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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

[Q] LumiRead - delete the 2 free books and locked folders

Hi all,
2 questions:
1) How do you delete the 2 free books - White Fang and Adv Of Mark Twain? I deleted them on Lumiread UI and they come back. I deleted the files directly and they come back again! What am I missing here?
2) There are 3 locked folders for book folders from /mnt/sdcard/LumiBooks|Digital Editions|Download. How do I get rid of them?
Thanks!

i really want those books gone too....

I am not sure but I am going to take a guess here. Maybe you need to root your device and using a file browser, change the properties of those 3 files to r/w so you can have full control over them. Hope this can help buddy, I am not really an expert on this area, maybe someone else has a better solution.

Actually, its just keep restoring them rooted or not.

tariche said:
Actually, its just keep restoring them rooted or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah. im rooted, checked and they both say rw.
try deleting them in the app and in file manager. they still restore somehow

They are burned into the Rom

Right, I'm rooted as well and everytime I delete them, they come right back!
Very annoying.

[Q] Missing Notification Bar

Hey all. I have a Droid X that has been running with Launcher Pro Plus for the past few months.
I rooted my phone the other day and everything was going fine. I downloaded Titanium Backup, ShootMe, and then Metamorph.
I've been checking out droidpirate.com and downloaded a few different notification bar color schemes, which were working fine. Today I downloaded another and decided I wanted to change it, so I switched to a new one through Metamorph, applied it, and rebooted my phone. Upon restart it was still the same color as before, so I applied again and before I could restart it gave me an error message that the status/notification bar (not sure which it said at the time) had crashed.
I restarted it, and ever since then I've had no notification bar. I've tried reapplying the color schemes in Metamorph and restarting after, but nothing has changed.
I've gone to the Launcher Pro settings and toggled on and off the "hide notification bar" setting which hasn't changed anything. I've restored my backup in Titanium Backup and it is still the same. I'm not sure what else to do at this point.
What do you all suggest? It really sucks to not see my battery meter, time, etc. when I open my phone. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

I don't know if this is best practice, but I would just re-sbf / reinstall rom.

FluffyMittens said:
I don't know if this is best practice, but I would just re-sbf / reinstall rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does that mean flashing the Droid X rom? I am new to all of this, so I'm sorry if these are stupid questions. And what guide would you recommend for going about doing this? Thanks!

Download RSD Lite and flash an SBF. There's a sticky telling you how to do this I'll subscribe to this thread in case you have any questions.

Great, thanks for the info! I'll give this a try tomorrow.

Wait!
Before you do that...
(Which is good advice, and would be my second choice...but you'll be without all of your applications and settings. This will put you on complete stock!)
http://www.chadhaney.com/droidXDefault/4.5.602/
Download the file that this theme was changing.
(system/framework/framework-res.apk I think?)
Download "Root Explorer" from the market...or a free alternative if you can get one to work.
I think "ES file explorer" works, but I've never tried it.
Check the "permissions" on the file you'll be replacing...and change the new file to have the same permissions (prior to moving, just to be safe).
Move and replace the new file into place.
If your phone didn't reboot during that process...
Double check the permissions again...
And reboot.

I knew it was only a matter of time, and that's a good resolve. Thanks for the alternative!

Jubakuba said:
Wait!
Before you do that...
(Which is good advice, and would be my second choice...but you'll be without all of your applications and settings. This will put you on complete stock!)
http://www.chadhaney.com/droidXDefault/4.5.602/
Download the file that this theme was changing.
(system/framework/framework-res.apk I think?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not seeing that file on the website you mentioned. If I ctrl+f framework, all I see is a GoogleServicesFramework.apk file. Would it perhaps be the StatusWidget.apk from that list that I am looking for?

Status widget doesn't sound right, but I have never had to recover my notifications bar before.

http://www.mydroidworld.com/topic/8240-official-gingerbread-update-45602-rooted-and-ready-or-stock/
Sorry man, at work...and can't check...but this should have it.
Or if you've purchased Rom Toolbox or Rom Manager...they have some .zips you can download via your phone and extract with your PC.

Ahh this is all confusing me. I can't find the framework-res.apk on that site either. Would it work to just hard reset my phone then download an app restore app? Then re-root it and restore everything to how it used to be with Titanium?

The framework-res.apk was an attempt to fix your phone without wiping your apps and all that fun stuff. A hard reset wouldn't fix the problem because the file, in theory, is still corrupted or not working. I would sbf your phone. It looks creepy but it's just resetting back to stock.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11118819&postcount=2
Go down to SBF: What is it, and what does it do?!?
If the files are offline because of the SOPAA thing, let me know.

Alright, looks like that's what I'm gonna try. Thanks to both of you for all the help, it is greatly appreciated . Before I go through with it I was just wondering, if I backup all my apps to my SD card with "App Backup and Restore" then reinstall the app after the backup, I'm guessing it should be able to reinstall my apps from the SD afterwards? (I wouldn't use Titanium to restore because I'm assuming that would restore my phone with the flawed system data I have now)

The apps themselves wont be flawed. The phone runs off a whole bunch of apk's. Just the apk that controls the notification bar was messed up. You should be fine with backing up your apps regardless of method. Use what program you're comfortable with.

FluffyMittens said:
The apps themselves wont be flawed. The phone runs off a whole bunch of apk's. Just the apk that controls the notification bar was messed up. You should be fine with backing up your apps regardless of method. Use what program you're comfortable with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed...
But to reiterate...
Titanium won't bork you in any way.
Simply use the option>batch>restore USER apps option and you'll be %100 back to where you were...aside from having to change your settings back to where you had them...
Also...
Facebook and any "Overclocking" applications seem to behave badly when restored.
Not in a negative way...
But I always uninstall them after a restore and install manually through the market...
Facebook won't receive push notifications if you don't.
And Overclock apps simply may not work.
Everything else (game data...whatever) will be exactly as you had it.
Check my sig if you need...
And use the sections about backing up and restoring your data.
Ignore the actual rom flashing part...as it's irrelevant in your situation.
There is also another SBF link in there if the one Fluffy posted is dead.

So I downloaded the latest RSD lite with no problems, but whenever I try to download the "Droid X 4.5.602 SBF Gingerbread 2.3.3" file, it leads me to http://www.multiupload.com/57SX6Q5HJI which lists the file as 602.sbf.zip but downloads as a program called "iLivid", which is a video downloading program.
Any suggestions?

Different Mirror?
http://www.mydroidworld.com/topic/8503-official-45602-sbf-for-droid-x/

Figures, thanks a bunch. I tried the download links from two different forums and both led to that same program download, but it looks like I've got the right one downloading now. Thanks again for all the help, I'm going to try the whole restoration process this weekend when I have more time. I'll let you know how it goes.

ec91199 said:
Figures, thanks a bunch. I tried the download links from two different forums and both led to that same program download, but it looks like I've got the right one downloading now. Thanks again for all the help, I'm going to try the whole restoration process this weekend when I have more time. I'll let you know how it goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am totally up sh*t-creek and looking for that .602 SBF - can you point me in the direction. (Damnable SOPA!)

http://www.multiupload.com/ZCEAXVOASG
off of:
https://sites.google.com/site/1kdsdroidx/

[Q] Can I remove useless APKs from Amazon update.zip?

Hello,
I was wondering if it was possible to remove useless APKs like Facebook and Quickoffice before flashing the Amazon update.zip so that the apps wouldn't be there. If I did that, would I have to resign the zip file or should it still work? Thanks!

Why bother, just install it, and with root, remove what you don't want.

Or, freeze them with Titanium backup. That way they're not gone for good, in case you ever really want them back. What's useless now may not be useless forever.

Rather than delete them or have another app running to freeze them just rename the .apk to .bak. That way you still have them if you need them but they will not run at all, I've seen quite a few times where TiBu supposedly freezes an app but it will still end up running.

other than freezing apps (they're still there) if you delete them you can just reflash the ROM with everything else.
If your looking to use amazon stuff..careful what you delete. About 15 of those apps are tied together in a signature form...one missing and you can't use amazon video. There's a thread around here..best one I have seen is by paulobrien.

All I wanted to remove was quickoffice and facebook, nothing else would be touched

daweedk1991 said:
All I wanted to remove was quickoffice and facebook, nothing else would be touched
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be fine with those, I would still rename them and once you see that things are still working fine after a reboot go ahead and delete them.

Need some help of a rare sort... deleted folders arent deleting!

Ive purchased the full version of No Bloat, trying to get things more manageable on my device.
There are things that are not removing, despite me telling them to.
in system/app/flipboarddebriefing/arm/<somefilename>.odex
this is a reminant of an app i have already removed...so i wanted to fully delete it... but it wont delete!! Root browser says it deleted, for a quick second... but the damn thing stays there.
i *am* rooted, i *have* removed system apps with other apps (at first uninstall master, but since ive discovered that wont recover properly on my device, im using nobloat now).
Why if i have root, and am using a root based browser, are things NOT removing as though i am not rooted??!? I downloaded root checker today, and yes i am in fact rooted successfully.... so what gives? i DONT understand this, not one bit.
Im on rooted but stock samsung galaxy s5 neo, with twrp recovery installed, and a full nandroid backup made. successfully.
I dont understand why some root features are going smooth while others are almost like in high school when deep freeze was installed on the library computers, where no matter what you did, next reset (or in my case, not even a reboot required!) things were exactly as they were *before* you messed wth them, things unchanged.
why is this happening to me?? i never did enable knox so it cant possibly be that... can it??
ETA i have tried going in through the file explorer in twrp... but even in there i cant access the system folder at all, let alone delete things. A few days ago, some things in another folder werent deleting, so i went into twrp and ultimately deleted them, and those did stay deleted.
I just plain dont understand. s2 = root = do whatever the heck you want. s5=root=well remove some apps for you but its remains will stay on your system, for-evvvv-errr.
is there some sort of build in deep freeze type app that i can go in and get rid of (some how, if it will let me, frig).

Can anyone help me with this? Still not working properly...
Sent from my SM-G903W using XDA-Developers mobile app

Pawprints1986 said:
Ive purchased the full version of No Bloat, trying to get things more manageable on my device.
There are things that are not removing, despite me telling them to.
in system/app/flipboarddebriefing/arm/<somefilename>.odex
this is a reminant of an app i have already removed...so i wanted to fully delete it... but it wont delete!! Root browser says it deleted, for a quick second... but the damn thing stays there.
i *am* rooted, i *have* removed system apps with other apps (at first uninstall master, but since ive discovered that wont recover properly on my device, im using nobloat now).
Why if i have root, and am using a root based browser, are things NOT removing as though i am not rooted??!? I downloaded root checker today, and yes i am in fact rooted successfully.... so what gives? i DONT understand this, not one bit.
Im on rooted but stock samsung galaxy s5 neo, with twrp recovery installed, and a full nandroid backup made. successfully.
I dont understand why some root features are going smooth while others are almost like in high school when deep freeze was installed on the library computers, where no matter what you did, next reset (or in my case, not even a reboot required!) things were exactly as they were *before* you messed wth them, things unchanged.
why is this happening to me?? i never did enable knox so it cant possibly be that... can it??
ETA i have tried going in through the file explorer in twrp... but even in there i cant access the system folder at all, let alone delete things. A few days ago, some things in another folder werent deleting, so i went into twrp and ultimately deleted them, and those did stay deleted.
I just plain dont understand. s2 = root = do whatever the heck you want. s5=root=well remove some apps for you but its remains will stay on your system, for-evvvv-errr.
is there some sort of build in deep freeze type app that i can go in and get rid of (some how, if it will let me, frig).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason why it keeps coming back is becoz some of the apps are PRELOADED by default and to get rid of them for good you need to go to the root of those apps.
Use any root explorer app
1. Check /preload/ folder..make sure you delete the apps there as well
2. Check /System/CSC/ and look for any /System/app/ and /System/priv-app/ and do the same as above.

Hmm... I'll give it a look, but I even had problems with deleting data from a user app in the same manner...
Eta, I have nothing in my preload folder at all.. At least not that root browser is seeing.
Tried Flipboard deleting the odex file again, still not working.
Any other suggestions?
Sent from my SM-G903W using XDA-Developers mobile app

Pawprints1986 said:
Hmm... I'll give it a look, but I even had problems with deleting data from a user app in the same manner...
Eta, I have nothing in my preload folder at all.. At least not that root browser is seeing.
Tried Flipboard deleting the odex file again, still not working.
Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which root/file explorer are you using?
EDIT: Ok I see you said Root browser.
Try another file explorer like ES file explorer