Database Users

Which apps (bloatware) are okay to remove?

I rooted my phone, installed lagfix, and removed some bloatware from the phone via Titanium. The phone was stupid fast after doing this, almost everything loaded up instantly. However I started to notice some things weren't functioning properly. Apps on the marketplace would not download, I would try to download Launcher Pro and nothing would happen, nothing downloaded. Tried this with other apps, same thing. I rebooted the phone and noticed upon reboot that a force close/app error happened, not sure which app it was but it had google in it. I have no idea what app it could have been since I only removed apps if I knew what they were like Slacker, Kindle, Sims etc. Maybe removing the Sims caused the error?
I also noticed that emails wouldn't send (or would take a long time) even when I was on wifi. And the XDA app wouldn't work. I would go to make a post, click the text input box, but it wouldn't let me move the text cursor. I would press the keyboard and nothing happened.
I removed a crap ton of apps but they weren't anything major. I also removed the samsung widgets since I would never use those. Guess I should have asked on the forums before removing so much stuff.
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Which apps are okay to remove? Any ideas on which app could have caused the market to mess up?

From what you listed, those are all safe apps to dump. I would have thought any issue is more likely to come from the lag fix than nuking "safe" apps. There are several threads discussing the apps that are safe to get rid of, take a look in the stickie for a link if you can't find it via seach.

Cool thanks!

SykesAT said:
From what you listed, those are all safe apps to dump. I would have thought any issue is more likely to come from the lag fix than nuking "safe" apps. There are several threads discussing the apps that are safe to get rid of, take a look in the stickie for a link if you can't find it via seach.
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I 2nd that, I accidentally installed both lag fixes and got the force close thing. I had to nandroid restore and reinstall.
Sent from the best phone from TMO... Vibrant

DELETE THE BLOAT!
Download Root Explorer (i'm not associated with) and go to System/App to remove a lot of the bloatware that came on the phone. I strongly encourage researching what can & can NOT be removed. ALWAYS make a backup. Here is a good thread about removing the bloat. Remember, I am not responsible. It will be some time before we have a custom ROM that removes this crap for us.
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Read the Tips and Tricks sticky. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

Which is the best for removing bloatware; Titanium, Root Explorer, or Root Manager?

Arcadia310 said:
Which is the best for removing bloatware; Titanium, Root Explorer, or Root Manager?
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I used root explorer, to "move" apps to a backup folder on sd card. Then went into Android settings -apps-manage apps --filter - all and uninstalled the apps.
Two step process. First step puts them out of sight, second properly gets rid of them. FYI, you can not do step 2 without doing the first step.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

SykesAT said:
I used root explorer, to "move" apps to a backup folder on sd card. Then went into Android settings -apps-manage apps --filter - all and uninstalled the apps.
Two step process. First step puts them out of sight, second properly gets rid of them. FYI, you can not do step 2 without doing the first step.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk
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That makes sense. What if I move lets say 10 "bloatware" apps onto the SD card, delete them from the phone, then something goes wrong or something stops working. I can just move it back and it'll be fine right? And you don't literally mean you can't do step two without doing step one right?
I did filter all in the manage apps but I have two questions.
1. I went to a random app ThinkFree Office, there was no option to delete it there. I thought you could only delete bloatware in an app like Titanium?
2. When you delete an app it creates that long "com.app.uselessword here.word" listing right? In order to truly remove an app you would have to delete it in Titanium/Root Explorer then delete the thing I said right?

Unless you do step 1 you can not delete them in apps manager. Not sure why and it makes it a PITA.
when I dumped my bloat files were compeately gone from system/app. there was no com.app.uselessword here.word type listing.
I have not used Ti to remove apps so I can not speak as to how it works, if it truley uninstalls then it could be a one step process (I would still back the apk odex files first).
Again I have not tried to reinstall but I would imagine it works in reverse, move apk/odex to system/app and install.

Question on rooting

I searched around on the topic of rooting but im still a little confused.
What are the actual benefits from doing it and is it worth doing? Please help me thanks.

Vincenzo69 said:
I searched around on the topic of rooting but im still a little confused.
What are the actual benefits from doing it and is it worth doing? Please help me thanks.
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You can install 3rd Party Apps and you can do backups of your apps and a whole lot of stuff. But if you're not into tinkering your phone then I suggest you stay away from that.

Free tethering, sideloading apps

How do you back up before you root it if you have never had a back up before?

Vincenzo69 said:
How do you back up before you root it if you have never had a back up before?
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Ok rooting is just giving you phone administration rights like in windows account management. u can't back up ur stuff. Just rooted it. Come to the dark side is quick and painless.

Vincenzo69 said:
I searched around on the topic of rooting but im still a little confused.
What are the actual benefits from doing it and is it worth doing? Please help me thanks.
Click to expand...
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Some apps that require root:
AdFree - disable ads
Cache Cleaner - clean up temporary and cache files
ConnectBot - terminal client for superuser
Titanium Backup - back up and restore apps + data
QuickBoot - regular reboot or reboot into recovery
Root Explorer - file management of system files
SetCPU - overclocking/underclocking
ShootMe - do screenshots
certain flashlight apps for your LED flash

rooting gives you admin read/write permission of the system so you can basically make changes to things you normally wouldnt be able to change. These include adding free tethering, backing up apps like was mentioned before, and adding other features like hopefully a third party FM radio app since the phone has the antennae inside.
its totally worth it to do, its quick and painless, and reversible if you ever need to return the phone

ConnectBot does not require root. I had installed and used it before rooting.

MeX_DK said:
ConnectBot does not require root. I had installed and used it before rooting.
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Requires root if you want superuser access and file operations on system files

Ah, now it makes sense, Thank you guys help was appreciated

Is there any way of deleting factory apps WITHOUT rooting?

I'm wondering if there's any way of deleting some of the factory apps without having my phone rooted? I can't get the root to work so just deleting the apps I don't want would be ok instead.

dsmaori said:
I'm wondering if there's any way of deleting some of the factory apps without having my phone rooted? I can't get the root to work so just deleting the apps I don't want would be ok instead.
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No not really...You need root unfortunately.
What do you mean you can't get root to work? What's the problem you have encountering?

jwonga said:
No not really...You need root unfortunately.
What do you mean you can't get root to work? What's the problem you have encountering?
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Actually scratch that. After 24hrs I've finally figured out how to root it. Maybe I should have stuck to my Nokia 1100. These smartphones are all 'Whiteman magic' to me

dsmaori said:
I'm wondering if there's any way of deleting some of the factory apps without having my phone rooted? I can't get the root to work so just deleting the apps I don't want would be ok instead.
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Click to collapse
The only way to get rid of the factory apps is to use RootExplorer and delete the .apk of apps you want remove...but Rootexplorer want root!!
Make root is not complicated and I think that it is very useful and practical to run many apps which want root permission, such as rootexplorer (best file explorer ever!), any backup program annd others useful apps
Moreover, remove factory application which we never use helps to improve battery life, have much memory to run own apps, and a more reactive device

I've read about changing the phone's CSC as a possible solution. Can anyone more experienced comment about that?

[Q] Deleting phone, camera, etc apps?

I just purchased a NC yesterday and I've had a great time playing around with it. I am running the Nook 1.4.1 OS internally and using my SD card to boot MIUI 1.11.4.
I've searched all over the web and I've not been able to find any straight answers one way or another -- is there a way to delete the apps that are obviously meant for a phone? The camera, phone, dialer, messaging, etc apps are pointless on the NC and I'd like to get rid of them. Especially since I can't just delete them off of the desktop in MIUI.
Has anyone been able to do this before?
Thanks a ton!
Erica

AFAIK, there is no way to do this without titanium backup. TiB is available in the market for root users

If you are rooted and have superuser installed, you can use root explorer or es file explorer (with allow root explorer and mount file system as writable Checked in settings) to delete system apps in system/apps. Removing system apps may render apps incompatible with device. Use TitaniumBackup for insurance.

Yeah, I tried all of that but I couldn't get system rw permissions on anything.
Finally found a few tutorials on editing custom roms, and I did that to delete the pointless apps. Getting ready to flash it back onto the NC, so we'll see if it works.
Luckily, I haven't put anything on the nook at all that I would need to save/back up. All I've done the past 48 hours since getting the NC is try out different custom roms to see which one I want to stick with. LOL. And I'm doing it all on the SD card so I can keep the native nook functionality.
Thanks for the replies though. <3

Let us know which ROM you choose. Just curious...
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

hwong96 said:
Removing system apps may render apps incompatible with device. Use TitaniumBackup for insurance.
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Seconded! I deleted Gtalk one time (it was constantly FCing even when it was running in the background) and the android market stopped working until I put it back on.

There is no real good reason for doing this and a lot of bad ones. They do not use up much if any resources and some apps may make calls to them even though they are not technically used. I would leave well enough alone....

I agree with leaving most stuff alone, but the problesm I'm running into is that the new market fc's. I can uninstall the updates to market and it works fine, but market updater updates it again shortly thereafter. I need to freeze or uninstall market updater, but anything I've tried to use can't mount /system. Any ideas?

GrStead123 said:
I agree with leaving most stuff alone, but the problesm I'm running into is that the new market fc's. I can uninstall the updates to market and it works fine, but market updater updates it again shortly thereafter. I need to freeze or uninstall market updater, but anything I've tried to use can't mount /system. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can uninstall the market updater with Titanium Backup.

mounting /system is quite easy with root explorer. I've experimented a lot with removing system apps. I move them into a new sub folder within /system, so I can put them back if something becomes unstable, but for the most part I run a really light /system folder that boots even quicker than without.
root explorer needs to have the "browse as root" option checked in its settings, and then, when you are in the system folder, you need to press "mount r/w" at the top of the screen.
If you just want to optimize battery, removing phone.apk and telephonyprovider.apk get the best net benefit. After that, I recommend creating a shortcut to Settings/Accounts & Sync so that you can turn off background data and Automatic Syncing when you are not actively using them. They draw a lot of power over the course of a day. I find that with them off during screen off and wifi off, the battery will not diminish for many days.

[Q] "Crap" Everywhere - From Uninstalled Apps

In trying to free up some space on my KF today, I noticed that apps that I had uninstalled, both before and after I rooted my KF, still left the entire app on my KF.
What's up with this?
For example, one of the first things I installed, kinda jokingly, was the Nook app. This was days after I got my KF and I had also downloaded a few free books for it. I uninstalled that app 6 months ago, yet all the Nook files were still there, including the .apk. I was able to delete them all and not cause any noticeable problem with my KF, but I have d/l'd a lot of apps and deleted them since I got my KF on the first day it was released. So if it had an easy name to remember, not too big of an issue, but app names in the directory aren't always straightforward to what they are... they may be listed by their developer's name or such.
I'm not opposed to completely wiping it and re-installing everything, but there are a number of games that I would lose my progress in if I did that. Plus, I am not in desperate need of space... yet. Granted, the TWRP backup doesn't help much when it comes to space, but it is a nice thing to have.
[BTW, my KF has been rooted for several months now, and was just updated with the latest KFU v9.6, running GoLauncher. It's a pretty straight forward rooted device that I haven't tweaked much because I really do read a lot on it.]
So I was wondering if there was an app that works better than the free version of SD Maid to clean up all this left over garbage? Even SD Maid didn't detect the Nook app still being there (the free version doesn't do all the paid version does, but, for the most part, it still shows ya what it found). Or if someone has a detailed guide of walking you through how to clean up useless files... that would be cool too.
Like I said, there is definitely a lot of crap taking up space that can be deleted. But I don't know Android (I'm really a Windows/Cisco guy), so I don't know to what extent I can delete stuff without causing problems.
Any help would be appreciated.
BTW, could the Image Verification images be any harder? LOL

PBFred said:
In trying to free up some space on my KF today, I noticed that apps that I had uninstalled, both before and after I rooted my KF, still left the entire app on my KF.
What's up with this?
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Click to collapse
I believe this is an issue in older Android versions. I noticed my phone doing the same thing while it was in Eclair, then in Froyo and then in GingerBread.
It looks to me like ICS will automatically remove any orphan data it finds - I've tried deleting just an application's apk and, after rebooting the system, its data was gone as well (tried on both my phone and KF).
PBFred said:
So if it had an easy name to remember, not too big of an issue, but app names in the directory aren't always straightforward to what they are... they may be listed by their developer's name or such.
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I guess you can try "pm list packages -f" to get the names of the apks and their matching data folders.
PBFred said:
I'm not opposed to completely wiping it and re-installing everything, but there are a number of games that I would lose my progress in if I did that.
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Click to collapse
You can most likely extract their data. Alternatively, you may want to look into Titanium Backup for backing up both apps and their data.
PBFred said:
Granted, the TWRP backup doesn't help much when it comes to space, but it is a nice thing to have.
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You could also move the TWRP backup to the computer...

I would just backup any apps/games on TB while also saving the contents of your SD on your computer. Then simply use TWRP to wide SD card. You can then move your TWRP backups to the SD card from your computer and restore app and data on TB.