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I would really like to uninstall chrome from my Android phone but it appears to be impossible. Am I missing something?

chii 6y ago
the system webview is chrome based. It cannot be uninstalled as far as i can see. The chrome app may be removable tho? Tho i can only disable it on my phone.
- matsemann 6y ago
  The system webview which crashed millions of android devices after a bad update yesterday..?
franga2000 6y ago
In order to have Google Play Services on an Android device, the vendor has to sign a contract with Google. Part of that contract states that the vendor must pre-install Chrome and a bunch of other Google apps as system apps, making them non-removable. Best you can do is disable it, which should be where the uninstall button usually is.
mpol 6y ago
I have heard it should be possible with adb. But if you don't trust Google Chrome, how can you trust Google Android?
dannyw 6y ago
Consider buying an iPhone. I'm serious. Google is a spyware company.
- antattack 6y ago
  Hm, I find Apple crawling through my photos looking for faces pretty creepy. This feature cannot be disabled for some reason.
  - mamon 6y ago
    But isn't that running locally, using NeuralEngine of the processor? If they do not upload that info to their servers then I'm okay with it.
- izacus 6y ago
  How do you uninstall Safari from iPhone though? On Android he has a free choice to use and support Firefox (with Addons), which on iOS he can't do by the decree of the platform holder. (The platform holder which told us, developers, that writing the complaint that's linked in this very article would cause us to be removed from the AppStore.)
- stiltzkin 6y ago
  Seconded
pmlnr 6y ago
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383321 You can uninstall any app by using adb shell: 1. sudo apt-get-install android-tools-adb 2. Connect phone using usb, choose file transfer 3. In terminal type: adb shell 4. On phone allow dialog that appeared 5. In terminal in adb shell type: pm list package 6. Find which app is it and uninstall it, eg: pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.services
- dvh 6y ago
  There is a typo (discussion is archived so I cannot fix it) it is "sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb"
andyjohnson0 6y ago
You can't uninstall Chrome on Android, but it's easy to not use it: 1. Install firefox 2. Settings->Apps, set firefox to be the default browser. 3. In the app setting for Chrome, disable and stop the app. 4. Remove the Google search/assistant widget on your homescreen/desktop and use the Firefox search widget instead. Not much can be done about the Chrome-based system webview, as far as I know.
Jonnax 6y ago
Do you get the option to disable it? When you look it up in the apps list? I don't know about how it is in the latest phones. But at least for older phones apps which are bundled as part of the OS have a version of the program in the read-only system partition which is used to do factory resets. So disabling deletes the latest version of the software, and stops it from running on the phone.
xxs 6y ago
You can't realistically remove it w/o going into devtools/root but you can use firefox and set as default browser. For years I have not touched chrome.

chii 6y ago

the system webview is chrome based. It cannot be uninstalled as far as i can see. The chrome app may be removable tho? Tho i can only disable it on my phone.

matsemann 6y ago
The system webview which crashed millions of android devices after a bad update yesterday..?

franga2000 6y ago

In order to have Google Play Services on an Android device, the vendor has to sign a contract with Google. Part of that contract states that the vendor must pre-install Chrome and a bunch of other Google apps as system apps, making them non-removable. Best you can do is disable it, which should be where the uninstall button usually is.

mpol 6y ago

I have heard it should be possible with adb. But if you don't trust Google Chrome, how can you trust Google Android?

dannyw 6y ago

Consider buying an iPhone. I'm serious. Google is a spyware company.

antattack 6y ago
Hm, I find Apple crawling through my photos looking for faces pretty creepy. This feature cannot be disabled for some reason.
- mamon 6y ago
  But isn't that running locally, using NeuralEngine of the processor? If they do not upload that info to their servers then I'm okay with it.
izacus 6y ago
How do you uninstall Safari from iPhone though? On Android he has a free choice to use and support Firefox (with Addons), which on iOS he can't do by the decree of the platform holder. (The platform holder which told us, developers, that writing the complaint that's linked in this very article would cause us to be removed from the AppStore.)
stiltzkin 6y ago
Seconded

pmlnr 6y ago

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383321 You can uninstall any app by using adb shell: 1. sudo apt-get-install android-tools-adb 2. Connect phone using usb, choose file transfer 3. In terminal type: adb shell 4. On phone allow dialog that appeared 5. In terminal in adb shell type: pm list package 6. Find which app is it and uninstall it, eg: pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.services

dvh 6y ago
There is a typo (discussion is archived so I cannot fix it) it is "sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb"

andyjohnson0 6y ago

You can't uninstall Chrome on Android, but it's easy to not use it: 1. Install firefox 2. Settings->Apps, set firefox to be the default browser. 3. In the app setting for Chrome, disable and stop the app. 4. Remove the Google search/assistant widget on your homescreen/desktop and use the Firefox search widget instead. Not much can be done about the Chrome-based system webview, as far as I know.

Jonnax 6y ago

Do you get the option to disable it? When you look it up in the apps list? I don't know about how it is in the latest phones. But at least for older phones apps which are bundled as part of the OS have a version of the program in the read-only system partition which is used to do factory resets. So disabling deletes the latest version of the software, and stops it from running on the phone.

xxs 6y ago

You can't realistically remove it w/o going into devtools/root but you can use firefox and set as default browser. For years I have not touched chrome.