Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahartmetz | Hacker News Reader

Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. (The preinstalled Moto apps are very small and actually quite useful, like accelerometer-based gestures for quick acces to camera or flashlight)

I buy phones as a platform for software, so it makes sense to pay attention to more than the hardware.

View on HN

I disagree, Google and Motorola branded phones most certainly DO come with bloatware. The Google app is not necessary for the phone's functionality(this is, if you don't use google assistant) and I can not uninstall it from my Pixel 2. This is true for many Google apps that Google would have you believe is necessary for the functionality of the phone. These are all the google apps that came preinstalled on my phone that I can't uninstall normally that are absolutely non-essential to have on a phone:

Google Chrome( I use firefox)

Google Drive (Fastmail)

Google App (I can use Firefox as a search provider on android)

Google Play Movies and TV

Google Play Music

Google Play Services for AR

Google VR Services

Playground

Youtube (Frankly, with the amount of advertisements on Youtube these days, Firefox on android with ublock origin installed is a few better user experience then the actual YouTube app for android)

These are just the apps that I personally have disabled, I am a fastmail user, so Gmail is getting disabled soon as well as Google Calendar.

Even Google's "stock" Android on the Pixel phones has plently of blaotware. LineageOS has much less bloatware.

You can disable them, which is the same thing as far as the user is concerned. Uninstalling from a read-only partition doesn't make sense.

Then installing/deploying these apps on a read-only partition doesn't make much sense in the first place.

Why? As far as the user is concerned, the end result is the same. The app doesn't appear in the app drawer, and none of its entry points are exposed to the OS. The user who just bought a phone gets a fully functional phone right out of the box instead of having to wait for downloads. A factory reset to get back to the initial state is as simple as wiping all writable partitions.

Presumably the person you're replying to is a user too, so apparently the end result isn't the same for all of the people you're thinking of.

The person I'm responding to hasn't given any reason why the end result is meaningfully different. As far as we can tell, they just don't like the word "disable." If Android replaced the word with "uninstall," they would presumably be happy, which sounds like a minor complaint.

They take up space.

Isn't it in a read-only partition, where, by definition, you wouldn't be able to reuse the space? Wouldn't it only be users at their storage capacity who would be affected?

The fact they they are installed in a read-only partition is what makes them non-removable, if they were installed in the regular partition then the "system" partition wouldn't need to be so big, they would be removable and you could reclaim the space.

Then you couldn't factory reset without access to a network, as I pointed out.

the experience would be the same if all the apps were disabled by default - and ONLY when the user goes to install them they are able to just enable it instead

No, it wouldn't. The user expects a fully functional phone out of the box, complete with web browser and mail client.

i meant the user who isnt expecting the phone to have what they want gets the experience.

otherwise why allocate disk space to be read only and have apps on it people might not want? (as far as user experience is concerned)

You said, "the experience would be the same." For the vast majority of users who expect the device to be productive out of the box, the experience would be significantly degraded.

ah yeah i did not articulate that fully. i see the implication i was making now

i meant they can maintain an app store experience without the bottlneck of downloading expected apps on day 1. instead of downloading and using data an wasting time, it would enable the app. so its the same "opt-in" experience as downloading but with benefits

The idea is that they should survive a factory reset, so the read-only partition is the right place for them. Obviously many of us would be fine if they didn't survive, but that's not really the point.

Does that mean these apps can't be updated? Or are only updated when the OEM updates android? That's a crazy design deciscion, especially for Chrome!

No, it means nothing of the sort. They're updated as usual from Play Store.

Also updates can be uninstalled (since they are on the user partition).

They update but the original copy on the system partition hangs around. The only way to clean them out is with a rooted phone.

They still take up significant space, and they often are re-enabled automatically whenever the device gets updated.

> They still take up significant space

Not usable space.

> they often are re-enabled automatically whenever the device gets updated

This has never happened for me.

That's your opinion, but most users want a phone that comes with reasonable apps that makes it easy for them to do what they want. I hope you see this is not black and white, there is a grey area here where apps are bloatware for some people but legitimate useful for some people.

To take Chrome for example, for Google to ship an Android phone without what they consider the best browser for the platform would be borderline insane.

I think most people would be fine with them shipping them, at least on their own devices, so long it can be fully removed (not disabled) by the end user.

I don't know why you're downvoted. If I, as an average consumer, bought a phone that didn't come with a browser, maps and music software, I'd think there was something wrong with it and would return it.

There may be an argument to make about allowing the user to pick their browser during onboarding, but calling the browser "bloatware" is completely ridiculous. You may not want Chrome, but 99% of people buying a Pixel are perfectly happy with having it bundled, so by definition, it's not bloatware. You can't just redefine "bloatware" to be apps you don't like.

But that is the definition of bloatware. Software that you don't want on your device. Might not be bloatware for you, but it is for me and the op.

No, it's not. Bloatware is software that most people wouldn't want on a device.

For every app that comes with a device, there's at least 1 person out there who doesn't want that app. So by your definition, phones should come with 0 apps pre-installed?

Quite frankly, I think the post should get downvoted more. It's not an opinion, it's a fact that those apps are NOT necessary for the phone's functionality. The user even mentions that the apps are a 'want' to some users, not a need.

What makes the bloatware annoying is that they cannot be fully uninstalled, only disabled. I'm one of the users who disabled these google apps and it annoys me that I cannot remove them.

That's moving the goalposts, though. The only options aren't "necessary for the phone's functionality" and "bloatware". There's also "apps that most people would find useful", and a calculator, note-taking app, browser, etc. certainly qualify.

Yes, it's (marginally) annoying that you can't uninstall them, but the majority of users won't care.

> I'm one of the users who disabled these google apps and it annoys me that I cannot remove them.

Unless you are running low on space on your phone and really could use those extra megabytes, your annoyance is illogical. That doesn't make it invalid, but it does make it unsurprising that this issue hasn't been addressed.

>Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets.

Yes, vote with your wallet, but also vote with your actual votes. I'd very much like to see a decision from the EU or FCC to finally stop this practice of making it impossible for people to remove the software from the phones they own.

Consumer rights when it comes to mobile devices which are arguably already the primary platform for end users need to be extended. The extent to which businesses are able to lock down devices is just a disaster.

This might be a bit of a rabbit hole. My OnePlus has a relatively clean Android but comes with a few apps like Calculator, Notes, or Chrome that don't seem to be removable. They're also not core functionality. So I wonder how easy is it to draw the line between these and the crap that many phones come with.

Also stuff like Play services or the Google Store are somewhat replaceable. How could these be categorized?

So what if someone wants to remove a non-core functionality calculator?

Let them.

I wouldn’t. Why is the knee-jerk reaction to solve problems (especially trivial ones like this) with more red tape and bureaucracy?

Remember that HN is a bubble. We might care about bloatware, but maybe millions of regular users don’t (or even find some of the bloat useful).

it wouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction given how long this has been an issue, and there is little to no bureaucracy or legislation involved other than telling companies what not to do with their consumer's devices. Giving users the right to delete applications is technically straight forward and involves zero additional bureaucrats. Honestly the only knee-jerk thing about this is describing freedom-enhancing measures in the interest of users with the absolutely meaningless 'red tape' buzzword.

And I don't think this is a bubble issue either. People being frustrated with having applications fill up their menus or screens and memory is an everyday issue that everyone complains about.

> We might care about bloatware, but maybe millions of regular users don’t (or even find some of the bloat useful).

Users don't care about technical details as "bloatware" one bit. That's true.

They do care about their phones running slower and having a much worse battery life though (compared to iPhones with background app refresh turned off).

Oh, I'm not against rules that enforce good behavior.

I got a moto because of this. It has _almost_ no bloatware. LinkedIn, DropBoxNativeClient, and a few other apps I don't use cannot be uninstalled.

Edit: some others I can't uninstall from my international, unlocked Moto G6: Google Drive, Duo, Chrome, YouTube,

Oh wow. My Moto phones never had anything like that. Moto G3, G5, and One Vision. Bought in Germany without contract.

Edit: I don't see Google apps as an (additional) problem. Google already controls the phone and its apps don't waste CPU time or memory while not active.

International unlocked moto G6. I was wrong about Facebook. It's LinkedIn that cannot be uninstalled. I just checked now.

Install a firewall and see if the LI app is phoning home when idle. That is the only way to fully cut off network access without going to LineageOS.

> its apps don't waste CPU time or memory while not active The 20% of my battery used by Google Play Services, despite the fact that the only Google service I use on my phone is YouTube, disagrees

Then you should turn the location off. Might be also Store updating apps.

Google Play Services is a framework which other apps use. That battery usage is just imprecisely categorized usage of the other apps you have installed. Some of those apps might be Google's, but anything that wakes your phone or uses GPS will end up contributing a bit to that percentage.

Chrome is also the web engine for embedded web views. Even if you did uninstall Chrome, it wouldn’t do much good. The engine would still be there.

The non tech part of me just wants the option to uninstall Chrome in order to remove it from the huge list of apps, updates, etc. Without having to configure a custom launcher.

Understood but the point being made is that your OEM will build AOSP with some ancient, say 2017 or whenever your device was released, embedded version of chromium - susceptible to security flaws from that release date. Chrome overlays a replacement engine to ensure webapps don't get p@wned.

So yes, as a firefoxee, I never want to see the Chrome icon. However, purging Chrome is a security risk.

> I got a moto because of this. It has _almost_ no bloatware. LinkedIn, DropBoxNativeClient, and a few other apps I don't use cannot be uninstalled.

Sorry, but WTF kind of world are we living in where a terrible professional network app being permanently stuck to your phone is regarded as almost no bloatware? I'm not disagreeing with your statement that Moto phones are low in bloatware; just that if it's this bad for Moto phones I can't even begin to imagine how bad it is for Samsung. I wonder how much LinkedIn is paying for that deal.

I guess I'm glad I run either Google phones or Android One; highly recommended for your next phone. Vote with your wallets. The Android Ones are more affordable than the eye-watering prices Google charges for Pixels these days.

I've become disenchanted with the whole industry. I don't even trust Google phones or Android One to be what I want in a phone. So I've reduced to the lowest common denominator in how to solve this problem: I've stopped caring. My phone is no-longer a highly customized piece of tech I'm glued to. It's pretty much default settings with a handful of extra apps installed.

And to be honest, I kind of like it. I'm hoping to wean off a phone entirely and be able to shut it off and leave it on my desk when I'm at home.

Get a flip phone, your habits will quickly change.

They can be uninstalled... with a computer and android adb

“It has _almost_ no bloatware. LinkedIn, DropBoxNativeClient, and a few other apps I don't use cannot be uninstalled.”

Sounds like a serious case of Stockholm syndrome.

How? Stockholm syndrome is when a hostage befriends their captor, presumably thinking their captors cause is just. How is thinking that a situation is not "completely" terrible stockholm syndrome?

>Nokia phones come without bloatware

Chinese spyware is not bloatware?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19449824

Was just going to say that.

My last two phones have been Motorola phones. I was really happy when I first seen the app drawer and was greeted by almost nothing. It made such a nice change from the obscene amount of crap that came installed on the two Samsungs I had previously. I don't think I actually disabled any of the preinstalled unremovable things on my Motorola and I even use some of them. Which is saying a lot.

My pixel 3 (direct from google) has numerous uninstallable apps that I don't want.

My Moto G6 came with a bunch of Moto apps, Facebook, a weather app, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Photos, and YouTube. All of which is unnecessary bloat that I can't uninstall, but I was able to disable without losing any functionality.

Or any manufacturer supported by LinegeOS.

According to my research, LineageOS often has worse battery life and camera image quality. So you need to get very specific models which work best. Also you need to be willing to tinker a bit, obviously. Let me put it like this: if a geek friend had found a nice model and already figured out how to solve the expected problems, I'd probably get the same model.

They are not good at updates, though.

vote with your vote and stop promoting consumerism as a form of democracy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com