Hacker News Reader

Comment by sbt | Hacker News Reader

This. I regret buying a Samsung S4 because it is loaded with so much crap. First, Google preloads their crap onto it, then Samsung preloads their crap ontop of that. THEN, AT&T decides that it should also provide you with messaging apps etc, so it preloads it crap ontop of that too.

I am re-asked every god damn day if I want to connect the Samsung whatever the fuck (tm) to Facebook, and I refuse, EVERY DAY. I have no words.

The marketers/business guys won, and the result is an utter trainwreck.

The sad thing is that even though the S4 is super powerful, basic tasks like opening up the contacts list or recent messages, still load sluggish!

Not sure if I like Jolla, but I just need to dump this Android bloatware fast.

View on HN

Installing a custom rom like Cyanogenmod or AOKP would likely solve a lot of your problems. Both are available for your device and require little more work than establishing root, installing safe strap (or another recovery depending on whether your bootloader is locked or not), and then installing the rom. You'll still need to download and install the Google Apps package if you want access to the app store, but it cuts down on a lot of the bloat and adds a lot of useful features.

Here's a problem: I'm looking for a phone that can do T-Mobile wifi calling, which means I need a T-Mobile phone and a T-Mobile ROM, and I'm struggling to find a T-Mobile phone that has the least amount of crapware on it. If you use T-Mobile wifi calling, you can't flash a new ROM.

Is there any particular reason it has to be T-Mobile Wi-Fi calling? There are lots of free apps that let you do Wi-Fi calling through Google Voice (so you can still use your current number).

I want it to be seamless. I don't want people to have to call one number if I'm on wifi and another if I'm on 4G. I want to be able to make an outbound call and not worry about if it's 4G or wifi. I want to be able to send and receive text messages just like normal.

I want wifi to be just like a cell tower. Are there other apps that can do that (and that aren't a nightmare to set up?)

Oh I would totally do that if it didn't void the warranty. Employer pays for the phone. In retrospect, an iPhone may have been less annoying.

I felt so blessed running Linux on my Thinkpad while all the other civilians got their Windows laden HP laptops from BestBuy, loaded with boatware, and by virtue of being a Windows box, susceptible to Ask-toolbars in IE and other half-legal and fully-illegal software. Hell, I am sure I am not the only one who is doing semi annual spyware removal exorcisms for family and friends PCs.

But now I feel like the sucker, having bought this S4 from AT&T. Maybe I should just allow Samsung MusicHub to connect to Facebook so I can see what it wants to do, probably virally market itself to all my friends.

Good luck Jolla!

Root it, use something like SDMaid to lock out the annoying apps. Done.

No idea if this voids your warranty, but I buy phones upfront and unsubsidised anyway so it's less of a concern.

Other than the principle that the user shouldn't have to wage war on his own phone, rooted phones are usually also blocked from corporate networks.

Until corporate networks stop demanding 8 character long pin every time I need to unlock, I will refuse to have corp mail on my phone.

As the CEO of my own one-man company, I've decided to go with a fairly lenient policy on employee devices...

No need to root since 4.1: http://thedroidlawyer.com/2013/05/how-to-disable-bloatware-i...

You can disable apps (even system apps) without rooting in recent android. Open Apps in Settings, find the app, click disable.

Or did Samsung get rid of that feature?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com