
Samsung phone users get a shock: They can't delete Facebook - laurencei
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/samsung-phone-users-get-a-shock-they-can-t-delete-facebook-20190109-p50qaz.html
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tinalumfoil
Not a shock to me at all, nor to anyway who's owned a Samsung device in the
past.

I've had two Samsung phones and both are _loaded_ with crapware. Some
essential apps, such as Calendar, come with multiple versions. Games I would
never play are installed by default. And yes, most of the built-in apps like
Facebook simply can't be removed.

The only thing preventing me from switching to a Pixel, which I've heard takes
a staunchly anti-crapware stance, is the lack of a headphone jack.

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happybuy
> The only thing preventing me from switching to a Pixel, which I've heard
> takes a staunchly anti-crapware stance, is the lack of a headphone jack.

Sorry to be pessimistic but if you're complaining about the fact that a
Samsung device has preloaded spyware from the world's second largest
advertising company perhaps replacing it with a phone with in-built spyware
from the world's largest advertising company is not the best step.

Unfortunately - in the world we currently live in - the only viable phone
option for privacy sensitive users is an Apple device. Apple and its devices
may have many other issues but they are unarguably the most privacy aware
mobile option available.

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tinalumfoil
I've come to the point where I feel powerless to take the large spyware from
these companies as anything other than given. I'd have the Facebook app
installed anyway since that's what my friends use, and Google's claws are so
deeply embedded in my private online affairs (most emails I send are to
Google-managed accounts), that I don't feel like it matters. I know iPhones
exist, but I have problems with them too.

My problem with the crapware isn't related to spying, just that it eats up
resources of _my_ device which I've spent good money on. But considering the
specs are already a little bit better the headphone jack means more to me.

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wolfi1
if you've got adb (Android Debug Bridge) at hand you could try to uninstall
with that method: adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 <packagename>

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tjpnz
I didn't have FB preinstalled but I did get Non-removable MS Office "apps"
which were nothing more than download links.

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cordonbleu
"A Facebook spokesperson said the disabled version of the app acts like it's
been deleted, so it doesn't continue collecting data or sending information
back to Facebook. But there's rarely communication with the consumer about the
process."

If this is the case then why not allow it to be deleted?

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petecox
Baking certain apps into the system partition is typically how vendors ship an
out of the box experience, since apps are generally downloaded via the Play
store, which requires the end user to first log in with Google.

In that case, the only way to delete apps is to 'root' the phone, which
generally isn't enabled and _not_ something Facebook has control over.

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stevenjohns
You can always be asked to install additional stuff during the set up process,
but it still doesn't make sense why you can't delete them. Deleting the apps
won't necessarily remove the installer.

iPhones come baked in with a number of apps but you're able to delete the ones
you don't want to use.

