Samsung Bloatware and data usage - stop it cheap

[skp51443]

A friend pointed these two out to me, they fiddle your Samsung phone or tablet to disable a lot of the bloatware and the data it uses with a couple clicks. You can manually disable more if you take the time to figure out what you really don't need. I've used them on my T900 and S2 with good results.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ospolice.packagedisablerpro

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ospolice.packagedisablerpremium

 

The only difference seems to be $0.50 and the ability to fiddle the bezel buttons for the premium version.

[docj]

A friend pointed these two out to me, they fiddle your Samsung phone or tablet to disable a lot of the bloatware and the data it uses with a couple clicks. You can manually disable more if you take the time to figure out what you really don't need. I've used them on my T900 and S2 with good results.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ospolice.packagedisablerpro

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ospolice.packagedisablerpremium

 

The only difference seems to be $0.50 and the ability to fiddle the bezel buttons for the premium version.

 

FWIW this one has far fewer negative reviews. Appears very easy to use: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hecorat.packagedisabler

[skp51443]

I didn't try that one as it wasn't mentioned but if you look at the 1 star reviews on the ones I put up you'll see that a lot of them are about issues with an older version and other issues that aren't important to new purchasers.

 

Any of these will save you a lot of frustration, data downloads and battery life, pick the one you like and try it.

[RV_]

I didn't do Android since 2012. When I look at reviews I always change the sort to most recent and those are what I pay attention to. We had one recently purchased Kindle Paper white, a touch Kindle, and one of the new model button controlled Kindle.

 

I found a Fire HDX 7" tablet that had been used less than a handful of times and kept in a thick folio case the whole time. Just like new. I got it for 50 bucks, tried it and freaked out! I don't know Android and this model and one other only have "Mayday," an instant video chat where within 15 seconds an Amazon Fire tablet tech comes on and they can't see me. But they can see my screen and they answer my questions by showing me and drawing arrows and circling items on my screen so I can follow along and learn how to do what stumped me.

 

They also allow me to download Amazon Prime movies, one at a time, to watch when I am offline. I could not download the second one I tried and they pointed me to this app: https://www.amazon.com/Cheetah-Mobile-Clean-Master-Phone/dp/B009C7ZQM4/ref=sr_1_11?s=mobile-apps&ie=UTF8&qid=1468015244&sr=1-11&keywords=app+store

 

It cleans up all the kludge and also allows managing apps too. It has it all including antivirus scanner and memory management as well in the description it says:

 

"Shut down poorly coded apps to save battery and optimize android’s performance"

 

It is fast and was installed by the techs at Amazon. I've been using it for the last six months and no adverse effects. And it cleaned out enough junk to make room for that movie I was trying to download from Amazon.

 

Since it has a reading mode for better reading outside, which we rarely do, I found I liked it much better for reading than the kindle. I have not set it up as a tablet and only connect online to remove and install new books or movies. I don't trust Google or Android and since we each have our own Windows tablets, my Surface Pro 3 and her Venue11 Pro, as well as my ASUS T200 I have not sold yet, and all running Windows.

 

So we both only use the Fire tablets as Kindles with benefits (movies). We keep them in airplane mode except for a few minutes a month for returning loans and loading new books.

 

I can vouch for Clean Master though.

[SWharton]

I run Clean Master every morning to hibernate most of my apps. Once I had a one tap Hibernate button but that disappeared in some update, miss it. Sre these apps only for the bloatware or can I use them on everything. Will things stay disabled or if I click on the icon the app will start up? My goal is to have everything except what is critical to come up hibernated always and not need the extra step each day.

 

I find tablets and phones the wild west of computers and don't understand half the terms that are used on them. PCs are fine, but phones and tablets are so confusing.

[skp51443]

Package disabler pro will stop any program, it has a warning to not stop random stuff as you can stop something essential and have to do a recovery.

 

I haven't tried running anything that I've marked disabled but if it doesn't start it is only a couple seconds to un-disable it.

 

I was notified of a system update last night, reenabled all apps, got the update and waited out the reboot/optimize cycle before re-disabling the bloatware and the few programs I don't want that it misses. Discovered it had disabled the Kindle app for some reason, couple taps to get it back using the disabler's package list.

 

 

I'm learning a good bit about these disablers, not something I really wanted to do as I'm trying hard to just use my tablets, not fiddle and tweak them but watching how much data they eat and how slow things get when the bloatware is taking another update got me started.

 

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Something I have done that most folks can't do is I added a pretty comprehensive advertisement and malware blocker to my pfSense firewall's network that I use for my tablets and chrome books. It is amazing to see the difference in browsing, pages that weren't really usable before now load quickly, battery life is way up and data usage is down by about a third!

 

Any recommendations for an ad and malware blocker that will run on an Android tablet and/or chromebook and get the same results? I can see that one would be nice when away from our home connection.

[RV_]

Stan,
Clean master has anti malware and several other nice all in one stop features. We do not allow our two FireHDX 7" tablets to connect to the Internet at all except when specifically downloading a book or movie. Not streaming a movie, but downloading to watch anytime later as many times as we want for free. We also are about to check out the underground, another service available only to the HDX and maybe the newest Kindle.

We uninstalled everything we do not use on the two Android tablets, have never taken them to the Play Store just the Amazon store.
We have a Venue 11 Pro 10.8" Windows 64GB/2GB full HD, full size USB 3 ports and all the others, and a Surface Pro 3 i5,128/4GB 12" tablets. Both run Windows 10.

We have our two i5 and i7 All In One touch desktops for most of our Internet time, and the tablets get the rest of the use as TV guides and.
All that as only an explanation of why we do not need, or use our Fire Tablets online at all save at most, ten minutes a month. They are just Kindles with attitude for us.

 

Swharton,
I agree. I don't like the terms of use of anything Google, and while I would trust Apple because they actually sell things other than my advertising info, I already am expert and invested heavily in Windows, in both money and decades of time. The same goes for Amazon and Microsoft. They play nice, let me opt out of things I am not interested in, and since they want to sell to me, the last thing they want to do is not give my info to another seller. some of my friends here run Android by preference or Apple phones. We makes our choices and takes our chances.​

 

Windows 10 mobile has been a pleasant surprise and Edge is very very fast on our Lumia 735s. Our 735s have a few limitations hardware wise so we will be updating when the Surface lines come out. There should be a lot of the 950s and their other current top line models for sale then. That is one advantage to being in a small market share. I have the same security by obscurity that other mobile and stationary OS' with 10% market share and less have. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure exploits will eventually happen. But right now Android and iOS are the ones under attack.

I really like the "familiar" feel of Windows 10 mobile. We might get a spare phone on a plan with our son so we can have iOS on an older iPhone just to be able to run Security cam apps. D-Link has Windows mobile 10 apps but are not patching some bad vulnerabilities that are being exploited whether you have Android or iOS Their camera software is insecure online to the max. http://news.softpedia.com/news/d-link-vulnerability-affects-over-120-products-400-000-devices-506104.shtml

I agree that Android and iOS cells are indeed the wild wild west, and that if Windows Mobile ever gets more than 20%, we will be just as bad.

 

If it isn't the phones it is the devices that have apps for our phones that are themselves caught in the crossfire.

 

As Roseanna Roseannadanna would say, "If it isn't one thing, it's something else!"