5 ms·

>It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too... Alas, it's true. The crapware bloat has infested the entire industry.

>It's not just FB, my Samsung S9 came preloaded with 'undeletable' Microsoft apps too... Alas, it's true. The crapware bloat has infested the entire industry. Sometimes I just don't understand? Don't some of these Samsung phones cost hundreds of dollars? Why annoy people who've already paid you with the crapware? From software companies like Google and facebook, to hardware behemoths like Samsung, the entire industry has become addicted to this stuff.

rapnie 8y ago
It is not just crapware, but adware too. When GDPR kicked in, I suddenly got a Foursquare consent dialog popping out of my standard Samsung Gallery app. I still use that crap, unfortunately, but am looking for replacement for both mobile OS and smartphone (probably Fairphone with /e/ or LineageOS).
expertentipp 8y ago
If there is potential for a B2B deal for installing crapware in your device, it will be completed. The retail price of the device will increase as long it will not cause significant sales drop on significant markets. Free market, or rather - a corporate oligopoly.
feenix566 8y ago
Most people don't care. The money Samsung is getting from Facebook to pre-install the app is worth more to them than the goodwill they're losing from the minority of users who do care.
Retra 8y ago
>why annoy people who've already paid you with the crapware? Why make money once when you can make it twice? Where's the incentive for businesses to give you what you want, when you can instead just take what they offer?
- AlexandrB 8y ago
  > Where's the incentive for businesses to give you what you want, when you can instead just take what they offer? This is a symptom of short-term thinking in corporate leadership. Apple didn't become such a valuable brand by filling their products with third-party shit in exchange for a few bucks.
  - naravara 8y ago
    >Apple didn't become such a valuable brand by filling their products with third-party shit in exchange for a few bucks. The same intransigence that serves them today also had them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for the better part of a decade at one point. Apple has that commitment to quality, but even aside from that commitment they also just have really good taste and its baked into their product design and company culture. As they say, money can't buy taste and there are no MBA programs that cultivate such sensibilities. It's a hard orientation to copy.
  - Retra 8y ago
    That's true up to a point. But chances are, they will eventually have corporate leadership that is desperate to make a profit, and they'll seriously consider doing the same thing.
Double_a_92 8y ago
Most people don't care, or actually even enjoy those apps... They don't seem to care about anything at all that relates to phones. E.g. I've told my relatives multiple times to send me good photos as document in messengers. But nope, 100KB compressed mush it is.
tjr225 8y ago
...except for Apple.
- badpun 8y ago
  That's what's great about them. They definitely want to be perceived as premium brand, and installing crapware or selling off your data does not go well with that image. So they don't do it.
- LeonM 8y ago
  Apple is doing a lot better nowadays, but it's still not perfect though, for example: you can't delete iTunes on MacOS.
  - slumber86 8y ago
    Right, but isn't a third party app, is kinda a part of the OS, like deleting Safari.
  - xoa 8y ago
    Yes, you can. You can also recompile the kernel with new options, or do whatever else. This has been misstated repeatedly in this thread, but macOS simply is not backed by a trusted hardware chain, end of story. It's not iOS. With SIP Apple has effectively implemented something like a more granular system immutable flag with kern.securelevel set to 1 like it was back until 10.3 or so (can't remember exactly when they changed it to 0), but just as you could drop down to single user mode back then SIP can also be disabled or modified at will. Having the restricted flag set on a bunch of core system .app bundles under macOS and a sane default policy is simply not the same thing as "you can't get rid of it". And I do think Apple should be legally required to provide decent built-in support for an owner controlled trust chain, but I don't think mixing up "you need to really know and be sure of what you're doing" with "it's hard prevented outside of bugs" is helpful.

rapnie 8y ago

It is not just crapware, but adware too. When GDPR kicked in, I suddenly got a Foursquare consent dialog popping out of my standard Samsung Gallery app. I still use that crap, unfortunately, but am looking for replacement for both mobile OS and smartphone (probably Fairphone with /e/ or LineageOS).

expertentipp 8y ago

If there is potential for a B2B deal for installing crapware in your device, it will be completed. The retail price of the device will increase as long it will not cause significant sales drop on significant markets. Free market, or rather - a corporate oligopoly.

feenix566 8y ago

Most people don't care. The money Samsung is getting from Facebook to pre-install the app is worth more to them than the goodwill they're losing from the minority of users who do care.

Retra 8y ago

>why annoy people who've already paid you with the crapware? Why make money once when you can make it twice? Where's the incentive for businesses to give you what you want, when you can instead just take what they offer?

AlexandrB 8y ago
> Where's the incentive for businesses to give you what you want, when you can instead just take what they offer? This is a symptom of short-term thinking in corporate leadership. Apple didn't become such a valuable brand by filling their products with third-party shit in exchange for a few bucks.
- naravara 8y ago
  >Apple didn't become such a valuable brand by filling their products with third-party shit in exchange for a few bucks. The same intransigence that serves them today also had them teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for the better part of a decade at one point. Apple has that commitment to quality, but even aside from that commitment they also just have really good taste and its baked into their product design and company culture. As they say, money can't buy taste and there are no MBA programs that cultivate such sensibilities. It's a hard orientation to copy.
- Retra 8y ago
  That's true up to a point. But chances are, they will eventually have corporate leadership that is desperate to make a profit, and they'll seriously consider doing the same thing.

Double_a_92 8y ago

Most people don't care, or actually even enjoy those apps... They don't seem to care about anything at all that relates to phones. E.g. I've told my relatives multiple times to send me good photos as document in messengers. But nope, 100KB compressed mush it is.

tjr225 8y ago

...except for Apple.

badpun 8y ago
That's what's great about them. They definitely want to be perceived as premium brand, and installing crapware or selling off your data does not go well with that image. So they don't do it.
LeonM 8y ago
Apple is doing a lot better nowadays, but it's still not perfect though, for example: you can't delete iTunes on MacOS.
- slumber86 8y ago
  Right, but isn't a third party app, is kinda a part of the OS, like deleting Safari.
- xoa 8y ago
  Yes, you can. You can also recompile the kernel with new options, or do whatever else. This has been misstated repeatedly in this thread, but macOS simply is not backed by a trusted hardware chain, end of story. It's not iOS. With SIP Apple has effectively implemented something like a more granular system immutable flag with kern.securelevel set to 1 like it was back until 10.3 or so (can't remember exactly when they changed it to 0), but just as you could drop down to single user mode back then SIP can also be disabled or modified at will. Having the restricted flag set on a bunch of core system .app bundles under macOS and a sane default policy is simply not the same thing as "you can't get rid of it". And I do think Apple should be legally required to provide decent built-in support for an owner controlled trust chain, but I don't think mixing up "you need to really know and be sure of what you're doing" with "it's hard prevented outside of bugs" is helpful.