new to android and this phone, so please forgive my ignorance, I rooted (at least I think I think I did) how do I verify that it is indeed rooted, then once that is accomplished, how do I remove all the bloatware instead of just disabling it. Read through the stickied posts and got a general understanding but not quite there when it comes to fully grasping it.
also, does anyone have a list of the .apk for all the bloatware?
There are a number of ways to remove the bloatware, but it's usually not simply uninstalling an application, as they should all be classified as "system applications", and the system won't allow you to just remove them.
My suggestion is that you get Titanium Backup. It's worth each penny. Once you've got it, you can filter the list of applications and see just the system ones. And from Titanium you can freeze or remove them completely. Just check, because
maybe not all bloatware is listed as system.
So, what can you remove and what can't you? It usually depends on the model of your phone and the carrier.
Some things you can
usually remove:
- Games
- Facebook
- Driving apps (come with some Sony Ericsson devices)
- Paid apps that come free with your phone (e.g. Think Office, etc).
- Media Player
- e-mail app (not GMail)
- Some carrier-specific apps (billing tools, etc - these can usually be downloaded and re-installed if needed).
The games are the first things I removed. They're only demo versions most of the times anyway, so why waste space with them.
The other system apps you obviously can't remove because either you usually need them, or, worse, your phone will not work without them. These are basically:
- Phone apps, Android system apps
- Some country-specific apps
- GTalk (needed for Android Market / Google Play store)
My phone is from Brazil, and, to my surprise, on two rooted phones I tried to remove the Orkut app. I don't even have an account on Orkut, so why would I need that thing running in the background all the time? Well, both times I removed it, the phone entered an infinite loop of force-closes. Thank God that I was able to restore the app.
Before you start removing apps, search the Internet for bloatware specific to your device/carrier that can be removed. And then I suggest that you follow the sequence, using Titanium Backup:
- Backup all your apps, including system apps
- Freeze(*) the app you would like to get rid of.
- Use your phone a bit, maybe for hours. Maybe even reboot it. Try several things and make sure you're happy with it.
- If the phone seems to work fine, then you can probably remove that app, so from Titanium backup, uninstall the app
(*) to
freeze an app is to make it invisible to the system, like it's not even installed.
Also, now that you are rooted (and possibly even without root, depending on your device), you should be able to perform what is called a NAND backup of the system. That is done by booting the phone in recovery mode. Chances are that your phone's recovery mode does not have the tool to back it up, so you might have to install another recovery mode app, like Clockwork Mod, or xRecovery. Whatever, you must
search a recovery app specific for your device. Notice that although you can download and install Clockwork Mod from Google Play, it
doesn't work with all devices, and can actually
brick some devices, so you must search Clockwork Mod's site or the forums for a version that will work on yours.
Once you can do Nand backups, you are safe to mess around with your phone, because you will be able to restore a previous copy of the system.
I hope this helps.
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