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from the if-you-don't-like-it-you-can-keep-it dept.
Samsung is facing a battle with end users concerning its agreements with software companies to set some preinstalled software on Samsung mobile phones to be undeletable. Users have found that applications like Facebook can't be uninstalled, which has caused some distress given the recent data breaches and lack of respect Facebook has shown towards its users in the past decade. Some users have sworn off getting another Samsung phone if apps can't be uninstalled. The argument that users can just hack the phone to get root access, and then force remove the apps does not hold with non-technical users and anyone who can't risk bricking their device. Samsung has refused to comment on this, and specifically will not provide details about agreements it has with software vendors to force their applications to always be installed on Samsung phones. By comparison, the iPhone does not ever come with pre-installed third party applications.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:01PM (8 children)
Why do we pay good money for stuff that we don't own? I like Newegg. I buy stuff, and it's mine. I like Linux. I don't have to buy it, but it's mine. We seriously need naked hardware, and a Linux distro for that hardware. But, we don't need a proprietary version of a Linux distro provided by Google. Android is Linux done all wrong.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:08PM (3 children)
> Why do we pay good money for stuff that we don't own?
Because the average people doesn't care enough to either learn to fix it, or put up a fight.
Approximating the average for the median, about half of the population doesn't give a shit. Have you seen the latest cat video ? The ad before it was quite fun, too !
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:53PM (2 children)
I dispute your laim to "average"
Even the hyper-geeky end of town (which seems to cover quite a few on this site) doesn't reflash phones.
I have friends who have tried apple, samsung, windows and nokia, but I can count on one finger the number who have installed lineage (me).
Many people are interested in my experience, but not prepared to spend a few hours actually doing something about it. Their current phone may spy on them, track them, report their activities to third parties, but, it also makes calls and sends recieves text messages, so why change? It "works".
As the tech/aware of the spying end of town doesn't switch to *something else*, someone Actually-Average certainly isn't.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 09 2019, @10:05PM (1 child)
I was leaving some margin for those who are annoyed by this stuff, yet unable to do anything about it, if at all aware that there are solutions.
Saying that half doesn't give a shit, doesn't realize these things are there, or -gasp- appreciate some of the apps we consider bloatware, was just a way to point out the manufacturers have zero incentive to stop.
Like 95.872% of stats, i pulled that estimate out of my ass, of course.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 09 2019, @10:50PM
Oh, I fight it, but of late, I've been losing that one. I hacked an old Samsung Galaxy tablet to put Cyanogenmod on it. Had to, as the last version of official Android available was 4.0, and I wanted some features that weren't available until 4.1. Like, the very simple ability to go full screen, really full screen, and have no space at all taken up by that so called "awesome" bar. With Cyanogenmod, I get the equivalent of 4.4. From what I read, there's no point upgrading that tablet more even if possible, as it doesn't have the hardware to support Android 5 or later.
My phone is Android 6, and I'm not much liking it. It's hard to know who's responsible for the bloatware. Is it Google? Seems unlikely. Is it the phone manufacturer? Or the service provider? Could be either.
The part that annoyed me greatly was the tease with what they call "virtual voicemail". Download your voicemails to your phone. Android 6 is the first version to have it built in. I upgraded my phone from 5 to 6 to get that feature. And my phone had it for a brief while. Then what seemed a routine update quietly took away the virtual voicemail without so much as a notification. At first, I thought I had merely misremembered where it was. Took me some time to figure out what had happened. It infuriated me so much I canceled that phone service and didn't even take the number with me. I was also motivated by the apparent lack of any way to root the d*** thing. That's a huge problem with a lot of phones. Now I don't trust updates, and often refuse them.
Anyhow, I've since decided I don't want voicemail at all, since these spammers who fake having the same area code and exchange can leave voice messages. Only way to stop that is not have voicemail. I heard a while ago that they can now go straight to your voicemail without making your phone ring, all the more reason to kill voicemail dead, dead, dead.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @07:10PM (2 children)
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ [puri.sm]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday January 09 2019, @09:24PM (1 child)
Sounds interesting, but I expect it will end up like much other "open source hardware". Either it will never gain traction, never be released, or end up being a scam from the beginning.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @09:36PM
They've already released laptops though.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09 2019, @08:24PM
Really good point— But why stop at just the software, when the hardware is still proprietary. We need open source hardware as well. I’m really excited for companies to start putting out open source RISC-V ISA based phones!