How to prevent phone from auto updating?

[AC Question]

So my Galaxy S3 updated itself yesterday without me asking for permission. As result all my user preferences have been deleted. All my tabs in the internet browser had been closed and my history has been wiped. My bookmarks have been deleted (which I didn't synch because I like my mobile and desktop bookmarks seperate so its more orginized). Also my background has been reset (was from a file on the internet which I have to find again). Whats worse, it also deleted ALL my contacts! All of them are gone. And probably lots of other stuff have been wiped too.

Is there a way to prevent this bullsh- to happen again? I may now search hours to find the bookmarks I had saved a few week ago to use when I get back home (since I'm currently a few thousand KM away from home) and asking everyone again for their freaking phonenumbers.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Was it a system update, or some kind of Samsung update? What you experienced shouldn't happen, even with a major system update, so it sounds more like some kind of glitch.

In the future, to prevent the loss of your contact information, I strongly recommend you associate your contacts with your Google account, not with the local Phone account. Contacts in your Google account will sync automatically with your Google Contacts in the cloud, keeping them safe. Locally saved contacts in the Phone account don't get synced anywhere, and if they get lost, they're lost for good.