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Comment by Bahamut | Hacker News Reader

While I like using FB, this is type of behavior by Android OEMs that largely drove me to the iPhone. The main reason I rooted my phone prior was to get rid of crappy apps I don't use from being on my screen.

Around 4-5 years ago, Android phone manufacturers started locking down their phones more while not letting them be rooted. They didn't solve the problem of having undeleteable apps waste my time & space with clear advertising plays.

After my experience with the Galaxy S5, I quickly jumped to the iPhone 6 when it came out, and haven't looked back. I've used Android for a period of time in parallel with a second phone, but it only confirmed my reasoning for bailing for the iPhone - the Android experience is just way behind.

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I've been an iPhone user for a decade and am a huge Apple fanboy, but even with that bias, I have to say this is a load of crap. Apple has been adding loads of undeletable bloat since forever. they only really let you start deleting the Apple pre-installed apps very recently. I still have a folder on my devices called "iCrap."

There's a huge difference between Apple's built in apps and the third party apps doing who knows what background processing/data mining on phone usage. The effects on performance such as battery life is very noticeable.

This is what I want to know; If you get a brand new device and it has FB app installed - but if you never open it or use FB, does that app still monitor things like browsing activity and report anything back to FB?

Aren't android and iOS apps mostly sandboxed? It would be news to me if AppX could access browsing information from Chrome, at least without asking you for permission. Apps can't access folder i/o without permission, surely they can't monitor browsing history without permission.

iOS apps are heavily sandboxed (and given next to no process time when backgrounded).

Android apps are a bit more free, that leads to a lot of apps being good at talking to each other. But the cost is that your sandbox is less sandboxy.

Permissions are a moot point when you're talking about bundled apps because they're already going to be approved for all permissions.

I still remember them automatically downloading a U2 album to everyone's phone. They are definitely not without fualt in this area.

Bloatware != preinstalled OS software. There are 0 preinstalled third-party apps on the iPhone.

iOS came with Facebook and Twitter not too long ago, not to mention Yahoo Weather, Google Maps, and a bunch of others. https://www.axios.com/apple-removes-facebook-and-twitter-int...

Those were system integration frameworks, specifically so you could sign in to your social networks in Settings. The apps were never preloaded.

> Those were system integration framework

In other words, applications that do far more than the stub on Samsung phones, and not only could they not be deleted, but they couldn't be disabled either, so they always showed up in Settings. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/understanding-facebook-integrati...

It's the carriers that want the phones locked down so that they can have their bloatware installed and irremovable, Verizon in particular is the most notorious for mandating this. Additionally, among manufactures, Samsung wants to appeal to enterprise and gov environments and so also has their own suite of security features branded as KNOX and typically locked the bootloaders of the American/Snapdragon models.

The good news is that you can buy almost any Android phone off Amazon and with the exception of Samsung it is most likely bootloader unlockable. Motorola is especially good in this regard.

Google recognizes this issue, which is part of the drive behind bringing Android One to the high-end phone market. This is a branding designation that Google sells to OEMs that requires them to drop almost all bloatware:

> Android One is a series of smartphones that run the unmodified Android operating system. It is a hardware and software technical standard created by Google intended to provide a consistent user experience and improved security through frequent updates and Google Play Protect. Android One was launched in 2014 and focused on entry-level devices for emerging markets, but later evolved into Google's principal mobile program.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_One

I have an LG G7 One (the Android-One version of the LG G7), and I'm very pleased with it.

Almost all non-Google* bloatware.

I'm using an Android One phone as well, but there's still a dozen or so of Google's apps that I would like to be able to remove.

I chose less bloatware as well, but let's not pretend that there's no bloatware in Android One.

That's fair, although I think this reduces the bloat below Apple levels.

> Google recognizes this issue, which is part of the drive behind bringing Android One to the high-end phone market.

Sorry, did you mean "low-end" here? Because the Pixel serves the high-end market quite well, I think.

No, Android One has been on the low-end market for many years. It's being extended to the high-end market only relatively recently. I don't believe any model of Pixel has been Android One. ("Android One" is not synonymous with "stock Android" like on the Pixel.)

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