Debloating My Android Phone with ADB
rugu.dev
rugu.dev
There isn't any deletion occuring; rather a disabling. You'll still see much of what you remove listed as Not Installed For This User, but it's there.
Some things can't be disabled, eg the embedded crapware in Google Play Services; Exposure matching, Personal safety, etc. Some things can be temporarily disabled through/DeveloperOptions/RunningServices, but not only will this only last one boot cycle, some services will respawn autonomously - notably Exposure Matching Services.
Making a list of everything disabled is important, especially if taking the scorched earth approach.
With each Android update, I notice reduced control. Many background services and unnecessary system apps increasingly have immutable permissions. And permissions... This seems more convoluted and crippled with every update.
Android is pretty sleazy. But I suppose the bulk of the tech paradigm is too.
Well yeah, the OS is stored on a read-only partition. Even if it was remounted read-only to be deleted it wouldn't free up any usable space. This would also make future differential updates more difficult to apply.
Disabling is strictly better for the user in this case. The app can't run, but it can be re-enabled if you change your mind.
I understand why people have a negative gut reaction to there being no completely remove option for OS-provided apps but really it isn't being user-hostile. It is just the best behaviour.
This was somewhat annoying on my old phone, where out of the measly 16 GB of total space available, several hundreds of MBs were reserved for the OEM partition and therefore more or less completely wasted.
The one semi-useful app therein was a file explorer app – given that at least at that time Android didn't really have a proper built-in file explorer, this was actually a somewhat sensible idea, but then on the other hand as a power user I still prefer a file explorer of my own choosing (and with root support), so it was still mostly useless to me.
Other than that, it contained what looked like configuration apps for a few American mobile service providers, plus something like some sort of Brazil-specific app store – all completely and utterly useless, especially given that my phone was bought in Europe and was on the European software update channel!
And as you say, deleting any of those apps wouldn't really free up any space (except a little bit in dalvik-cache if I remember correctly) because it was a separate partition.
Maybe the best way to get rid of bloatware in our phones is simply not to use phones at all. :D
On a serious note, do you think there are any promising alternatives with less bloat to Android? I'm asking because I'm open to trying some alternatives once I'm finished with this phone.
> Android is pretty sleazy. But I suppose the bulk of the tech paradigm is too.
Well said, only some of us who are really dedicated can avoid such complexities, to a certain extent. Otherwise, we are sucked into these bloated tech paradigms anyways. Its a bit depressing.
Fairly frequently android alternatives are discussed here, but I've not tried them yet. None of them are without flaws. My melon hath frozen and I can't remember the name of even one and I'm trying as I type. Only sailfish and purism is coming to mind. But there are more, some certainly worth trying, especially on a secondary device.
In the improbable case you've not heard of Fdroid, it's a sort of alternative to play store. Approximately one half of my apps are from Fdroid; RadioDroid and wX being my favorites.
I had mine disabled since day 1. Its a good idea if it saves lives, but I don't trust Google and Apple to not abuse it
For MIUI using EEA region rom and denying consent / nextdns.io and deleting some apks seems to help. However the gallery app still uploads to Xiaomi servers without consent for some filters - overall it's my last Xiaomi. Lineage might work fine but I wanted to avoid all the complications of unlocking bootloader.
No ads after debloating, it's fast but in the end I felt I can't have trust in Xiaomi.
Still Google sends the most blocked beacons. I'm at 20% blocked requests of all requests for my light phone usage.
Good point. I specifically avoided removing anything that I didn't understand its function or wasn't sure if it could be deleted. Perhaps I should include your point as a warning in the essay as well.
> However the gallery app still uploads to Xiaomi servers without consent for some filters - overall it's my last Xiaomi. Lineage might work fine but I wanted to avoid all the complications of unlocking bootloader.
This is prolly my last Xiaomi as well. Are there any phones you're considering switching to next?
Unless you are in US, then all bets are off because carriers think they are God
https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater/blob/ma...