3 ms·
Hm, if a phone is to support a factory reset feature at all, everything it's bundled with needs to be there somewhere in read-only memory. And everything I've
by Zarel 7y ago
Hm, if a phone is to support a factory reset feature at all, everything it's bundled with needs to be there somewhere in read-only memory.
And everything I've read says that disabling an app and removing updates removes it from everywhere _except_ read-only memory.
I don't think there's any other way to do this at all, unless you want to give up on having a factory reset feature entirely. I think the only problem is that Android doesn't just call it "uninstall" and hide it better.
- londons_explore 7y agoOne option is to require an internet connection for the factory reset process. One could imagine a setup where the system is rebooted into some kind of safe mode where only manufacturer-signed packages are executed, all other packages are deleted, and then any uninstalled original packages are re-downloaded from a manufacturer designated server, or even peer-to-peer to save internet bandwidth. Considering the rare use of the factory reset process, and the large cost associated with exabytes of flash memory across all devices worldwide, this seems a worthy tradeoff.