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Debloat non-rooted Android devices
- judiisis 3y agoThis project is unmaintained since a year. For an up-to-date and maintained fork see https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-android-debloater-next-generation https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-an...
- jamesy0ung 3y agoThanks for this! I was able to uninstall Horizon Feed and Social from my Quest 3 using this tool!
- LoganDark 3y ago> you CANNOT brick your device with this software! Disable Knox on a Samsung device and it will brick itself. Luckily when this happened to me I was still connected over ADB, able to re-enable it and the device unbricked
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ycombinatrix 3y agoif you were able to reboot the device, was it really ever bricked?
- LoganDark 3y agoNot "reboot". Re-enable the package I had disabled. If I had disconnected the phone from ADB it probably would have been soft-bricked forever.
- microflash 3y agoYou can delete Knox on some Samsung phones after reflashing the stock firmware.
- cf100clunk 3y agoSimilar GUI tool for debloating and customizing non-rooted Amazon Fire tablets via ADB: https://xdaforums.com/t/windows-linux-tool-fire-toolbox-v33-1.3889604/ https://xdaforums.com/t/windows-linux-tool-fire-toolbox-v33-...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Repulsion9513 3y agoWhy? You can disable apps from right there on the phone, what does this add over doing that? The FAQ makes some mention of further "uninstalling" them from the user profiles (and deleting cache/data, which you can also do in the settings), but it's not clear to me what that means.
- cmeacham98 3y agoSome OEM bloatware apps cannot be disabled in the Android UI but can be disabled via ADB.
- pooper 3y agoMetro by T-Mobile has some strange bloatware that I was able to disable with adb. I can't imagine living with this garbage day in and day out. Makes me wonder if this is why some people in the US believe iPhone is better than android — they've only experienced carrier bloatware infested android devices.
- hackernewds 3y agothis is why you get stock Android with a Pixel and Fi; although this shouldn't be necessary :(
- pooper 3y agoInterestingly enough, it has gotten better in the sense that I used the phone for a couple of weeks before I put in the carrier sim and the bloat wasn't there (besides some OnePlus apps but those don't pollute my notifications). Edit: bloat, not boost
- cwbriscoe 3y agoYeah, this is what I have had for my past 3 phones. No bloatware issues at all. Not to mention FI is cheap as hell if you use internet mostly over wifi.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
- morsch 3y agoI bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through that without missing something.
- daniel_reetz 3y agoI was furious when I found out that the default keyboard was infested with Grammarly, sending all my keystrokes without consent. Embarrassing for a $1200 flagship device.
- resource_waste 3y agoThis is a user/psychology problem. No one in their right mind is suggesting Samsung. Heck, similar to Apple, you have swaths of people warning you about Samsung. Samsung lives and dies off their huge marketing budget. Buying their phone is more of a psychology thing, than 'I did lots of research and I bought a high quality phone'.
- blfr 3y agoI have a Samsung tablet (Galaxy Tab S9+) and I not only suggest but downright recommend it. Sure, right away I switched away from their default apps (launcher, notes, keyboard, etc) but it wasn't difficult. Maybe they got me with their clever marketing but there doesn't seem to be competitive hardware in this class (fast, oled screen, 5g, overall build quality) available from another manufacturer.
- morsch 3y agoI've had multiple Samsung Android devices before buying the midrange phone. The hardware, I found, was universally pretty good. They were one of the few manufacturers with a moderately sized flagship device (the new Pixel 8 also qualifies, which is great). I bought the midrange device because it was one of a few phones priced around 300 EUR with more than two or three years of updates.
- captn3m0 3y agoI tried one of these lists on a (just factory reset) Xiaomi. Ended up breaking on reboot - immediate crash after login, and it was unusable. Managed to fix it, but learned to be careful - what might be critical for one model might be bloat for another.
- No0op 3y agoCould you share logs with uninstalled packages led to this, please?
- prima-facie 3y agoProbably the Security center or the Mi account app. It will send the phone into a reboot loop. Here's a writeup about packages which are safe to remove in MIUI: https://wooptoo.com/blog/safe-to-remove-packages-miui/ https://wooptoo.com/blog/safe-to-remove-packages-miui/ This is from a few years ago but it should still apply today.
- No0op 3y agoThanks. Both com.miui.securitycore and com.xiaomi.account are marked as unsafe for deletion. So it was somewhat expected to break. If we are talking about right packages, of course. https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-android-debloater-next-generation/blob/main/resources%2Fassets%2Fuad_lists.json https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-an...
- captn3m0 3y agoProbably something on https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OSw05IqGrIJSEi4xcEMiV56xw4t428H3/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OSw05IqGrIJSEi4xcEMiV56xw4t.... I'll try to reproduce if I get time.
- No0op 3y agoThank you, quickly checked. There is a bunch of risky to uninstall/disable packages here. No wonder it broke.
- userbinator 3y agoIMHO better to root if you can, since then you do get full control as the rightful owner.
- npteljes 3y agoWhat to do with the root access? I did it once, but never needed it.
- Unbiased8678 3y agoYou can't easily root your phone these unless the device is popular and has some community support. Immediately after buying I tried to root my realme gt 2 device and it got bricked. Fortunately it was under warrenty, I went to to customer support and told them it isn't booting up after an update. They fixed it with an internal tool. I haven't tried since.
- Symbiote 3y agoSome banking apps detect this, or might detect it in the future, and refuse to work. In some countries (Scandinavia...) not having the banking app is inconvenient, as it's used for authentication with many other services.
- bonki 3y agoThat's a bold understatement, you're pretty much fucked without BankID on your phone.
- Symbiote 3y agoIn Denmark, MitID supports non-phone authenticators. You have to request it, but a few days later they send a TOTP generator keyfob. They also have a version for blind people. I would find it annoying if I had to carry the keyfob. I have it as a backup. https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/mitid-authenticators/ https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/mitid-auth...
- 3y ago
- feverzsj 3y agoIt will either make your phone unstable or do nothing significant.
- oliwarner 3y agoTell us you've never run this on a Samsung without telling us you've never run this on a Samsung.
- VladTheImpalor 3y agoDon’t mind me saying it, but I’ve always found this comeback insufferable. It is smug, especially since it is overused as an argument terminator all over Reddit. In this case I actually agree with your “side” of the argument, but not the construct.
- oliwarner 3y agoI don't mind, you're right. I made the mistake of only lending the same amount of effort as the comment I was replying to: not a lot. Everyone else has said it, but these tools are essential to avoid a lot of the awful OEM software that Samsung forces on its users.
- squarefoot 3y ago+1. ADB, either directly or indirectly is the only choice to debloat Android devices. This was the case of one of my old tablets (a cheap 10'' Mediacom crap) that resisted every rooting attempt, no matter which tool I could try. Removing unneeded services and stuff became a breeze, although the process is quite dangerous and I ended up with something that can't run Google services anymore, but does run Whatsapp for the 7-8 contacts I couldn't convince to use email, and download from F-Droid, which is enough for me.
- Unbiased8678 3y agoYes, I have been using canta with shizuku that enables wireless debugging for this. https://shizuku.rikka.app/ https://shizuku.rikka.app/ https://github.com/samolego/Canta https://github.com/samolego/Canta
- butz 3y agoWhere one can find an up to date list of obscure packages on an Android device with short description what it actually does and the impact if it was disabled/uninstalled? I'm especially interested in possible dependencies between such packages, when uninstalling one seemingly unrelated package might break something else.
- thatloststudent 3y agoThis [1] is the list that UAD uses. [1] - https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-android-debloater-next-generation/blob/main/resources/assets/uad_lists.json https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-an...
- butz 3y agoThank you, that's quite a big list.
- KingOfLechia 3y agoThanks, but I'm still sticking with CalyxOS.
- protoman3000 3y agoWhy is it not possible to compile and install a complete clean Android directly from the sources on your phone? What are the things that prevent that?
- kelnos 3y agoIn general it is possible to do that (assuming the phone has an unlockable bootloader), but you can't do that for the exact same image from the manufacturer, because they don't provide the source for a lot of it. You might be able to install a third-party, community-maintained OS, like LineageOS, though, if your hardware is supported. The downside is that I believe apps like Google Pay won't work anymore, since they require Google's SafetyNet attestation system to pass. Sometimes there are ways around that, but they always seemed like unreliable hacks to me.
- bonki 3y agoHardware support.
- hughesjj 3y agoLazy vendors single handedly keeping windows and android going with their lack of cross platform drivers, so frustrating....
- 3y ago
- nairboon 3y agoI guess, the ultimate solution is to ditch Android and just use a proper Linux on the phone, once some more devices are properly supported: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
- numpad0 3y agoRelated Android equivalent commands used in this project: `dpkg --get-selections`: `adb shell pm list packages | sort` `dpkg -r <pkg>`: `adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 <pkg>` edit: to hide status bar icons(may be version dependent): 1) `adb shell dumpsys activity service SystemUIService` 2) search for "icon slots: " and note down names 3) `adb shell settings put secure icon_blacklist battery,wifi,clock, ...` (blacklist is overwritten by new list upon running this command)
- 1oooqooq 3y agoThere's lot of undocumented things you can do with those, which the developers include because of their own itches. For example, i know most of the android and pixel core team at google have toggles for wifi and data. But they shipped a single quick setting tile for both. Yet there is a hidden setting to bring the two tile mode back. why that happens at google so often?
- bonki 3y ago+1, I've used UAD with great success on a OnePlus.
- nsonha 3y agoWould be more willing to be a guinea pig if there is more info on what will be removed. There are bloats in my Samsung phone but there are also useful features unique to it that I wanna keep (eg DEX), or things that if removed may break the phone in some nuanced ways.
- TacticalCoder 3y agoIf, according to this thread, Samsung is so bad and I don't t want buy a Chinese phone... What are my options for an Android phone? Is there any Android phone brand/model that is not exploiting its users?
- switch007 3y agoI'm no Android expert but Pixel 7a had a price drop recently (plus good deals on contracts), and GrapheneOS supports Pixel phones. Also quite a few are now made in Vietnam I believe
- Lyngbakr 3y agoOn Friday, I switched to the Pixel 7a with GrapheneOS and it's costing me CAD$1 per month for the phone on a 24-month contract and I got a better deal on my monthly phone plan. So far, it seems like an awesome phone and the installation of GrapheneOS via the web installer was incredibly easy.
- switch007 3y agoNice! How's the battery on GrapheneOS? I heard on the stock OS it's pretty bad. I'm considering buying one as I'm paying £16/mo for just a SIM but I can get a 7a on a contract for the same price!
- Lyngbakr 3y agoThat's a good question. I tend to plug my phone in whenever I get in the car, so unfortunately I don't have a good feel for battery life yet. I didn't notice an issue with my Pixel 6a, though. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal!
- npteljes 3y agoI was worried too before buying, but with my usage patterns, battery lasts 2 days. Pixel 7a, international edition, GrapheneOS.
- 3y ago
- cranx 3y agoWhy write this in rust to execute shell commands?
- Saris 3y agoEase of use I suppose, looking up package names and manually pasting them in is really slow.
- jkhanlar 3y agoKind of related, a few weeks ago I've been thinking to myself what happened to the open source free software operating system developments for mobile devices? Specifically, how are operating system environments such as GrapheneOS and CalyxOS, etctera, only able to be used on a single company's (Alphabet Inc) manufactured phone devices and not any other devices and where are the operating systems that work on as many to practically all of the devices that exist and the general idea of linux-style developments that represent collectively compiling all the hardware variations to have drivers and support for practically everything for everyone to get mostly the same experience regardless of which hardware they use Is the mobile computer hardware industry that hostagedly cowardly locked down that this is no longer possible as it used to be, where people don't even own their own computer devices and instead have to use devices that are owned by other entities? Or what other explanation is there for no such multi-device operating systems? Or did I just miss something that I am blind to?
- jkhanlar 3y agoFor example https://androidauthority.com/grapheneos-3287030/ https://androidauthority.com/grapheneos-3287030/ > "Even if you stomach the Pixel-only requirement" I have not and will not stomach that at all. Nope! https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices Nope! I wasn't paying attention, but if I remember, Alphabet/Google was funded to deploy/release Android operating system, and they also were financed to deploy some hardware phones before disappearing to let other companies continue the things and then reappear somehow taking advantage of all the othre companies to outperform all of their manufacturings and whatnot, and then operating systems exist only for the Google phones and none of the others, and this is normal? What? I say F to that coward hijacking others efforts stuff! I see https://calyxos.org/#Devices https://calyxos.org/#Devices Devices section is showing a little bit more than I remember not too long ago http://web.archive.org/web/20230605161332/https://calyxos.org/#Devices http://web.archive.org/web/20230605161332/https://calyxos.or... but still not comparable to what I remember with the likes of OpenWRT, HyperWRT, DD-WRT, Tomato, etcetera. Therefore I do not and will not trust anything GrapheneOS or CalyxOS. Whatever the efforts were that led to wifi routers having lots of open source firmware developments to be supporting lots of different devices, I'd like to see similarly for mobile phones, and whatever concentration there is to finance only developments for Google made phones only, this is red flag hostage coward impression to me, and I will not submit or acquiesce or capitulate to invest in any of that at all, even if nothing else exists. edited for grammar
- ementally 3y agoJust disable the apps, no need to debloat. https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/universal-android-debloater/13791/4 https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/universal-android-debloa...
- janandonly 3y agoI think there is room in the Android ecosystem for a producer to make and sell bloatware less phones, a bit like Apple does, and at steep markup too !
- lily4151 2y ago[flagged]