I hate that. One of the reasons I dislike Samsung phones. Last phone from them was a Note 8 and unless they go back to a pure Android experience, I won’t get another. We know that isn’t happening any time soon.
Honestly I’m super over all our current choices. Im on an iPhone and while I like their privacy stuff slightly better than android, there are lots of things I don’t like.
I also hate how much metadata the big G snorts up. Even just the location data they retain is out of this world.
There just aren’t any options if you want something that doesn’t keep you boxed into a closed ecosystem or track every love you make.
You can get a Google pixel and sideload an operating system such as Grapheneos, and you won’t have to deal with any of Google’s bs spying. Highly recommend looking into it.
I recently made the switch and it’s great. Definitely takes a bit of understanding and research to know what you’re getting into, though.
I wanted to do that but need to use Google apps for work (specifically google chat won’t work).
You can run Google Play services on grapheneos it’s called Sanboxed Google Play. It allows you to run Play services as a normal app without any special privileges so you can install it without sacrificing all of your phones data to google. Should allow you to use pretty all google apps.
At that point why not just using Samsung phone and sideload the OS? Seems weird to do that on Pixel which has inferior hardware and good software (like its camera apps), and then remove the software
Simple reason being that there’s no notoriously good OS for Samsung phones.
Graphene is highly focused on not being annoying while keeping privacy intact. You can, for example, have Google Play Services, within a sandbox. Everything can be denied network access, or any access really, on a per app basis.
It also relies on Google’s security chip to keep the chain of trust intact. The boot sequence and your private keys are kept intact that way. Not everyone documents and opens their hardware as well as Google. Samsung is notoriously terrible and full of it when it comes to allowing you to do your own thing.
I recently just bought a pixel 6 and have been interested in Graphene OS, but would I lose features like live translate and the hold for me feature?
live translate
What is that? Google translate listening and translating live? Google lens translating images? Both work.
hold for me feature
No clue about what that is.
In general most things work just the same, and things that do not tend to be listed in the Graphene docs.
What about the fairphones? I was reading up on them and might get one. I like that they come with an android fork and open-source apps so you don’t have to deal with Google. Plus being fully repairable and sustainably-made. Does anyone have any experience with them?
The problem is getting one if you’re in North America…
But they’re in America now? https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/
Where are they originally? Would it be easier to get one in Europe?
I have a note 9 and i think its time to replace this piece of shit. It lasted like 2 years without problems and then “magically” is started to fail
They have officially come to the US recently: https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/
Apple’s biggest success is convincing people they care about your privacy.
I disabled my DNS block-list for 5 minutes to test something, and my Samsung TV used its newfound freedom to immediately go and automatically install the TikTok app from its app store. It no longer gets the privilege of an internet connection.
Shouldn’t have ever connected it in the first place. I spent $30 on a Chromecast that gets plugged in and connected.
That has to be an American-market thing, really.
My Samsung TV has never pulled this shit. It used to have free Internet access, now it’s behind a DNS blocker because it wants to do phone home a LOT, but even when I unblocked it to download an app I wanted, it didn’t do shit that it shouldn’t have.
It’s still likely the last Samsung TV I’ll ever own - I don’t like the app availability on Tizen much - but I just don’t see all this adware that everyone keeps talking about. Mine’s a 2019 model though, maybe it’s only newer ones?
This was in Europe - 2019 model as well. Must have been around 2021 or so, when TikTok was just taking off.
Straight up gambling apps too
Samsung has been a malicious bad actor for a while now. It’s not just phones; they also pulled shit like retroactively adding ads to people’s smart TVs etc.
(Also, even their “dumb” products, like appliances, are designed to fail just outside warranty. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my washer’s spider arm, which failed catastrophically due to corrosion even though nothing else in the machine had so much of a speck of corrosion on it. Samsung is clearly capable of specifying corrosion-resistant materials and chose not to on purpose in order to create a failure point.)
Everyone should completely boycott Samsung.
Your corrosion issue is due to dissimilar metals which, when in contact with one another, begin corroding immediately. They chose those materials knowing full well what would happen.
Their appliances are absolute garbage and I’ve read that many repair places refuse to work on them because they’re built so poorly.
Galvanic corrosion is a thing every shipyard on the planet has known about since we invented the propeller, of course they knew what they were doing.
Never owned a Samsung phone but 5 minutes playing with the gf’s S22 was enough to keep me as an Apple fanboy for the foreseeable future
Let’s not ignore that they are one of the conglomerates that are making living in Korea so shitty for a lot of people.
Majorly infuriating.
It’s not really your phone if it does things like this. This is Samsung’s phone you pay for their permission to carry for a few years.
True ownership means fully possessing something and deciding how it operates including what software it runs, what data that software can access, and when it can access it. I would not be surprised if those apps had some very invasive default permissions.
There’s a difference between not having full ownership and not bothering to use it. There’s plenty of options from rooting to full custom ROMs, and as far as I know Samsung does nothing to prevent you using those, they just don’t do it for you / provide support and updates.
Last time I bothered researching, Google pixel was the only one that didn’t void the warranty when you unlock the bootloader.
I remember Samsung being especially locked down with hardware e-fuses that blew if you ran any software not signed by their key. You could never reset back to stock afterwards.
If one of my relatives showed me this screen appearing on their phone I’d assume they have malware
This is definetely malware. OP has probably been doing funky stuff with his phone.
No they haven’t. This is stuff is commonly installed with updates from the carrier.
Ah yeha, sorry, didn’t read the Mobile Services Manager.
Stab in the dark…your on tmobile.
It does this to me too. You disable the damn thing, then you get a carrier update and it reactivates and downloads stupid games no one wants.
First time it did it to me, I thought I got a virus. Come to find out…nah it’s just a thing tmobile forces on you for fun.
Assholes
This is the sorta shit that will likely be in the EUs sights soon. Installing applications nobody asked for because of the carrier? That sounds fucking insanely invasive. It’s like Adidas installing a camera in your apartment because you bought a pair of sneakers.
That’s kind of an extreme example lol unless the game is asking for insane permissions. Still I get your point and hopefully the EU acts on it. Especially since they appear to be humanity’s only hope against shit like this
If the EU is the only hope we are beyond fucked
Well yeah, no one has ever used the term “only hope” optimistically lol
That’s probably because the EU generally isn’t run by a two party system, where both parties are actually just center-right neoliberals. If you want EU style protections, you have to actually fight for it, like pretty much every European country did.
The European Left needs strong support.
The two party system isn’t the only problem though, there’s also:
- Money being a form of speech – EU MEPs aren’t soliciting billionaires for money to spend on TV ads
- The 10th amendment – prevents any national effort where the federal govt uses a power not explicitly granted to it in the constitution. Obamacare tripped up here for instance, and Obamacare is far from national socialized healthcare. It was a feature when people identified more with their local culture, but in an era when every American identifies as American-first, and engages the political system accordingly by only knowing or caring about national candidates and parties, it becomes a bug.
- States that should have never been states – the US Senate took a heavy rural turn in the 19th century as vast, sparsely populated territories were given statehood. Nowadays this means to buy two US Senators you only need to gaslight ~600k people with advertising (the population of Wyoming). The founding fathers never really developed a solid plan for how the west would be settled, and it shows.
- Powerful and unaccountable Court – the Supreme Court is given authority over both other branches, serving life terms, with few guidelines or restrictions. A party with the Presidency and Senate at the right time can gain a majority of the court and undo (or manufacture) precedent at the snap of a finger. The resulting system makes it far easier to capture the court than to pass a constitutional amendment. Think abortion should be legal? Here’s a roundabout legal justification for that. Oh the new majority thinks it shouldn’t be? Okay now it’s gone. It’s a chaotic way to handle bedrock rights like access to healthcare and privacy (neither of which are mentioned anywhere in the US constitution). The constitution should be malleable enough that the court is strictly tasked with interpreting the letter of the law. The US shouldn’t be relying on legal gymnastics to legalize abortion and gay marriage. It’s unstable and undemocratic.
- Electoral College – the leader of the country, not just the Executive but the Head of State, is elected in a way that respects statehood more than personhood. It is more concerned with making sure Wyoming gets a fair vote than making sure John Doe in Queens does.
- First past the post voting – this is another oversight by the founding fathers that many European republics were able to avoid, and it’s the root cause of the two party system. But it also makes gerrymandering possible, which completely breaks both state-level politics and the US House. It makes so many seats into “safe seats” that the “money is speech” briberies become much easier to allocate.
- Racism – almost every dumb thing about American politics can be traced back in some form to slavery, segregation, or racism. Why is every state given 2 senators? Slavery. Why were some of those rural states admitted? Also slavery. Why did White Americans support progressive policies in the 30s, 40s, and 50s? Segregation. Why did the entire Deep South flip from Democrat to Republican in the late 60s? Also segregation. It’s America’s original sin and it’s still playing a role.
Every one of those things plays a role in the US not adopting stricter privacy standards, or leading the way in anything except military might. It’s why American politics is so broken that even a majority of voters wanting to fix it isn’t enough.
Yeah, I would like clarification if this came from the carrier or Samsung.
I keep my Galaxy S21 up to date, and these have not been installed for me. But I haven’t had an update in the last few days, so it’s possible it’s an upcoming update I haven’t seen yet.
But I bought my phone off Amazon; they’re usually cheaper that way, and it’s unlocked already. I don’t get them via my carrier (AT&T for what it’s worth).
Verizon does stuff like this too. It downloaded TikTok and other garbage every update. Once I couldn’t take it anymore I got rid of the app downloading it using ADB
Ah, that’s where you’re wrong: it’s not your phone.
One of the reasons that my last Samsung phone was an S5. Can’t reload a custom ROM on them anymore to get rid of OEM shit, as far as I know. Motorolas and Pixels are good for that now.
I did with my S10+, so you definitely could more recently.
Having said that I’m finding the crud much reduced on my S23, like they don’t try to push bixby down your throat every 10 seconds.
It’s carrier based. I’ve had Samsung phones almost exclusively and as long as I buy unlocked I never get unwanted apps.
Nah. My $2000 CAD unlocked directly from Samsung device had ads and bullshit pre-installed apps before I even inserted my SIM into it.
I returned that phone so fast. Never seen anything like that on my Pixel.
Jeez. Who spends $2000 on a phone?
That’s how much Samsung S22 Ultra sells for. Or I guess did, before the S23 Ultra came out.
We all will be in 5 years.
Really? I just got my phone for free from Visible.
It’s not free, the cost is built into your monthly payment. This is how all carrier supplied phones are funded. If they allowed you to bring your own unlocked device they could charge you less. They wouldn’t, but they could because they wouldn’t need to recoup the hardware expense.
Err, you’re wrong.
I only pay $25/month for unlimited data. My bill didn’t go up, either.
Whether they supplied me with a phone or not, I’d still be paying the same price.
In fact, I was using my own phone initially but they offered me an upgrade for free.
Then that means the cost of the devices has already been factored into the base price of your contract. Nothing is free, companies don’t make money by giving away phones that they paid for. You’re just paying a higher base fee regardless of whether or not you get the hardware from them. By not taking the phone from them you’re increasing the profit margin they make on your monthly contract.
There is still a lot of stuff preinstalled which could be considered unwanted by a lot of people (TikTok, Netflix, Spofify, multiple MS apps, Disney+, Facebook, Meta Services, …)
Pre-installed, yes mine had pre-installed. I don’t know anything that doesn’t have pre-installed bloatware. What the OP was complaining about was their phone randomly installing unwanted apps after they bought it. Mine has never installed an app without me telling it to. For the bloatware I just disabled it until I’m comfortable using ABD on a new phone.
I have a S21 FE unlocked on AT&T in the USA by the way.
Personally I wouldn’t mind a few preinstalled apps, if they can actually be uninstalled, not just disabled which seems to be the case for some.
But the “Meta Services” thing seems shady af, its not showing up in the app drawer because its just a background service most people don’t even know it exists. Its also not needed, because all of the Meta apps work just fine without it. So realistically Meta just pays Samsung a lot of money for something that only has the purpose to collect a lot of user data (it can also access more data than regular apps because it’s installed as an system app)
It’s carrier based
Does this happen to iPhones?
I don’t live in the US so I don’t know. Phones in my country can’t be carrier locked anyway due to laws. But they can preinstall crap if you buy one from them - except for the iPhone; those always come in factory condition.
At this point I only buy Smartphones with Android One label (Stock Android without anything changed). Samsung especially is full of bloat.
At this point I only buy Smartphones with Android One label (Stock Android without anything changed). Samsung especially is full of bloat.
Bloat is bad enough but Samsung devices now have ad/crap/spyware baked into them and you can’t even disable some of it.
There are a lot of negative things that I will say about Apple and iOS, but this would NEVER EVER fly on an iPhone. The fact that we just kind of accept it on Android is infuriating.
Apple once put a U2 album onto everyone’s phone so they certainly aren’t squeaky clean
Or the App store or iTunes or iCloud…
Apple fans typically enjoy being locked down and having apps forced on them.
Android itself is a great thing, and bloatware is not inherently a part of it. SAMSUNG, who makes Android phones is a whole different story, though.
But just way too many conflate Samsung with Android. Android is like the Linux of the phone world. Everyone can have their own distro, tailored to their needs. Samsung just happens to tailor the more AIDS type Android system.
That’d be true if it were only Samsung doing this. The reality is that the vast majority of Android phones are this way, to various degrees.
It’s a consequence of retail. Because carriers in the US determine which phones most of us can access, with the exit of LG from the market the Android landscape in the US was effectively reduced to Samsung. Other manufacturers may as well not exist for all the average shopper is led to believe – the brick and mortar store where you pick out your phone gives you two options: iPhone or Samsung.
This is weird. I would get that, but even in England people often refer to Android phones as a Samsung, or - which makes me even more mad - to micro USB cables ( OR Type C!) as Samsung cables. I’m fuming just from simply typing this.
Not everyone on Android just accepts this. I use a Pixel precisely for this reason. It might install some system apps, etc., but it will never install some bullshit games like this.
Which is why the first thing I do when I get a new Android phone is to install LineageOS.
Oh no, no one accepts this at all. In fact, it was much worse just a few years ago.
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This is mostly true however there are sometimes discounts on phones without all this shit. I just got my son a Pixel 7 yesterday (my wife and I already have one). T-Mobile took $400 off the phone and waved the activation fee. It came out to $4 a month.
For the exact same reason, I’ve only been using Pixel devices for years now. Before that, Nexus devices.
Every now and then, I get interested in what Samsung has to offer, and their top end devices are without a don’t often among the very best out there.
But it’s shit like pre-installed apps, Samsung’s tooth-and-nail fight against unlocking the bootloader, bloatware that re-enables or installs itself with system updates, and generally Samsung’s attempts to pull users into it’s ecosystem and sell them more Samsung stuff that makes me keep it at arms length.
The reason Samsung does crap like this is because it’s like 20% of the GDP of South Korea, they practically own that country. If Companies had Egos I don’t know where Samsung would be in the list of biggest but I know it would be high up.
The modern dilemma: do you, the consumer, prefer to have apps installed that you don’t want? (Android) or to not be able to install the ones you do (Apple)?
This is mostly for cheap phones. People don’t accept it on Android.
Pixels are essentially the default android phone, and they’re mostly a great software experience, little bloat ware and no strange ads like this.
It’s likely this is the carrier anyway.
Not quite true. I have a cheapo Doogee and there is 0 bloat. Super happy with the little brick.
Depends on company. I know from experience Samsung and Xiaomi are obnoxious with ads and unwanted software so I just avoid their stuff.
Samsung is pretty much notorious for this, especially in developing countries where they bundle in every third-party service, PayLater app, shitty mobile game, etc alongside a new device. The only reason they are seen as preferable is that other companies are doing worse (see: Xiaomi).
At least Xiaomi is telling their customers upfront that the reason they can sell their mid and low end android phones on the cheap ( by famously announcing to cap their hardware profit margin at 5% ) is due to advertising. IIRC their high end models do not have ads. Other manufacturers mocked xiaomi for this move, just like they mocked apple for removing headphone jack, then quietly follow the move anyway without telling their customers, which I think is an even bigger dick move.
I don’t know. Samsung seems like a very good company.
And I’m not saying that as they have an army and access to my location.
Correction: a good hardware company. That is of course if we disregard them turning some phones into bombs. But they also make screens, RAM and so on. I just always hated all their software. It’s utter garbage.
The OneUI is actually rather nice.
Blink twice if you’re in danger
Always seems like the Pixel phones are better tho
guess its carrier stuff?
Yeah I have a Samsung phone and have never had this problem so I’m guessing it’s carrier stuff and op is unkowongly placing blame on the wrong company here
I wish manufacturers didn’t allow carriers to install junk on their phone.
On the other hand, this is how carriers can give you a good deal on a phone… They have to subsidise it by making deals with the companies that make apps like these.
If they have to trick you by installing unwanted apps on your phone, where you don’t even know it’s them doing it, then it sounds more like a scam than a great deal.
Remember when Apple put a U2 song on everyone’s iPhone and people went nuts about it? How dare they do that! That was just a song.
Now companies just install whatever apps they want. And people just accept it.
This has been a thing since before smartphones and the U2 stunt though. The PC manufacturers started doing it back in the early 2000s.
Didn’t Windows put a Weezer video on there or am I remembering something wrong?
There were some videos on some of the installation CDs…that’s all I remember. I don’t think they were automatically installed on your hard drive, but I could be wrong.
Yeah the video for Buddy Holly was on the Windows 95 install disc.
I seem to recall one from a woman, too… Ah, yes, I just looked it up - Edie Brickell’s Good Times.
Yeah Android manufacturers been doing this since its inception. I remember having to remove the Blockbuster app from my Droid X lol
Now companies just install whatever apps they want. And people just accept it.
That’s because the provider subsidizes the phone and people rather have that than to pay >1000 dollars at retail for an unbranded phone.
On the same page, last android device I had was a Samsung. Great hardware but really shitty software. It had two office suite (MS and Samsungs), Facebook and what not. All those I couldn’t uninstall only disable. Why the fuck I need to have Facebook installed on my phone?
