be stoking the angle "ooh, you can't delete it! Sinister..."

usefulcat 8y ago

"Not cool, Facebook, not cool." I mean, yeah, but what about the device makers? It's not like FB can force them to do this..

dang 8y ago

Url changed from https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/facebook-is-the-new-crapware/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/facebook-is-the-new-crapwa..., which points to this.

anoplus 8y ago

This is my motivation to switch to iPhone. Samsung must be punished. Hope Samsung read this.

loop0 8y ago

After years of using android I just moved from my galaxy s8 to an iphone xs max, and I was surprised to see that apple allows to uninstall most of their apps. What I usually did on my former samsung was to disable the apps I didn't needed, it is not the same as uninstalling it but it does the job.

wvenable 8y ago
On iOS, the built in apps aren't "uninstalled" either as they're stored in the OS image just like on Android. So when you delete them, you're just disabling them the same way, and you can put them back just as easily. The difference is that Apple makes the operation appear to be the same as deleting them and that's a good thing from a UI perspective. Clearly the "disable" option in Android is too confusing for some people.
- iscrewyou 8y ago
  But when you redownload a now-deleted-preloaded app, it actually downloads it. Which makes me think that Apple actually removes the App package from the phone. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
- moogleii 8y ago
  I think that was true of older versions, but newer versions will also offload them, either via the user or via the "unused apps" feature.

grawprog 8y ago

Every samsung smartphone i've ever owned came with an undeletable facebook app(along with a bunch of other undeleteable crap) preinstalled since at least android 2 days.

novaRom 8y ago

Same problem in my Android TV set. Lesson learned: will never buy anything with Android TV anymore.

mancerayder 8y ago

This story (and from different outlets) is now all over the press, which is great. Can I add another qualm in a similar vein? It involves Samsung TV's. I'm convinced Samsung is increasingly mean. I only use streaming services (Netflix, et. al.), and for the past year I've been pretty pleased with "Smart TV" functionality, which makes life easy. That is, until the following happened. After a recent update, the TV: * Now starts up automatically onto some broadcast TV station, I think it's some sports station. There is No Way to turn this off, because it's not an app, but a new functionality built into the TV. By "broadcast TV" I don't mean the old-school antenna or cable, I mean the equivalent of live broadcast TV streaming via the Internet. If I turn the TV off, for example, while the YouTube app is up, when it turns back on, I get that streaming broadcast crap again. * The broadcast crap has commercials, and sound on. * Ads have ALSO popped up in place of one of the "buttons" in the Apps menu. You're not enraged yet? Let me save the best for last: * When using the voice functionality on the remote during a search (either on YouTube or someplace), a popup jumped up telling me that I needed to accept THREE terms and conditions (three checkmarks), and click OK, or I could not use the voice functionality. The TOC involved aggregating my searches and data for ad purposes, and it said something about other Samsung devices. Luckily, I don't own any. I went back to plugging my PC into the TV. Folks, please do not buy any Samsung products.

bo1024 8y ago
The idea (and implementation) of Smart TVs is very frustrating to me, so I'm glad to see others reaching this conclusion-- > I went back to plugging my PC into the TV. It's a perfect example of what Stallman has always warned us about -- companies using software in products to control and exploit us rather than empower us. All the things you mention, planned obsolescence, and more.
cududa 8y ago
I was exceptionally displeased to find this functionality on all the Samsung TVs at my vacation home this winter. Threw a FireTV Cube on all of them and couldn’t be happier with the experience. IMO, it’s cable box integration is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. But I’d suggest you checkout the FireTV 4K if you don’t have cable
8y ago

foobaw 8y ago

This is fear-mongering. The app is a stub and it doesn't do any tracking. I used to work at an OEM - this is just an agreement that Samsung and Facebook signed.

qwerty456127 8y ago

Don't use default smartphone firmwares, don't buy smartphones you can't install a custom firmware to.

chrismeller 8y ago
Sure, but let’s be honest, back in 2007 when the first iPhone came out it was a huge deal that Verizon, et al couldn’t install crap on it by default because it came straight from Apple. No “normal human” is ever going to install their own OS on anything. At least Apple enforces some standards...
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  > Sure, but let’s be honest, back in 2007 when the first iPhone came out it was a huge deal that Verizon, et al couldn’t install crap on it by default because it came straight from Apple. Good, nevertheless all my friends jailbroke their iPhones to install apps not available in the store. > No “normal human” is ever going to install their own OS on anything. Whoever cares about having at least minimal degree of privacy will at least get root access, remove bloatware and install tools like droidwall and xprivacy on their android phones.
  - dijit 8y ago
    Your friends are more technical than 99% of the population of earth. I applaud you for having friends who are so technically literate. I think you would do well to remember the rest of the human race though.
    - qwerty456127 8y ago
      I'm curious what portion of people lack a geek friend they can trust to set-up whatever for them.
      - chrismeller 8y ago
        I'm curious what portion of people you think even know that jailbreaking exists, let alone why they would want it done on their phone. This is, without any sort of exaggeration, a 1% issue.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

sizzle 8y ago

This is why I'll always run rooted Android and take back control.

mark-r 8y ago

I quick pulled my new Moto out of my pocket to make sure they didn't do the same thing - they didn't. I have never used Facebook and I never will, haven't trusted them from the beginning.

hiergiltdiestfu 8y ago

This news is so old, I was sure the date on the article was 2009.

drugme 8y ago

Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.

yellowapple 8y ago

Hasn't this been the case for years now? Why is this only now newsworthy?

designtofly 8y ago

I'm glad this story has gone viral recently. Hopefully there will be more pressure to stop this practice. I've been using Android for a number of years now and between the handset manufacturers and the wireless providers, there has been undeletable crapware since the beginning. I've been slowly modifying my behavior in response. I stopped buying phones directly from the wireless providers (e.g. Verizon). This has noticeably improved my experience. Every time I upgrade my phone, I look into the Google flagship Android phones, but they always have some critical flaws that drive me to buy the Samsung Galaxy phones. The same thing happened a few months ago when I chose the Galaxy S9+ over the Pixel 3's. I also always think about switching to Apple iPhone, since I do think they take user experience and privacy more seriously than Google Android. While I'm on the subject. Samsung, please get rid of Bixby and all of your crappy Samsung apps. I hate the feeling that there's two OS's loaded on my phone... the Android layer and the Samsung layer (which I never use but always get prompted for unless I figure out how to disable it).

ayoisaiah 8y ago
I don't think all Samsung apps are "crappy". I quite enjoy using some of them like Samsung Health and Secure Folder. What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps and then preventing the user from removing them easily. Personally, I can live with this situation since I can always remove what I don't like with adb, and I quite enjoy a lot of the features and changes that Samsung added on top of stock Android.
- diffeomorphism 8y ago
  > What needs to end is preloading so many duplicate apps That is not possible. They can either have only the google apps (great, just like ancient IE monopoly times) or "duplicate apps", but they can not omit the google apps if they want google play. Also, preinstalls matter very much as can be clearly seen in the market share of IE, edge, chrome and safari.
  - i_cant_speel 8y ago
    You only quoted the first half of their sentence. They said duplicate apps are only an issue when you aren't allowed to remove the one (or both) that you don't use.

apocalypstyx 8y ago

Sometimes, I wish Rick Roderick were still around to comment on the present, then I realize that he did / is, even if he did it in 1990. But in the matrix of needs, in such a possible future system, as if it weren’t already kind of like that. Within such a possible future system, the only command or need that the machine would not respond to would be the one command that I have a feeling some of us would most want to type into the machine. Which is the demand that it destroy itself, you see, that would be my problem with the machine. It would meet all the needs except my need to see it destroyed. It would take every other command well, and meet every other need well, but the need to just shut it down. http://rickroderick.org/108-philosophy-and-post-modern-culture-1990/ http://rickroderick.org/108-philosophy-and-post-modern-cultu...

userbinator 8y ago

This is one of the reasons why I bought a generic MTK phone: they come with an unlocked bootloader (and at least several years ago when I did this, it seemed to be the case that they even couldn't be locked because the hardware had no such feature), and the first thing I do is a full flash dump for backup purposes. Then I root it, delete the stuff I don't need (surprisingly little comes with these generic phones; they usually don't come with much more than the stock Android install), and customise it to my needs. The fact that Android is Java-based and quite modular helps a lot with the modding too. (Some of these phones do come with ad/spy/malware, but since they're easily rootable, it's not hard to remove. One could say the relative lack of security means the user is on an equal footing with the crapware authors and the manufacturer, whereas locked-down devices from companies like Samsung trade off user-control for company-control.)

usr1987 8y ago

Lineage OS an option... I love having a minimal OS

kentf 8y ago

iPhone

16bytes 8y ago

I'm not quite sure why this is controversial. "Undeletable" applications is as old as keeping factory-reset images on devices. Would people prefer that you could "remove" apps even if that meant they were still part of what's stored on the phone? If you factory reset the phone, people expect it to look like whatever it looked like whenever you first started the device after taking it out of the box. That's why you can't uninstall it; it's part of the system image. If there's an issue with how this work, the issue is that there are bundled apps, not that you can't uninstall them.

mjevans 8y ago
What I would like is a bootloader that has the following features: * End user management of trusted keys * Keep most major manufacturer keys pre-loaded (even if disabled for current use) * Factory reset online, not from device contents. When a 'factory reset' or other base-reinstall is requested, look at an indirect URI associated with the preferred active key (this means WiFi, Ethernet, or other network connection must be made). Similar to how SYSLINUX (in various flavors) looks for different identifiers from specific to generic, query for an existing 'file' that matches the device model and serial / MAC in a pre-defined way. When a possible file is found download the bootstrap, validate that it is signed with an allowed key* (if it has a valid sig, but the key isn't allowed, ask the end user), if it's valid run downloaded bootstrap. The downloaded bootstrap should, ideally, validate and re-configure the flash layout, possibly update system firmware if desirable, then apply the current version (or maybe offer a choice of back versions if applicable) of the 'factory' image for the device. This way updates to the core image can be shipped with factory resets instead of some fossilized version of the software that should never be used for security or incompatibility reasons. The above also applies to how generic computers should work, I understand that Apple devices are fairly close to this obvious process but I believe (offhand) that they lack end-user empowerment / management of authorized authorities at a bios level.

NoPicklez 8y ago

In Australia the ACCC which is our competition and consumer watchdog, released a preliminary report in December, into the dominance of the likes of Google and Facebook. One of things they are proposing is stopping likes of Google from being a default search engine in Australian devices. In that consumers will be offered a choice rather than provided one as default. I would really like to see this extend through to bloatware applications where possible such as the myriad of random Microsoft apps that get installed, as well as the Google suite in non-Google devices. I should be able to remove the applications that are on my device and use the applications only I want to. If I use Spotify for music, then I should be able to remove Google Music and Samsung Music. In the same way that I can remove Apple music and use Spotify on my iPhone.

TheMagicHorsey 8y ago

As anyone really surprised or "perturbed" by this? This nonsense has been going on for years. I can't remember a Samsung phone without garbage, undeletable apps. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 8. I like it. I took all the undeletable apps and removed them from my home screen. I hardly notice they are there. You can also shut down their permissions in the settings menu. They are basically inert.

willart4food 8y ago

2019: Samsung Phone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't Delete Facebook 2023: iPhone Users Perturbed to Find They Can't logout from Facebook 2025: Google Phone Users Perturbed to Find Their photos are automatically posted on Facebook 2027: Facebook Branded Phone Users Perturbed to Find Their life is cached 24/7 and automatically posted on Facebook

benchplz 8y ago

No carrier installs vanilla copies of OSes on their phones, every phone literally has pre-installed apps. Just because this is facebook it's getting headlines. I mean this is the same way with computers too. Why is this even news?

sleepydog 8y ago

I also noticed when troubleshooting a VPN and doing some tcpdumps that my Xperia Z5C was making pretty frequent DNS lookups of mqtt-mini.facebook.com . From what I could find on Google search my best guess was that this endpoint is used by facebook messenger, but I don't have that installed. This is despite the fact that I've disabled the facebook app. I took a second look while writing this comment and there's an addtional "Facebook services" app, which I've just gone ahead and disabled. Maybe that will stop the requests.