No preloading. No promises what's next.
Samsung says it will stop loading its $1,000 smartphones with ads:
Samsung says it will cut down on the ads it shows on its smartphones. The announcement was first reported by Korean news agency Yonhap and was later confirmed by Samsung in a statement to The Verge. The official line from the industry giant is "Samsung has made a decision to cease the advertisement on proprietary apps, including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme." The company added, "The update will be ready by later this year."
Samsung ships Android on all its smartphones, but it changes the experience with a "One UI" skin and includes several Samsung-developed packed-in apps. Many of these apps—like Bixby, Samsung Health, and Weather—contain big banner ads, sometimes right at the top of the app, where you would normally expect to find an app logo or navigation information. The worst offenders are notification ads—a Samsung app will spawn a notification to entice you to buy a new gadget or install a new app.
[...] A "later this year" launch date would mean that the first new ad-free Samsung phone will be the Galaxy S22.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @03:39AM (1 child)
We can only hope that they allow removal of the Samsung apps. The phone HW is great, but the software is what has put me off from buying anymore Samsung phones. I've got a Nokia andriod one phone and living it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:44AM
You cannot but you can disable them. They are definitely a turn-off to buy because of the extra noise.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Common Joe on Friday August 20 2021, @08:45AM
We've never seen a company promise one thing then push updates out and reverse said decision after money has exchanged hands.
*COUGH* Do no evil *COUGH* Embrace Extend Extinguish *COUGH* No tracking *COUGH*
I'd see a doctor about my cough, but people scowl at me when I'm in the same waiting room as they are hacking this much.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @08:56AM (3 children)
got a samsung phone because it was cheap enough. not 1000 dollars, but whatever.
I can't get rid of the leftmost screen, which is asking me to log into samsung one or something. I never created an account, and I may very well throw it hard enough at a wall to break it at some point if this thing keeps popping up. So as long as I'm careful to only visit the useful screens, I don't know and I don't care about samsung's commercials. I'm surprised that google stands for this shit, because they're certainly a secondary target for my anger.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:25PM (2 children)
Too bad you are AC and this story is a couple days old so you might not see this.
I don't know what phone you've got or what your left most screen is, but there's almost 100% certainty that you can pretty easily disable it. On my current Note10, the procedure is to tap-hold on the home screen to put it into edit mode, then swipe left to the left most page, and at the top there is a slider to turn it off. Turn it off, exit edit mode. Done.
The same procedure worked with my wifes S8+ and I recall doing the same thing on previous phones, back when it was still a flipboard thing on the leftmost panel.
Hope this reaches you.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 24 2021, @03:09AM (1 child)
Perhaps the best thing is to buy a cheap phone that doesn't have ads or unwanted apps. I have a hundred dollar Moto E, other then the usual Google junk, it has a couple of useful apps (FM radio, file manager, a help app and a gesture program) which can likely be removed. Oh, it did have a facebook app that I immediately deleted.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday August 24 2021, @05:58PM
I buy an 'expensive phone' because they have the nicest screens and the best cameras, i like the stylus support on my Note, etc.
I don't get any ads on it. All the preinstalled stuff can be disabled, i whitelist the apps that can create notifications, and i don't use a single app that displays ads. (I've paid for a couple apps to get ad free versions.)
I approve of samsung's move to remove ads from its apps, because now i might actually consider looking at those apps. But they weren't a problem for me before, I simply disabled/blocked/hid/ or removed them on day one and never gave them a 2nd thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @12:22PM (3 children)
Why do people bother?
Do ad blockers help?
Can you uninstall the apps?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @02:14PM (2 children)
> Can you uninstall the apps?
On most Android phones the "preinstalled apps" put there by the maker are "privileged" apps and you, the lowly user and supposed owner, are not allowed to uninstall them.
The best you can hope for is that they let you "disable" them (i.e., Moto phones, which hides them, but you don't get to free up the memory used to store them). And 'disable' is not even allowed on some phones (i.e. Samsung models).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Friday August 20 2021, @04:02PM (1 child)
'eh, to be fair, there's junk on my iPhone that I would be happy to do without, but is "built-in".
Android doesn't have a corner on that market.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @04:14PM
Don't have an Apple phone -- therefore did not feel competent to comment re. what Apple phones do or do not do.
Thanks for the clarification.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Friday August 20 2021, @12:28PM
If i'm gonna drop a G on a phone the bootloader will be unlocked and there won't be any android on it.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @05:14PM
just announced a $999 phone.