Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Remove preinstalled apps - Universal Android Debloater (github.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

41 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I just discovered this amazing app! It lets you remove (or just disable) preinstalled apps like Facebook, Netflix, etc. and system apps like samsung knox apps, diagnostic, bixby, and even One UI (but you must have installed other launcher). You can’t brick your device, worst case it falls into a boot loop and after 5 reboots it will factory reset.

Debloating your device will make it faster, more private and more secure (less atack surface).

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[–] Rustmilian 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I want to specify for anyone whom doesn't know.
ADB can't actually "remove"/delete system applications from the devices storage. It can only "uninstall" them from the user account; that's why you can't brick the device with this method.
So if you're looking to free up space on the device you'll have to find a different solution.

Thanks for the awesome GUI tool.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you suspect there are still benefits to doing this then?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Yes. Some of them do nothing other than serve ads and /or track information.Disabling them can help thus with better privacy and longer battery life.

[–] Rustmilian 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ofc. "Uninstalling" say the Facebook shitware that's included in Samsungs from the user account prevents them from running. The apps are still very much in the system partition, but the user account will never run it because to the account it's "uninstalled".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Storage-wise they're there, but they never run or take up memory? Is this correct?

[–] Rustmilian 3 points 1 year ago

Correct.