r/technology
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u/bdzz
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Feb 06 '23
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Bloatware pushes the Galaxy S23 Android OS to an incredible 60GB Software
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/02/the-samsung-galaxy-s23s-bloated-android-build-somehow-uses-60gb-of-storage/1.5k
u/tundey_1 Feb 06 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
A company like Facebook will buy a spot on Samsung's system partition, where it can get more intrusive system permissions that aren't granted to app store apps, letting it more effectively spy on users.
I love the venom behind this sentence.
Edit: I am a solidly pro-Android user. And unintentionally pro-Samsung as well.
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u/Zexy-Mastermind Feb 07 '23
Can you undo these settings? Or the bloatware in general?
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u/tundey_1 Feb 07 '23
Generally, no. The apps are loaded along with the OS and users are prevented from removing them.
I am not an Apple expert but I believe this used to be the case with some Apple apps in the past. i.e. apps that were not technically a core part of the OS but are forced upon the user.
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u/amanset Feb 07 '23
There were a handful of apps and they were all from Apple. Stuff like the Stocks app.
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u/oced2001 Feb 07 '23
When I had an iphone, I had a "Shit I can't delete" folder
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u/grogling5231 Feb 07 '23
You can delete almost all the Apple apps at this point from the devices in the OS.
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u/amanset Feb 07 '23
I know, which is why I used the past tense.
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u/koi88 Feb 07 '23
So … Apple improved on this? (Sorry, I haven't used an iPhone for a long time)
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u/Jackleme Feb 07 '23
Yep, this is why I only buy Pixels now... Sure, Google is spying on me... But they are on Samsung too, lol
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u/HikariRikue Feb 07 '23
At least Google is useful unlike Facebook
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u/webbster1 Feb 07 '23
It’s definitely degraded a lot though Due to search engine optimization schemes.
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u/tundey_1 Feb 07 '23
They are all spying on you and selling your data. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
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u/Jackleme Feb 07 '23
Yep. The advantage of the pixels is that at least it is only Google out of the box.
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u/caguru Feb 07 '23
It’s only the largest data mining company in the world, that’s a relief.
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u/Jackleme Feb 07 '23
Sure... But they are doing the same thing on anything else with Android. The devil you know.
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u/MetaEvan Feb 07 '23
Not exactly. Google and Apple don’t sell data, they monetize it (one several orders of magnitude more than the other). They provide ads and product placement that use that data, but neither company wants to give any of it up.
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u/peabody Feb 07 '23
You can "disable" the app, which is as close to "uninstall" as you can get. But then of course, you can't use it, if you were planning on using facebook.
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u/NightIgnite Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
You need to enable developer mode, enable usb debugging, then use some commands to uninstall it from the user partition.
If you want to uninstall it from the system partition, you need to root the phone. But at that point, you might as well load an android rom without the bloatware.
Im too lazy to make a backup of all my files to justify a fresh reinstall of android, so usb debugging is the most I'll do until this phone breaks.
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Feb 07 '23
You have to install ADB on a PC, connect the phone via cable then use some software like Samsung-Debloat from Github to remove it.
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u/masaigu1 Feb 07 '23
Yep, I used to use Samsung, switched to Motorola, it's like a totally different OS, way better. I like it even more than my iPhone, and it's less than half the price!
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u/AceSox Feb 07 '23
Did the same but went from an iphone to a Pixel5a for a fraction of the cost. No regrets.
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u/Acc87 Feb 07 '23
Happy repeat Motorola user here, for the same reason, a really slim base Android. No social media pre-installed.
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u/Lazerpop Feb 07 '23
I love the idea of android but not the execution. There is no functional open source phone. In lieu of an actually open platform i'll take the one with the least amount of built in spyware.
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u/tundey_1 Feb 07 '23
Android is open source. For the longest time there was CyanogenMod that was a replacement for the stock OS. That's now morphed into LineageOS.
There no open source phone in terms of hardware but if you have hardware from Samsung, Google and a bunch of other OEMs, you can find a version of LineageOS that works on it.
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u/Cariboudjan Feb 07 '23
Android users who like to dunk on iPhone do not seem to value their privacy.
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u/Hexxxer Feb 07 '23
not all android phones are bloated.
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u/oced2001 Feb 07 '23
I like my Pixel 5. About the only app that I don't use but can't delete is YouTube Music. Does anyone use that?
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u/medusamadonna Feb 07 '23
I do and I love it.
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u/phormix Feb 07 '23
GPlay music was better though, though YTM has been improving over time
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u/Kershiser22 Feb 07 '23
Gplay was better, but I haven't noticed any improvements with YTM.
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u/phormix Feb 07 '23
When they first pushed people off GPlay, Bluetooth playback on YTM was pretty fucky on vehicles and had issues with displaying the correct track info. That among other things were fixed.
However, one big lack IMO is that GPlay Music was a store. It allowed you to buy music and YTM is streaming only
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u/RawDoggRamen Feb 07 '23
I also had my entire DJ library uploaded to Gplay for free. Up to 100k tracks they would store and allow you to re download. Such a great service. Miss it a lot.
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u/Future_Difficulty Feb 07 '23
Both platforms are honestly pretty flawed privacy wise. It’s not in these companies interest to give their customers true privacy.
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u/tensed_wolfie Feb 07 '23
Not dunking on android but I’m happy with my privacy being violated solely by my phone’s manufacturer rather than third party apps
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u/Infuryous Feb 07 '23
For those willing to go through some initial pain, Android phones can be debloated, there are ways to remove the apps that are installed as part of the OS.
Samsung is no better than Apple, but at least with an Android based phone, I do have other options than just drinking Apple's cool-aid and being locked into their echo system.
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u/-tinysnowpenguin Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
This is always said as a negative, but I actually enjoy the “echo” system. My devices work together so seamlessly and the App Store is far from being as bloated as it is in the Android world. I much prefer Apple’s user experience over that of Android/Windows and always have.
I just don’t personally understand this feud between people. Why does someone personally care what device everyone else are using? It’s ridiculous and childish. We all have our preferences.
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u/ajd660 Feb 07 '23
Humans always seem to judge others for the dumbest reasons, just like the pineapple on pizza debate. I mean, who really cares what people put on pizza.
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u/the_bear_paw Feb 07 '23 •
Speak for yourself. If someone suggested putting pineapple on pizza I might actually throw them out of my house and get in a fistfight in the middle of the just fucking with you I couldn't care less about what people eat on their pizza.
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u/Beneficial_Elk_182 Feb 07 '23
Correct. Graphene and f-Droid for the win.
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u/DekiEE Feb 07 '23
To not be able to use banking apps?
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u/Tran_shang Feb 07 '23
My bank app gives my Xiaomi phone a "library tampering detected" error on the stock os cause of whatever app I once used ffs
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u/baconcheeseburgarian Feb 07 '23
People know they have options but they continue to choose Apple. Nobody puts a gun to their head.
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u/brainartisan Feb 07 '23
Personally I like Android because of the ability to have control over what I install and how I install it. Apple products are pretty user friendly and secure, but having control over devices that I own is important to me.
Facebook also already knows everything about me most likely, despite me not using the platform. Unless there is some data leak where my email and passwords are being sold, what is the point of privacy? Oh no, Facebook is going to see my app history? If you use the internet then Facebook already has your data.
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u/stormdelta Feb 07 '23
Unlike the social media companies, at least with Google I know they want the data for themselves and not to sell to others, because they themselves are the advertisers.
The real reason I use Android though is that I personally find iOS's UI/UX to be terrible, especially when it comes to notification management, which is a bit of a deal breaker as someone with ADHD. This is still true even on iOS 16.
Also, I'd need a separate work phone on iOS, as I don't have any ability to create a separate work partition like I do on Android.
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u/Worth_Procedure_9023 Feb 07 '23
Privacy?
Brother I could Livestream myself taking a cactus Mr.Slave style to the sound of Mozart's Requiem....
And I'd still only be the 200,000th most interesting human on the planet for those 5 seconds.
"Privacy" is meaningless when you can read license plates from orbit.
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u/keothi Feb 07 '23
Apple pays google to store user data in googles cloud. About 8 million terabytes worth
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u/someNameThisIs Feb 07 '23
Vast majority is encrypted though, Apple has the key but I seriously doubt they share it with Google. And now Apple offers E2EE as an option, so they can't even got to it.
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u/JernejL Feb 07 '23
There is misinformation in this, for last few generations of samsung phones, facebook is no longer bundled by samsung as a system app. There is an installation link only, which you can fully remove.
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u/ShellOilNigeria Feb 06 '23
That is insane.
Yes, the Galaxy S23 is slowly trickling out to the masses, and, as Esper's senior technical editor Mishaal Rahman highlights in a storage space survey, Samsung's new phone is way out of line with most of the ecosystem. Several users report the phone uses around 60GB for the system partition right out of the box. If you have a 128GB phone, that's nearly half your storage for the Android OS and packed-in apps. That's four times the size of the normal Pixel 7 Pro system partition, which is 15GB. It's the size of two Windows 11 installs, side by side. What could Samsung possibly be putting in there?!
We can take a few guesses as to why things are so big. First, Samsung is notorious for having a shoddy software division that pumps out low-quality code. The company tends to change everything in Android just for change's sake, and it's hard to imagine those changes are very good. Second, Samsung may want to give the appearance of having its own non-Google ecosystem, and to do that, it clones every Google app that comes with its devices. Samsung is contractually obligated to include the Google apps, so you get both the Google and Samsung versions. That means two app stores, two browsers, two voice assistants, two text messaging apps, two keyboard apps, and on and on. These all get added to the system partition and often aren't removable.
I need to pour a drink after reading that stupidity.
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u/AuthorNathanHGreen Feb 06 '23
I had a Galaxy years ago and it pushed me into Pixel. Everything was so flabby and annoying and you couldn't get rid of any of it. The biggest annoyance of my Pixel phone right now? It keeps prompting me about permissions for unused apps or some app wanting permissions I won't give it. That's the kind of annoyance I like from my phone.
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u/Amphabian Feb 06 '23
I got a Pixel 6A and never looked back. Best phone I've ever had and this battery takes forever to die. I've been using my phone basically non-stop after a full charge from 8:30AM to now (5:03PM) and my battery is just barely hitting 30%. Love this thing
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u/Thedarknight1611 Feb 07 '23
The a53 midrange phone has been decent Samsung wise but I'd try a pixel again if I needed a new phone. Long lasting battery good camera if you know how to use the manual camera. Would get a pixel whenever this craps out though as Samsung seems to get worse every year
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u/Isaac730 Feb 06 '23
Same. I had a Galaxy S4 and the OS + bloat ended up being 100% of the device. I had to uninstall every single app I had, and the OS updates still could not complete due to lack of space. All unremovable BS made the phone unusable. The Pixel 4a has been treating me well.
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u/SixSpeedDriver Feb 07 '23
I had a GS4 and it chased me into the Pixel ecosystem because of how bad the experience was. Then, the Pixel ecosystems hardware became stale (I wanted a rock solid watch+headphones+phone combo), and chased me out of Android back into iOS around the iPhone 12 launch. Because that's where it actually works.
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u/stormdelta Feb 07 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
And it's still like that.
I tried an S22 last year, returned it in less than a month and I'm honestly baffled they have the market share they do on Android.
The S22 had ads in the fucking system menu for really sketchy third party services, and I had to spend hours uninstalling bloatware, much of which had to be removed via command line
Far more bugs on the S22, including one that broke swipe typing in all keyboards that support acknowledged but couldn't give me any timeline on a resolution
I also missed not having inline screen OCR or call screening.
I'll grant that Samsung's "one hand mode" actually makes sense whereas the Pixel version is useless, though I'd really rather have a smaller phone in the first place (sadly, everything now is gigantic).
Currently have a Pixel 5. Despite the complaints online, I've never had any major issues with them, and the A models are available at a great price point if you don't mind a few minor features removed.
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u/AuthorNathanHGreen Feb 07 '23
Big fan of the A's. I really don't see the point in being on the bleeding edge anymore.
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u/SailorET Feb 07 '23
Honestly they could sell Pixels with nothing more than the call screening feature and it would still be enough for me, there's so many quality features it's bonkers
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u/vanhalenbr Feb 06 '23
I am an iOS user because years ago I tried to move to Galaxy and it was an horrible experience. Maybe I need to look at Pixel, and change my opinion about Android.
Because I really don’t think Samsung make a compelling case for Android.
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u/anythingers Feb 07 '23
That's why I don't really wanna call Samsung as "the face of Android". The One UI doesn't really gives us the pure experience of Android.
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Feb 06 '23
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u/fargmania Feb 07 '23
In this modern world, there are so many choices it doesn't matter anymore. My iFriends just poke me on SMS or discord. And my facebook friends... weren't really my friends as it turns out, and I don't miss them.
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u/DygonZ Feb 07 '23
I think this is only really a talking point in the US. I have never heard a European say anything about this.
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u/fargmania Feb 07 '23
I have an S7 right now... and after a bunch of research, I settled on the newest Pixel as my next buy... primarily because Facebook isn't preinstalled on it. I'll miss my 3.5mm headphone jack, but the USB-C port is a decent enough trade-off.
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u/afailinghero Feb 06 '23
I've been Galaxy for a whole buncha years now. I greatly dislike Apple products, so I'm eyeing the Pixel. You've certainly added weight to the scales w this comment. I'm also sick of every new iteration being the same, new phone day used to be super exciting.
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u/ethanvyce Feb 06 '23
you can do it. I switched from Samsung to Pixel a while ago (Pixel 3a) and no regrets.
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u/crispy1989 Feb 07 '23
I also find Apple products in general to be pretty bad (different discussion); but I might have some input as someone with experience with both Galaxy and Pixel phones.
For years, I stuck with the Pixel line (and the Nexus before that). I loved how clean, fast, and reliable it was. Around the time the Pixel 5 came out, I ended up switching to a Galaxy, because I was due for a new phone and wanted better hardware than what was available with the Pixel 5. My girlfriend went with the Pixel 5 (and later the Pixel 6), so we were able to compare.
Unfortunately, the later generation Pixels (5 & 6) just seem to be incredibly buggy. She dealt with tons of different little issues and glitches - things that you wouldn't expect to deal with from a flagship phone. I never had these sorts of bugs with earlier Pixels; and I confirmed that they were real issues and not just nitpicking or imaginings. Frequently, googling one of these bugs would result in a forum post with loads of other people having the issue, and 1 post from a Google representative with the equivalent of "have you tried turning it off and on again" (yes, we tried) and no other feedback. I was forced to conclude that Google just stopped caring about testing and fixing their phone software, and I planned to continue with the Samsung line until Google was able to demonstrate they could build quality, reliable software again.
Since then, she's gotten the Pixel 7, which seems much more reliable - closer to the "olden days". And while my Galaxy has been quite stable, I am indeed turned off by Samsung's extensive bloatware. At this point, I'm not sure what I'll pick for my next phone. It will probably depend on how well Google's doing with their reliability.
(Don't get a Samsung foldable. I know a few people with them - they're not reliable. The screens always break at the fold, and Samsung always blames it on abuse. Something else that's turned me off of Samsung a bit.)
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u/anythingers Feb 07 '23
Back to Pixel. Stock Android experience isn't replaceable with One UI, at least in my opinion.
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u/LZYX Feb 07 '23
Also I can't get the Voice Access notification box to go away but at this point it's invisible to me now LOL
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u/Green-Snow-3971 Feb 07 '23
I need to pour a drink after reading that stupidity.
Want even more stupidity? They name those apps the same as well.
So you wind up with duplicate apps with the same name and only slightly different icons which, understandably can confuse and frustrate users.
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u/Sufficient_Wave_3061 Feb 07 '23
Weird... but say you were a first time phone buyer. Person selling you the phone says it comes with 128gb. You turn it on and it shows 60gb is already used. Can't you sue for false advertising? I mean I know it does come with 128gb but that shit just seems anti consumer af.
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u/Tebwolf359 Feb 07 '23
Fair question, but it’s not false advertising.
Let’s say you buy a house (I know), and the house is 1,000 sq foot.
Well, part of that sq foot is the interior walls. that’s like the core OS and frameworks. It’s part of the space, but you can’t just delete it of the house collapses.
Another part is filled with the bathtub. And the washer and dryer. Those are the essential apps.
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u/zephyrprime Feb 07 '23
Windows 11 size is about 18GB so it is more like triple window's size, not double.
https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-11/how-much-space-does-windows-11-take-up/39
Feb 06 '23
Immediately bought some $AAPL halfway through that article
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u/133DK Feb 06 '23
Basically
I’ve wanted to get an android, but the best android phones all shoot themselves in the foot with shit like this
Only real option for an android phone is a pixel, but then again I’d rather have an iPhone than get any deeper into Google’s ecosystem than I already am
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u/SixSpeedDriver Feb 07 '23
Google's inability to deliver a watch that made sense in the Pixel world, and the disaster that was the quality of Pixel Buds 2 pushed me into the airPods + apple watch + iphone set. And I was hardcore anti-Apple.
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Feb 07 '23
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u/someNameThisIs Feb 07 '23
I got the new one as a gift last year and it's great. Samsung patched adds into my TVs OS ffs, so I disables internet and now it's just a dumb display for the Apple TV
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u/DekiEE Feb 07 '23
For me it is flawless functionality and great design. I am a sucker for great UI, I sometimes use services solely because their UI is better knowing the other solution ticks more of the boxes I actually need. Apple just delivers this with almost every product. Apple TV was a revelation compared to any other smart tv I used.
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u/Oiltool Feb 07 '23
That’s what apple does. I have an iMac, iPad, iPhone, watch, AirPods Pro and they all work together seamlessly. Not to mention warranties that put a replacement in my hand as fast as 24 hours if I break my shit or it stops working. Also apple one. My family shares 2 TB of storage, Apple TV, fitness, news, music and arcade for 33 a month.
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u/SixthLegionVI Feb 06 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
I'm on a galaxy s20 and it's definitely my last Samsung phone.
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u/Symsonite Feb 07 '23
I have a S22, and it uses ~45 GB for the system. I though this was already quite extreme, and i cannot fathom why they need 15 GB more for a phone that isn't that different... jeez.
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u/aecarol1 Feb 06 '23
Another comparison is that an iPhone eats about 8GB for the OS and default installed apps.
A full install of MacOS, along with the full Xcode development environment and all public SDKs (headers, frameworks, tools, etc) to develop for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iWatch is less than 60GB.
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u/DBDude Feb 06 '23
My iPhone is using 8.5 GB for the OS and another 8.9 GB for other system resources including caches and logs. 60 GB is insane.
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u/aecarol1 Feb 06 '23
And when memory gets tight, iOS will automatically cut back on cache sizes to free up some o that other 8.9 GB for your data.
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u/rhyseenz Feb 06 '23
Madness , my S20+ has an OS of 30GB !! .
Demand Samsung respond to this
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u/pyrrhios Feb 06 '23
My next phone will not be Samsung. Their hardware is great, but their software is so parasitic it's not worth it.
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u/A1Mkiller Feb 06 '23
My last phone was a Samsung and it came pre-installed with FACEBOOK. No, you couldn’t delete it.
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u/TellMildly6749 Feb 06 '23
I recently got an S20, I could not believe the sheer amount of garbage on this phone, never mind the stuff its missing. I can't even manage files on it without having to download an app.
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u/tundey_1 Feb 06 '23
I can't even manage files on it without having to download an app.
My S20+ and S9+ have Samsung's My Files app. It's not the greatest but it does allow you to manage files on your phone. And if you hook it into OneDrive and/or Google Drive, you can manage files on those services as well. It can also attached to network storage as well.
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u/River_of_Sparta87 Feb 06 '23
Relying on the hardware to make up for lack of sufficient coding is garbage.
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u/tickettoride98 Feb 07 '23
That's not what this is. Bad coding doesn't get you to 60 GB for fresh out of the factory phone. It's the amount of crap they jam in there they don't need.
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u/theragethatconsumes Feb 07 '23
It's subsidizing the cost of the phone by letting companies like Facebook pay to guarantee their apps will be installed on all phones and can't be removed by the user.
Additionally Samsung wants to be independent of Google and has its own version of most the apps that are native to the base Android OS.
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u/sid_raj7 Feb 07 '23
Would be great to know how much is bloat and how much is one ui features
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u/francie__ Feb 07 '23
And the hardware functionality suffers because of it too. My last 2 Samsung phones have had absaloutley banger cameras- too bad that if I click too many things in a short amount of time, it'll just completely break, crash my phone or whatever app I'm using the camera in. They're so. fucking. slow.
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u/velifer Feb 07 '23
Ami Pro word processor is a WYSIWYG editor from 1992 that does damn near everything MS Word does today, but is 8mb.
Software has been garbage for decades.
Go live in the retro glory of having to get shit done with a few big black floppies: https://winworldpc.com/product/amipro/3x
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u/Acceptable-Fold-5432 Feb 07 '23
nowadays if you even say "big black floppies" in the workplace, they'll throw you in jail
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u/rootbeerdan Feb 07 '23
Software has been garbage for decades.
Computer Science programs need more breadboards, blew my mind we spent more time in Java than learning how computers actually execute code. Anything serious was met with "Let the JVM take care of it" which is great for practical programming but terrible if you actually want to learn how to make optimized programs.
I'm not saying everyone needs to become proficient in ASM or C, but c'mon at least understand what is going on behind the scenes so you don't import 40 NPM modules just to perform simple math.
Simple programming really is a lost art, just look at the proliferation of huge NPM packages that do basically nothing.
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u/phredbull Feb 06 '23
Yeah, they make good hardware, but a shite software experience.
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u/SuperSimpleSam Feb 06 '23
This is why phones so far has been Moto and Nokia. Eyeing the Pixel 7a for later this year.
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u/phredbull Feb 06 '23
I'm also one of the 10 people currently using a Nokia!
Next one will be a Pixel.
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u/IdealCapable Feb 06 '23
I have the Pixel 7 and I really like it for a different choice from the usual iPhone/Galaxy flagships. Pretty handy for photo storage, great camera and Google has some neat features tucked away on the phone.
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u/Hexxxer Feb 07 '23
I stopped buying Samsung after the Galaxy S7. I recall them pushing that bixby garbage and knew this company was in a race to be like the laptop market of the early-mid 2000s
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u/upboatsnhoes Feb 07 '23
Dang the S5 was such a good phone in its heyday...I miss my old S5 dearly. I used it until I upgraded to the S9+. I dont think I'll keep this phone around quite as long...
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u/mailslot Feb 07 '23
The S7 was my last Samsung. The final straw was the ocasional disappearance of the “answer” button. I’d get important phone calls that I couldn’t answer with the screen or my headset. One day it just decided to stop working as a phone.
I also had a Samsung watch that couldn’t tell the correct time. Both the hours and minutes would reset themselves to random values. It didn’t matter if the paired phone was on or off.
I got tired of rebooting my phone and watch twice daily just to get them to work. Brand new: two of my favorite things ever. One year later: updates made both unusable at their basic functions… and more bloat for updates to Facebook and other apps I didn’t use and couldn’t delete. Ugh.
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u/FanOutGrey280 Feb 06 '23 edited Feb 07 '23
This is the single reason I chose a Pixel device over a Samsung device.
Samsung's OS is a total mess of double apps that do the same thing and apps you can't uninstall.
It's a shame because they make good hardware, but Samsung software has always been shit.
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u/Thedarknight1611 Feb 07 '23
Excatly all I want is Google apps and they have their own Samsung apps+tons of bloatware apps like faecebook
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u/AlternativeYou8664 Feb 07 '23
Every Samsung product I’ve experienced in the last 5 years has been parasitic shit that ruthlessly tried to mine me for personal data and money at every opportunity (including relentless advertising), with no options to turn that shit off or defend myself. Even their fucking TV.
I’ll never have any other Samsung product in my home or possession ever again.
Just to be clear: Fuck off, Samsung. You’ve made it very clear you view me as substrate to consume. I wish you all the worst.
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u/MacDegger Feb 07 '23
And THAT is why I don't buy Samsung phones.
Plus, as an android dev I have hated them for a decade because their OS lies to the programmer if, say, you ask for the screen density and Samsung just lies because they want a different resolution icon.
'if (device == Samsung && model == whatever) then { I have to change whatever value they give to actually get the real value}' is the most disgusting code.
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Feb 06 '23 edited Feb 06 '23
Samsung is trying its best to make me hate my Fold 4. I can't even get the Google keyboard to stick. Every other week it changes back to the Samsung default. There are so many annoyances and its all software shit unrelated to the phones capabilities. I really like the form factor so I hope the rumors of Google making a foldable phone are true.
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u/thebug50 Feb 06 '23
The Note 4 released nearly 9 years ago. Time is making you hate the Note 4.
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u/DH_Net_Tech Feb 07 '23
This has to be one of those tough to admit Ws for Apple since their OS only takes up like 8GB and makes it easy to remove all of the unnecessary apple apps.
Android is treated way too much like a brand new laptop from X manufacturer that comes with so much bloatware that this bleeding edge device will slow to a crawl inside 2 years. Do Android/Samsung devices offer “clean” installs that just install the core OS functionality or are you forever cursed with 50GB of Google/Facebook bloat?
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u/turbo_nudist Feb 07 '23
closest you could probably get would be a pixel, although those are bloated with data collection crap as well honestly.
it is pretty remarkable how clean iOS stays over time. my girlfriend’s 5 year old iphone is on the latest software update, never having reinstalled from the day she got it, and it runs as fast as my (somewhat newer) iphone. it’s really quite impressive
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u/Carl_Chocolate
Feb 07 '23
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I like how nobody checked facts here ... so I am going to post here something from r/Samsung where the same link was posted (kudos to u/BigGuysForYou)
Misleading, poorly researched garbage article. Guy saw this on Twitter and decided to half ass an article about it without verifying anything himself, or asking himself "is this real?"
Read the original thread to see explanations of why it's not 60GB: https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1622797734146105344?cxt=HHwWgICz4Z78qoUtAAAA
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u/enlightened84 Feb 07 '23
It's amazing how everyone is all up in arms, yet don't understand how the storage and partitions work. Reading some of these comments are wild.
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u/ShutUpTurkey Feb 07 '23
Well, this is /r/technology after all. Where idiots go to be informed by other idiots about things neither party knows anything about.
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u/Carl_Chocolate Feb 07 '23
Yup, exactly why I put here this comment. And the comments ... I bet half of these people didn't even open the article and just assumed based on the title :D
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u/Slappy_Nuts Feb 06 '23
I've used the Samsung Note line for the stylus for years. Does any other android phone manufacturer offer a similar product? As in, not just a phone and a stylus that can be used with it, but the stylus being placed in the phone itself when not in use.
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u/SaratogaCx Feb 07 '23
Motorola has the g Stylus, I have the 5g 2022 model. The stylus features aren't nearly as good as the Samsung version but it works. It is also about 1/3 the price and still has both a headphone jack and SD expansion.
Overall the battery life is amazing, Moto adds only a couple of nice features to the OS so it is near-pure, and the price makes me not care about needing a case so, while the phones bigger than my old Note 9, it is less bulky overall.
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u/SpecialNose9325 Feb 07 '23
Id go further and say I feel extra lost cuz of the lack of a small Note phone. I have a Note10. 6.2" screen and S-Pen built-in. The new S23Ultra is 6.8". I dont want such a massive phone, and hence will be missing out on my fav feature of the past decade of Note phones.
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u/TheMasalaKnight Feb 06 '23
I just recently switched to an iPhone 14 (from a Galaxy S9) and reading this, I don’t regret it.
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u/theonlyepi Feb 07 '23
As much as I loved my Samsung phones, I won't be buying another for a long time until this nonsense stops. My galaxy phone CONSTANTLY tries to open up Bixby and enable microphone permissions. I've done everything in my power to disable and remove the bloat, but you can't remove it all the way. It's very obviously trying as much as possible to record and listen all the time, despicable. I had half my family using samsungs, but guess what? None of us now. Good riddance.
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Feb 07 '23
That is insane.
Whenever I pick up a Samsung phone I'm shocked at how fucking horrible it is as well. They take a pretty clean OS and just ruin it, I can't understand how their users tolerate it.
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u/evilbeaver7
Feb 07 '23
edited Feb 07 '23
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This is a terrible post with so much misinformation. I'll copy paste another user's comment from a different sub:
"Ron Amadeo has zero clue how partitioning works. In settings, the phone is counting its storage size as exactly 512GB, which we know is inaccurate due to partitioning losses.
Instead of reporting the actual storage capacity on the phone, they show this lost space as used up by the system storage, probably to make sure people don't get confused. Additionally, the amount used up by the system is different for each storage spec of the phone. The lower you go in storage tiers on Samsung phones, the lower the system usage, indicating that the system value is just inflated to account for partitioning. The OS is otherwise the same between storage tiers; there would be no other reason for the differing sizes reported by the phone.
But hey, writing a useless article takes less energy than doing actual research, I guess"
In simple words: In a 512GB phone, you only get 480GB of actual storage. So you're losing 32GB right off the bat because of how these things work. In Samsung phones for a 25GB OS, the reported storage will be 25GB + 32GB (that was lost). So it will show 57GB of system storage used instead of the real 25GB.
Proof of this is that in smaller storage options, since you lose less storage right off the bat, the system storage used is also less than 57GB. The smaller the storage option you choose, the smaller the storage used displayed.
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u/TouchofRed Feb 07 '23
Yeah, this needs more upvotes. I know it's cool to hate on Samsung and all but this is article just misinformation.
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u/Dhrny Feb 07 '23
So anybody knows how to get rid of this bloatware without rooting the device? lol
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u/SoylentGreenIsntPpl Feb 07 '23
https://www.xda-developers.com/disable-system-app-bloatware-android/
This has worked well for me.
Bloatware isn't an issue for me - on any Android device.
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u/turbo_nudist Feb 07 '23
but in reality, this shouldn’t be required.
i mean, even apple lets you delete any preinstalled app
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u/FinancialDesign2 Feb 07 '23
I used to be a Samsung user for my entire life and swore up and down that I’d never get an iPhone. I started learning more about how Apple handles privacy and about their recent effort to give users more control over advertiser tracking (the “Do you want to allow this app to track you across websites” prompt, which blocks access to a unique device/advertisement ID that is used to track you across apps and sites). I learned how much this hurt Facebook’s revenue, and it made me realize a few things
- Android is owned by Google, which is an advertisement company
- Google has zero incentive to block tracking of user data as it would hurt their bottom line
- Samsung itself has consistently pissed me off with poor quality OS distributions. The amount of bloatware and unnecessary garbage frustrates me to no end.
I finally decided to give iPhone a try. It was weird at first because things are slightly different, but honestly having a phone that just works and is devoid of any real bloatware is amazing. The OS is smooth as butter, the integrations with the Apple ecosystem are far better than anything Samsung has, every app just works better and has more features on iOS, and it’s just a solid, effortless experience. I understand why people like iPhones so much.
There are things I miss about Android but I’m willing to let them go for the better user experience I get with iOS.
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u/lateforcourt Feb 06 '23
This is why I can't deal with Samsung phone products... the amount of bloatware destroys the Android experience.
Accordingly, I couldn't be happier with my experience with the Sony Xperia line. I was a stock Android militant for years, but the Sony phones are 99% vanilla Android, with a couple of added (actually useful) Sony apps relating to Sony video and audio capture. The only hiccup is that LinkedIn and Call of Duty are installed and can't be uninstalled... but they can be disabled so they don't appear anywhere or auto-update.
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u/dabbingsquidward Feb 07 '23
Purchased an iPhone when I realized all I need is a reliable phone to make calls and texts, not all this bullshit Samsung offers
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u/Ancient_Persimmon Feb 06 '23
My first smartphone was a Galaxy S2 and just by happenstance, my GF at the time had a Nexus S.
5 minutes using a real Android build convinced me to never purchase a Samsung skinned Android device again.
Do people still buying Samsung Galaxy devices not realize that the Pixel series exists?
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u/BrainOnLoan Feb 06 '23
Samsung has almost cornered the android market, so apparently ... no. Their market share is well above 70% now.
Motorola, Xiaomi and Sony are the biggest remaining holdouts. Pixel is a distant also ran.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon Feb 06 '23
Yeah, I'm aware that their share is huge, I just don't quite understand how.
When they made a push to take over the TV market ~15-20 years ago, they basically just paid sales reps exorbitantly high SPIFFs to sell their TVs over the competition and that worked well enough, but doing that with phones is a lot more complicated.
Just traditional marketing plus presence in the early days of the sector I guess.
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u/BrainOnLoan Feb 06 '23
The hardware is reasonable and I guess powererusers know how to get rid off the bloat.
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u/DirtyPolecat Feb 07 '23
You just hit the nail on the head. Samsung phones are some of the most rootable phones, they are well supported in the modding community.
They are actually awesome phones once they're running a clean build.
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u/naughtyobama Feb 07 '23
Why?
I love being able to throw extra storage on my phone. I can add 1TB external storage to my S20 FE 5G.
One UI is not my favorite, but it's mostly stable. It's got good hardware, good battery life and solid reliability across the board. I also like the Knox encrypted folder where I keep my work apps and files. It's got great screen resolution and had a massive screen when I got it.
I'm way past my rooting days, I just want my shit to work. I've used tons of phones in the past. I absolutely loved my Moto X's usability, before Google killed them. So, at this point in my life, I just want shit to work. I put up with the bloat ware I can't get rid of.
I didn't want to be in iOS hell (great hardware though), so realistically it was either Pixel or Samsung.
TLDR; they're great phones and you're not missing anything from the other platforms. Realistically for 99% of people, it's iphone, then Samsung with Pixel a distant 3rd.
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u/bn351 Feb 07 '23
So can we get cheaper phones then? Since they pay to out crap in Our phones we shouldn't have to pay for that.
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u/Thac0 Feb 07 '23
I had a Samsung galaxy once, the ủi and bloatwear were sooo bad I switched to iPhone after many years of being an android fan and never went back.
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u/WaitformeBumblebee Feb 07 '23
Wish there was a simple linux OS for smartphones like raspberry pi OS or ubuntu
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u/freakyxz Feb 07 '23
My system storage is 70GB, but I don't really care. Samsung nailed it with S23 Ultra in almost every aspect.
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u/clutzyninja Feb 08 '23
I just recently jumped ship from Galaxy phones to the pixel 7. Seems more lightweight, but if I'm honest, it's just not quite as good a phone. There's little quirks I find aggravating
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u/RatherNerdy Feb 06 '23
Samsung"s always been guilty of this crap. In addition, with each update, they install more of their apps as their app ecosystem grows.
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u/Ninnux Feb 06 '23
This was the sole reason I abandoned the Samsung Galaxy series. Their proprietary software is ridiculous.
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u/DamNamesTaken11 Feb 07 '23
I use an iPhone so let’s compare:
According to the iPhone storage setting, 9.45 GB is being eaten by iOS itself, not even a fifth of what this is.
Let’s add my MacBook Pro to the mix. MacOS is taking up 13.12 GB.
How is it that a traditional PC OS (where space isn’t nearly as much a premium as cellphones) is smaller than a phone’s? How is that even when adding BOTH the iOS space and MacOS space together, it’s still not even HALF of the cellphone’s?
I don’t write this to say that Apple is better, but if your bloat on a cellphone is eating more space than a competitor’s and a full-size PC’s operating system combined, you need to start trimming the fat.
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u/davevr Feb 07 '23
Oh well. I was trying to decide between this S23 or wait for pixel 8. The main thing I was hoping for was less bloat. Looks like Pixel it is!
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u/badwolf42 Feb 06 '23
I stopped buying Samsung devices ages ago because I got tired of rooting and replacing their bloatware with something that ran well. I encourage everyone to do the same.
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u/limitless__ Feb 06 '23
I've been an Android guy for YEARS. I mean YEARS. I am not an Apple fan at all. This Christmas I bought myself an iPhone because Android (particularly Samsung installs) has become the very thing that it meant to destroy. It's a sad state of affairs. By the way I DID try a pixel but it was a terrible phone.
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u/SezitLykItiz Feb 07 '23
Same here. Since the first Android came out, I think it was a Tmobile branded phone, I've been on Android. Never even considered an iPhone. But for my next phone, I'm considering it. Not for many years though. No point buying phones just because of more geebees or whatever to do just the same old things.
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u/zereldalee Feb 07 '23
By the way I DID try a pixel but it was a terrible phone.
Can I ask which Pixel you had? And why was it terrible? My Galaxy S7 is dying a slow death and I'm considering a Pixel but honestly just so overwhelmed with choices I'm not sure what to do. I've heard a lot of good things about the Pixels but want to hear the bad too.
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u/MountainScorpion Feb 06 '23
HOW THE FUCK is a Phone OS bigger than a desktop OS?!