Verizon Signs Deal Place Bloatware on Samsung Devices

[upnorth]

Content source

https://gizmodo.com/verizon-signs-deal-to-place-the-saddest-most-pathetic-1825731212

In the latest chapter of Yahoo’s fall from grace, the once-prominent internet company has been relegated to the role of bloatware on millions of Android phones, thanks to a new advertising agreement between Verizon and Samsung. According to Reuters, the deal will load up Verizon Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ devices with a number of useless apps, including Yahoo Sports; Yahoo Finance; Go90, a mobile video service that you are almost certainly not using; and Oath Newsroom, a news curation app that surfaces headlines from across the web, but primarily from Yahoo News and HuffPost, both of which are owned by Verizon. As part of the deal, Oath will become the “premiere content partner” for Bixby, Samsung’s first-party virtual assistant. If that doesn’t sound like enough stuff that you don’t want on your phone, Samsung and Oath will also allow advertisers to place “native ads”—ads disguised as actual content—smack dab in the middle of the news feed.

 

[Deletedmessiah]

More bloatware ugh. As if there wasn't enough bloat already

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Well... have you dodged a bullet as an S8 user or have they done deals with the S8 for things like this in the past?

 

[In2an3_PpG]

Hope they provided a way to either uninstall or disable those useless apps. I think I'm gonna make a move over to the Pixel in the near future.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Hope they provided a way to either uninstall or disable those useless apps. I think I'm gonna make a move over to the Pixel in the near future.

I don't think they will. I think they'll force you to root the device to do it.

Your post made me remember something... Facebook and Instagram came bundled on my Samsung Galaxy S8. You cannot uninstall them either, I had to "disable" them. Even though they cannot be ran on my device nor used by myself unless I were to Enable them, they are still installed on the device regardless... taking up however megabytes they do.

 

[In2an3_PpG]

I don't think they will. I think they'll force you to root the device to do it.

Your post made me remember something... Facebook and Instagram came bundled on my Samsung Galaxy S8. You cannot uninstall them either, I had to "disable" them. Even though they cannot be ran on my device nor used by myself unless I were to Enable them, they are still installed on the device regardless... taking up however megabytes they do.

My Note 5 was that same way. Luckily with my Note 8 they gave us the ability to uninstall them.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

I don't think they will. I think they'll force you to root the device to do it.

To anyone who may be trying to uninstall a bundled application on a Android mobile device which they cannot uninstall without rooting and forcefully doing it with an application for rooted devices....

Rooting your Android device will leave you a lot more vulnerable to attackers and will cripple security. Rooting your Android device will allow you to have more control and do more since restrictions will be lifted, however while those restrictions are lifted, it eases things for attackers as well. Therefore, I do not advise rooting your Android device, nor condone it. Ever.

Bear in mind that you should never ever trust anyone who is helping you root/jailbreak your device. Any automated tool which you are using to root/jailbreak your device can betray you and do things without you knowing. After restrictions are lifted, more can be done and concealed. It doesn't matter if it is "trusted" or "reputable", that does not mean it truly is "trustworthy", it could just mean no one has found the hidden agenda yet. Quite frankly, I do not think that someone who understands security and understands the risks that rooting/jail-breaking the device will bring will actually *go ahead* with it - at-least if the device has sensitive and personal data and is the main, genuine device used by the individual -, but that's pure speculation... everyone is their own person and makes their own decisions.

Same applies to iOS with jailbreaks.

 

[Deletedmessiah]

The chance of MT regular members getting infected on rooted Android is almost none. Just set the superuser to default-deny. However I still won't root. Its a pain nowadays. Google Safetynet, Samsung knox trip... This cat and mouse game is a pain. And installing updates is a pain as well. If Adaway like adblocker, Xprivacy and Titanium backup worked without root, I never would even think about rooting. Adaway and Xprivacy like apps would conflict with Google's ad business so they'll never allow it but I wish they would have allowed some good backup process without root, like how Titanium backup works.

 

[Malware Man]

I own the Canadian Note 8 (bought it directly from Samsung Canada) and the only bloatware on it is Samsung's apps which it let me uninstall all the ones I wanted to get rid of, my carrier installed 0 apps except this SIM toolkit app to help with SIM issues. There is however, Facebook which cannot be removed but I'm a user of Facebook so I was only going to download them anyways. There is also the Microsoft Office suite of apps which cannot be removed. But since I'm a student I use Microsoft Office all the time since my student email account is an Office 365 account which provides me with an Microsoft Office subscription and 1TB of OneDrive subscription thanks to my college.

Basically all of the bloatware that is on my phone such as Facebook and Microsoft Office I was only going to install those apps anyways. Thankfully there are no candy crush and other game apps installed as bloatware.