Almost all smartphones these days come with some sort of bloatware. This can cause all sorts of problems on a smartphone, especially a budget device with limited hardware. The most common one is performance degradation followed by out-of-storage issues and ultimately severe battery drain. There there is a problem with duplicate apps. Thanks to projects like Universal Android Debloater, you can now easily uninstall any system app or bloatware from your Android device in a jiff.
What is Bloatware? In simple terms, Bloatware is any unwanted service or app that comes pre-bundled onto an operating system by either the manufacturer or the carrier. This can range from anything like carrier bloat such as the SMS app, bill & payments app, Chat Support, Device Manager, Cloud, Find My Phone, and many more.
It also comes bundled with OEM proprietary apps such as their own cloud storage apps, curated news apps, personal assistants (looking at you Bixby), and calendar apps. This becomes a major problem when the device maker and the operating system has duplicate apps and all try to nag you to make it your default app.
There are multiple instances of duplicate apps on Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Infinix. Let’s take Samsung for example. It has its own personal assistant called Bixby, news app, calendar, the find my device, Samsung Internet Browser. Now Google pre-installs the same apps on every Android device. Google has the Assistant, news, calendar, find my device, Chrome browser. Both do the same thing.
The worst part is Samsung apps such as Bixby cannot be uninstalled or disabled. Essentially making them system apps. Also, disabling Google Assistant is well buried under the settings of the Google app.
That’s not even the tip of the iceberg. Facebook comes pre-installed on all Android devices from Samsung and can’t be uninstalled! Essentially making Facebook a system app. Also, it comes with 4 apps for some reason. The main FB app, FB App Installer, FB App Manager, FB Services.
Furthermore, Facebook has been proven heavy on the battery, memory, and storage.
Don’t even get me started on Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Infinix, Pixel devices. They are full of bloatware apps.
Enough of the rant. Let’s get started with the tutorial. Here, I will show you how to uninstall system apps from any Android device from any manufacturer.
Before you proceed, you may want to visit:
List of Bloatware you can Remove or Uninstall from your Android Device Without Root
How to Uninstall Bloatware from your phone without Root Access
There are two methods to uninstall any app from your Android phone. Method 1 includes the Universal Android Debloater tool by 0x192. The second method is the old-school ADB method to uninstall any system app.
Method 1: Remove Bloatware using Universal Android Debloater
The Universal Android Debloater tool by 0x192 has a GUI that lists all the apps on your Android device. You can search the package name of the application and simply click the uninstall button next to it. The best part is that it supports Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems.
Backup your data before you proceed. If you uninstall any important app, you may lose some functionality. Luckily, you can always restore the app.
First, EnableDeveloper Optionson your smartphone. To do so, go to Settings > About phone. Tap on the Build Number 7 times.
Turn onUSB Debuggingfrom the developer panel. Go to Settings > Developer Options > Check USB debugging. Also, check OEM Unlocking, just in case.
For some devices, you may need to disconnect from any OEM accounts under settings. (when you delete an OEM account package it may lock you on the lockscreen) You can skip this and proceed.
Install ADB on Windows or MacOS or Linux.
Now, go to where you have setup ADB and Fastboot on your PC.
Method 2: How to Uninstall System Apps on Android Device with ADB commands
This method can be used to uninstall or remove any Bloatware or package from the system. We are going to use the old school ADB command to access ADB Shell on Android device using USB Debugging and uninstall system packages.
Backup all of your data before you proceed. If you uninstall any important app, you may lose some functionality.
First, EnableDeveloper Optionson your smartphone. To do so, go to Settings > About phone. Tap on the Build Number 7 times.
Turn onUSB Debuggingfrom the developer panel. Go to Settings > Developer Options > Check USB debugging. Also, check OEM Unlocking, just in case.
Install ADB on Windows or MacOS or Linux.
Now, go to the folder where you have setup ADB and Fastboot on your PC.
Connect your phone to PC. Allow ADB access.
Open a command prompt or terminal window inside the ADB folder. Type cmd in the address bar and press enter.
Type adb devices in the command prompt or terminal to see if the connection is successful. It should list the device.
adb devices
Once you see the device ID, your phone has established a successful connection and is ready to proceed.
Open ADB shell. Enter the following command:
adb shell
You can list the Facebook packages using the following query:
pm list packages facebook
Note for ADB Mac OS and Linux:
Use the following adb commands
./adb devices
./adb shell
Note 1: Here, you can modify the string to get a list of all packages like
pm list packages|grep'<App or Package Name>'
Just replace <App or Package Name with the actual name>. For instance, to know all the Samsung packages enter:
pm list packages | grep 'samsung'
Note 2: You can also use apps like Package List to get the exact package name for various Bixby services.
To know the package names for Bixby, enter the following command:
pm list packages bixby
You will get a list of packages related to Bixby.
Uninstall each and every Bixby related package using the string:pm uninstall -k –user 0 <package name>
Bloatware -- the term for unwanted pre-installed software on a computer or device -- has been around since the dawn of PCs. Bloatware started with OEMs installing software by default on their computers to both make money and provide consumers with additional software they might want.
Avast Cleanup's bloatware remover feature gets rid of junk, forgotten programs, and other unneeded files clogging up your machine. Give your PC a performance boost with Avast Cleanup and our top-rated Windows bloatware removal tool.
A Factory Reset doesn't affect Android's /system partition but only the /data partition. So if browser and Google Play were pre-installed as user-apps ( in /data partition ) then they get restored by a Factory Reset: there is no way to prevent this, AFAIK.
For the third party bloatware, most of them can be easily uninstalled. 1. On your Android phone, go to “Settings -> Apps & notifications.” ... Uninstall/Disable the bloatware
Open “Hidden Settings for MIUI.”
Go to “Manage applications” and find the application you want to disable.
Some apps are granted Android administrator access. These will prevent you from uninstalling them unless you revoke their administrator privilege. Sometimes, malware can also use administrator privilege to wreak havoc on your phone.
In the search box on the taskbar, type Control Panel and select it from the results. Select Programs > Programs and Features. Press and hold (or right-click) on the program you want to remove and select Uninstall or Uninstall/Change. Then follow the directions on the screen.
The System tracing utility is an Android tool that saves device activity to a trace file. On a device running Android 10 (API level 29) or later, trace files are saved in Perfetto format, shown later in this topic. On a device running an earlier version of Android, trace files are saved in the Systrace format.
It can come from multiple sites, especially malicious websites and third-party platforms. Some bloatwares stay hidden in application bundles and can have malware or adware in it. The bloatwares that get downloaded from the web usually display advertisements on your system and slow down the device.
Bloatware exposes users to a greater number of cybersecurity risks. If it connects to the internet, it exposes the computer to malware by introducing a host of applications designed to exploit computing power and personal information, including financial information.
When it comes to Android devices, bloatware often comes in the form of apps. For the safest way to eradicate any on your device, you'll want to disable them. This will ensure the apps don't run in the background of your device, meaning slowing it down, but they will still use storage space.
Disabling bloatware is much more risk-free. It will ensure that the app does not take up valuable RAM by running in the background, but it also means that the app is not really 'gone', in the sense that it is if you have uninstalled it.
Open the settings on your phone and tap the Home screen option located under the Display tab. Alternatively, you can also long-press on the home screen and select the Home screen settings option to speed things up. The next step is to open the Hide apps menu, tap the apps you want to hide, and select the Done option.
With bloatware typically the pre-installed apps are meant: they by default are located in Android's /system partition ( read: directories /system/apps & /system-priv ). A Factory Reset DOESN'T TOUCH this partition thus apps housed there neither get deleted nor get added. A Factory Reset simply removes all user-data.
If you are bothered by such pre-installed apps and want to remove them from your Android device, then you've come to the right place. ... Disable pre-installed apps
Tap and hold the icon of the app you want to disable.
Select App Info.
On the App Info screen, tap the button that Disable.
Disabling an app will remove it from the apps screen and stop it from running in the background. Disabled apps will no longer receive updates. Depending on where you bought your device, different apps may be preinstalled.
What is the difference between deleting and uninstalling it? The delete feature is used to remove documents, pictures, and other files used by programs on your computer.Uninstall is used to remove a program installed on a computer.
You can't delete some system apps that came pre-installed on your Android phone. But on some phones, you can turn them off so that they won't show on the list of apps on your phone. To learn how to disable apps, contact your device manufacturer.
No matter how many times you terminate them, they stay running in the background. Force Stopping an app will completely (and immediately) end all foreground and background processes related to that particular app.
As a general rule, it's safe to remove any startup program. If a program starts automatically, it usually provides a service that works best if it's always running, such as an antivirus program. Or, the software may be necessary to access special hardware features, such as proprietary printer software.
In Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs. In Add/Remove Programs, verify that the program for which you deleted the registry key is not listed. If the program list is not correct in Add/Remove Programs, you can double-click the Uninstall.
3D Viewer is a simple but functional and powerful program with extensive functionality for editing and viewing 3D models. It can display each function differently in different file formats. This is worth considering if you want to edit the file.
Tap on the three dots that are present at the upper-right of the device screen.Click on the home screen settings.It will navigate you to the Hide apps menu; tap on it. Here, you will see the hidden apps that are not showing in the app list.
Quickstep is the fastest, most convenient way to deliver well-organized collections of documents, videos and other information to your audience's devices. Distribute service manuals to technicians, programs to conference attendees, reading materials to students and more, Available for Android and iOS.
Settings > Apps & Notifications > Scroll down and click Advanced > Permission Manager > Select which settings you'd like to examine, from call logs, to camera permissions, to microphone permissions > Once you're under a category, you can click on any of the apps to toggle the permission to Allow or Deny.
Private Compute Services provide a privacy-preserving bridge between the Private Compute Core and the cloud, making it possible to deliver new AI models and other updates to sandboxed machine learning features over a secure path.
Google Find My Device is a free app that allows you to trace your phone. You can track any device on your Android phone with this software. To protect the data, you can create a password. The app also has remote lock and delete capabilities.
With the release of Android Pie, this inconvenience was addressed with the introduction of the Traceur package, which is a tool that captures raw trace data directly on an Android phone.
With bloatware typically the pre-installed apps are meant: they by default are located in Android's /system partition ( read: directories /system/apps & /system-priv ). A Factory Reset DOESN'T TOUCH this partition thus apps housed there neither get deleted nor get added.
Without bloatware, we're running 109 FPS AVG, 78FPS 1% lows, and 70FPS 0.1% lows. With bloatware, those numbers fall to 90FPS AVG and in the 50s for 0.1% low FPS. Just for the average, that's a change of 20.7% only by disabling all the pre-installed software that comes with the laptop.
Some smartphone manufacturers allow you to disable pre-installed apps. This won't remove the app from your smartphone, but the app will stop running in the background and will no longer show up in the app drawer.
A factory data reset erases your data from the phone. While data stored in your Google Account can be restored, all apps and their data will be uninstalled. To be ready to restore your data, make sure that it's in your Google Account.
As we have discussed in our past article, closing apps all the time is not a good idea. Removing apps from the RAM is counterproductive for the system. You hardly get any benefits from it. It doesn't increase your battery life, and the foreground apps don't run any faster by closing the background apps.
While some apps just take up storage space, others can run in the background to refresh their content or do other tasks, thereby wasting crucial system resources that can be better used by the apps you actually use. So, uninstall any Android apps you don't use frequently.
Both Android and iOS have a recent apps list. Pull up the list and you will find a seemingly endless register of apps that you have opened at some point. Despite what you may think, removing apps from the list won't speed up your smartphone.
Introduction: My name is Stevie Stamm, I am a colorful, sparkling, splendid, vast, open, hilarious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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