Clearing Misconceptions and Some Tips on Debloating Android Phones

[Wrichik Basu]

What is bloatware?
When you unbox your new phone, it comes with Android that is pre-installed by the manufacturer. This is termed “stock firmware”. Stock firmware also comes with a number of apps pre-installed, like native browser, Google apps, games, etc. Some applications are manufacturer-specific. For example, many Samsung phones come with Samsung Health and Galaxy Apps pre-installed, which are available only in Samsung devices.
Often, the user doesn’t require these applications, as they are mostly inferior when compared with similar apps available elsewhere. You can disable them from Settings, but they will continue to take up space on your eMMC. Such apps are then termed as “bloatware”. The process of removing the APK and data files of the bloatware is called “debloating”.
Summary of certain technical terms that have been used in the article:

APK file – Android Package (APK) is the package file format used by the Android operating system for the distribution and installation...

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[jedishrfu]

Nicely written article with a lot of good information on Android and how things are organized.

Thanks for sharing.

Jedi

 

[Klystron]

When I bought my current Android phone, I chose the smallest but still efficient local provider in place of one of the big names. The G-phone still came with bloatware but I have disabled several apps that I never use and that seem to suck up the most resources such as "Hang Outs" and relatives. The system occasionally complains "hang outs is unavailable", as if I did not know, or "Google would run so much better if xyz was enabled. Agree?" but the saved space is worth the minor annoyance.

Thanks for sharing your research and experience.

 

[Rive]

Well, all that was what finally pushed me to install a custom ROM above TWRP.
With TWRP installed it is hard to brick the phone, and with LineageOS (and its variants) it is easy to have an up-to date bloatware-free system. Especially when it gets nothing else but GApps Micro.

Of course this also means that I'll never have any phone which is not supported by the mentioned software sources. Still plenty to pick from.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

Just to confirm, if one were to use the adb method to uninstall system apps for the current user, can those system apps still be operational in the background or do they remain dormant until the device is facrory reset? Also, if one were to use a program like Shelter to create a work profile which would copy the system apps to said work profile and then uninstall or delete some apps from the system directory, exactly what can be accessed by the copies of the removed apps in the work profile?

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Just to confirm, if one were to use the adb method to uninstall system apps for the current user, can those system apps still be operational in the background or do they remain dormant until the device is facrory reset?

They will remain dormant and won't be operational in the background, but will continue to occupy space in the internal memory.

Also, if one were to use a program like Shelter to create a work profile which would copy the system apps to said work profile and then uninstall or delete some apps from the system directory, exactly what can be accessed by the copies of the removed apps in the work profile?

Unfortunately, I do not know the answer to that.