I hate bloatware. It makes me nuts to think that my computer might have unnecessary crap running. When I buy a computer, the first thing I do is reformat the hard drive and start with a fresh install of Windows. When I install a piece of new software, I’m very careful to disable any garbage “always on” aspects. Etc., etc.
About a year ago I got my first smartphone, a Galaxy S4. My provider is Sprint. I’ve been happy with it, but I haven’t really explored its full capabilities. I’ve uninstalled or disabled a bunch of useless stuff, but I’ve also been aware that there is all sorts of garbage still on the phone. But I’ve not wanted to take the time to really learn how to get rid of the things that can’t be easily uninstalled via the application manager.
In the last few days some stupid “Sprint Zone 5” app has suddenly started giving me notifications about coupon deals or some such nonsense. I just dismissed it the first couple of times, but now I’m getting mad. The app can’t be uninstalled, as it’s a preloaded-by-Sprint thing. I think I’ve disabled it, for the moment. Anyway, from looking around online, the base cause of this problem seems to be something called Sprint ID, which manages other Sprint-only apps. The impression I’m getting is that this Sprint ID is a useless piece of bloatware that I’d be better off without. I’ve force-stopped it, turned off notifications, and all that, but my gut is telling me that the next time I reboot the phone it will all come screaming back.
So now my bloatware-hating-instincts are starting to rear up. I want this shit uninstalled. But I’ve gathered that the only way to do so is to root my phone.
I’ve heard of this process, but I’m scared to do it. I don’t want to break my phone. I’ve found some instructions, to use an app called Towelroot, then install SuperSU, and finally Titanium Backup to get rid of the garbage. Sounds easy enough, but these things always seem easy, then I wind up spending six hours trying to make it work.
So is it worth the effort to go through all of this? Could someone either tell me it will all be ok if I go through with it, or if it’s not worth my time?
I am an Apple user, however I purchased a Galaxy Tab3 last year. The huge amount of bloatware bothered me from the moment I turned it on, and I immediately looked for solutions.
I found the rooting solution and had it done and all of the crap deleted in about 30 minutes.
You’ll be using ODIN at some point during the rooting and all I gotta say is no matter what, never, ever, mess with PIT files. I’m an experienced user and I still hard bricked my phone messing about with a PIT file. You don’t normally need to touch them to root though so I doubt you’d even think to do this to begin with (I forget even why I thought I needed to mess with them, I think I soft bricked it first). Thankfully even a hard bricked phone will sell for a decent price on eBay if the rest of the phone is good.
Anyway, rooting is pretty much a painless process when you get the right files. Just make sure to follow the steps and that you have the EXACT file you need. With international and US releases of phones sometimes the people trying to help you mistakenly give you a file for rooting an international Galaxy S4 when you need the file for a US Galaxy S4. It helps if you search for your specific phone number instead of generic “Galaxy S4” (i.e. my Galaxy S3 is a T-999 versus the international one which is i9300).
And before you do anything, go get the phone drivers from the Samsung website. Your computer will think it’s gotten the right files through plug and play, and it will not have. That’ll definitely put a bug in the rooting process.
I am much happier with Cyanogenmod on my phone. Titanium Backup, which only works with root, is a great backup tool. It can even restore previous versions of apps (say if your camera app updates and breaks, you can roll back).
If any apps/games give you root issues (some try and block root users) you can often download Super SU for your superuser app and then turn superuser off in settings. For some reason, this setting actually means apps that want superuser can still request it, but most other apps won’t see superuser ability is even there.
Woops, I skimmed your last paragraph. I’ve never tried towelroot - I’d wonder if it was not a “full” root but if it works it works. It probably does not give you Clockworkmod which I think is essential. It allows you to do a nandroid backup of your phone before you mess with it (thus allowing you to do a complete restore if anything fails).
SuperSU is my superuser app of choice though. Titanium Backup is what you want, too. Thing is, if you’re not going to re-flash with stock android (no bloatware at all) or some other ROM like Cyanogenmod (no bloatware but some programmed additions) and just keep your current android install, then you need to keep this in mind: only freeze with Titanium Backup. Do not outright uninstall. Some innocuous looking bloatware apps actually hold key phone programming and your phone’s functionality will break if you delete them outright. Freeze the apps first and see if your phone still works correctly for a week under every condition you can think of to try, then you can think about uninstalling them.
Rooting may void your warranty. It is annoying to completely and utterly unroot your phone so that they can’t tell you ever did it (there’s an internal counter for these sorts of things), but it’s possible. But if you are worried about your warranty, don’t do it.
Vital clarification: There is “rooting”, and there is “romming”. The former is a relatively small step, assuming you get the correct rooter app or tool, and then install the compatible “su” (superuser) executable. And this is pretty much all you need to delete bloatware. You need go no further than get root privileges on the phone and uninstall packages via the normal package management Settings application (not Play Store), or with a tool like Titanium Backup.
“Romming” is installing a completely different operating system package than the original vendor-provided Android setup. It may be the same version as the default, or newer, or even older. It may have all the drivers necessary for all the hardware, or it may not. (For instance, HDMI video output drivers may not be available for their-party ROMs.
I’ve rommed phones and it’s worked well. But it’s not something you’d do just to use the computer, any more than you’d replace Windows with Linux just because you don’t like the desktop backtop graphic.