
Google Warning: Millions of Android Phones Come Preloaded with Malware - jameslk
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/08/10/google-warning-tens-of-millions-of-android-phones-come-preloaded-with-dangerous-malware/
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bad_good_guy
Samsung are big offenders for this, putting the Peel TV remote on their
phones, which can't be uninstalled. Recently, the app was updated to put
advertisements on your phone's homescreen. Completely unacceptable

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amaccuish
I don't buy Samsung anymore for this reason. I don't know if it's still the
case but I also used to have like 2 versions of every app, the Google one and
the Samsung one. I seemed to remember at one point I even had two SMS apps,
totally ridiculous.

With the whole poor security of the SmartThings stuff, I have serious doubts
about Samsung's ability in software. Their online services were dire, no SSO
so I had to frequently re-login when I moved to a different part of portal,
errors here and there.

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adossi
Samsung hardware is still top-tier though. For the poweruser, an attractive
option is a Samsung device rooted to remove all bloatware, and sometimes even
flashed with the AOSP Android ISO (instead of the carrier-specific, pre-loaded
operating system)

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RealStickman
Name of the malware: Google

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zemnl
There are phones that come with Facebook preinstalled, so add that to the
list.

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solarkraft
Surpise, surprise.

This is why you should flash over the phone's OS with something AOSP-based the
moment you get it.

Ideally you wouldn't install Google Play Services afterwards, but if you do
you have at least upgraded to "possibly insecure" from "definitely insecure
and probably malicious".

