Database Develop

[Q] Controlling Android Multitasking

Is there a way to tell Android what app and when or under what conditions it should exit it?
For example:
I know iOS and Android are lots different, but I can get Backgrounder on my iPod and I tell it what each app should do when I press home button.
It just gets annoying when I try to check my text message, then have to wait for the app/game/video to load again.
So if anyone knows if it is possible to have more control over how the system handles the multitasking please share.

As far as I know, you cant really do much, there are task killer apps, which I guess you can use to set apps to ignore, but genrally android does a good Job, it shouldn't be closing your apps right away unless you are running out of memory,
swyped from a galaxy far far away...

What do I have to do to remove all the apps and services that eat up all that extra ram?
Tab specs say it has 512 Ram, but I only count 400+/- in services part that shows what services are running and how much ram is used and available.
In my opinion Google is doing it all wrong, they include all this bloatware, but to uninstall it is a pain and if you do something wrong, you have to re-flash or w/e.
I think they should allow people to choose what is to be installed on there, or at least allow uninstalling of unwanted apps a lot easier with less headaches.

maxxedmk said:
What do I have to do to remove all the apps and services that eat up all that extra ram?
Tab specs say it has 512 Ram, but I only count 400+/- in services part that shows what services are running and how much ram is used and available.
In my opinion Google is doing it all wrong, they include all this bloatware, but to uninstall it is a pain and if you do something wrong, you have to re-flash or w/e.
I think they should allow people to choose what is to be installed on there, or at least allow uninstalling of unwanted apps a lot easier with less headaches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get a app from the market called startup auditor, it lets you choose which apps auto start on thier own.
What do you mean bloatware? Besides Samsung apps and touchwiz there isn't really anything extra installed
swyped from a galaxy far far away...

What I mean is all that stuff that runs in the background that takes all the memory and battery that we dont see.
__________________________
Belay that or we'll be a sittin' duck!
Belay that, belay that!
Belay! Belay! No! Stow! Shut it!

Removing/freezing bloat after OTA

I noticed there are some new apps and some new processes with the new update to ICS, like Google+ and a new messenger and some new authenticators. Does anyone have an updated list of what is safe to disable/freeze?

Marvin- said:
I noticed there are some new apps and some new processes with the new update to ICS, like Google+ and a new messenger and some new authenticators. Does anyone have an updated list of what is safe to disable/freeze?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just looking to remove that junk. Root Uninstaller didn't seem to be helpful. Thankfully, this Moto junk is my work phone and not my personal. I'd never buy one of these!

I too am interested after noticing that I am down 75MB+ of available memory on average after the OTA ICS upgrade (coming from stock GB).

Actually, you don't really need any special guide. Almost everything can be either uninstalled or frozen by going into Settings => Applications and finding the app in the list. This is now built in to Android, so if you can disable it from there, it is safe. Also, most of the additional bloatware that isn't directly VZW can just be uninstalled now.

Awesome. I noticed that you can disable natively now. I just wanted to make sure disabling or removing stuff would not hurt future updates like people have said it would in the past.

Marvin- said:
Awesome. I noticed that you can disable natively now. I just wanted to make sure disabling or removing stuff would not hurt future updates like people have said it would in the past.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, this is now an Android feature. You can, of course, root your phone and further disable some software, but for the most part, you should be fine sticking with the safety of the native disabling.

Excellent, thanks for the quick response.

i like how they discourage you from disabling the bloatware by telling you stuff might misbehave... yeah, if i disable the NFL thing and my phone misbehaves, it's getting returned. lol
i can't wait for the day when the carriers are forced to allow us to completely remove the bloat that comes on phones, just like PC manufacturers were required to in the 90s.
has anyone experimented with repartitioning so that the app storage and user data areas are in the same partition? i really don't see any reason to keep them separate. right now i could get another 2gb back from the app partition to store more music in if i wanted to.

Gibson99 said:
i like how they discourage you from disabling the bloatware by telling you stuff might misbehave... yeah, if i disable the NFL thing and my phone misbehaves, it's getting returned. lol
i can't wait for the day when the carriers are forced to allow us to completely remove the bloat that comes on phones, just like PC manufacturers were required to in the 90s.
has anyone experimented with repartitioning so that the app storage and user data areas are in the same partition? i really don't see any reason to keep them separate. right now i could get another 2gb back from the app partition to store more music in if i wanted to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The "your phone might misbehave" is more of a generic message, but it can apply to anything. For example, if you have an app that relies on one of the activities from the NFL app, it is quite possible that your phone will do something unexpected (like crash).
Of course, I do also wish I could completely and safely obliterate all the VZW stuff.
As for repartitioning, Motorola does this so that they can continue to provide a mass storage connection mode. If you repartition to unified storage, it will mean that you will be restricted to MTP/PTP transfer modes. It also means that you'll need to be a LOT more careful when modifying your phone's OS. Personally, I recommend you simply invest $35 in a 32GB mirco SD card, or if you really have a lot of music, spring for a 64GB one.

Gear VR Apps on CM discussion

Hey guys.
Has anyone achived to start oculus apps and services on CM based ROM?

Not to my knowledge, though I'd certainly be interested if it happened. It's literally the only thing keeping me on TouchWiz-based ROMs.
I think it's due to lack of interest more than anything, since the Gear VR is pretty niche and not cheap at $100.
There are a few things that I've noticed, however:
-com.facebook.appmanager and com.facebook.system don't get uninstalled when you uninstall the Facebook-related apps. It turns out this is for very good reason, as the Gear VR services depend on them somehow. Uninstalling them with Titanium Backup gets you an update prompt every time you try to launch the Oculus Store, and restoring backed-up versions through Titanium Backup doesn't work either. Had to restore a full Nandroid backup.
-The Oculus Store reads ro.product.model in the build.prop for sure, considering that's what we used to edit to get S6-exclusive games to show for the Note 4. It may read other parts of the build.prop too, but that's the only certainty.
-They've mentioned needing to make kernel tweaks for Gear VR support before, which an AOSP kernel build isn't likely to have. But maybe if you could get a TouchWiz kernel running on an otherwise AOSP ROM like CM13, like the TW variant of Plasma...
The pieces of the puzzle are there, we just have to figure out how they fit together. It would help if we drummed up more developer interest for it, since most AOSP fans probably consider anything Gear VR-related as bloatware they'll never use.

NamelessFragger said:
Not to my knowledge, though I'd certainly be interested if it happened. It's literally the only thing keeping me on TouchWiz-based ROMs.
I think it's due to lack of interest more than anything, since the Gear VR is pretty niche and not cheap at $100.
There are a few things that I've noticed, however:
-com.facebook.appmanager and com.facebook.system don't get uninstalled when you uninstall the Facebook-related apps. It turns out this is for very good reason, as the Gear VR services depend on them somehow. Uninstalling them with Titanium Backup gets you an update prompt every time you try to launch the Oculus Store, and restoring backed-up versions through Titanium Backup doesn't work either. Had to restore a full Nandroid backup.
-The Oculus Store reads ro.product.model in the build.prop for sure, considering that's what we used to edit to get S6-exclusive games to show for the Note 4. It may read other parts of the build.prop too, but that's the only certainty.
-They've mentioned needing to make kernel tweaks for Gear VR support before, which an AOSP kernel build isn't likely to have. But maybe if you could get a TouchWiz kernel running on an otherwise AOSP ROM like CM13, like the TW variant of Plasma...
The pieces of the puzzle are there, we just have to figure out how they fit together. It would help if we drummed up more developer interest for it, since most AOSP fans probably consider anything Gear VR-related as bloatware they'll never use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I see that you were trying to understand how this works somehow. The facebook connection is really interesting by the way, but it's not a problem for aosp rom since we can install them. Also you said that "They've mentioned needing to make a kernel tweaks". Who are they?
There might be some developers interested if we can start from somewhere. I'm in for this but I'll be learing while we are trying to figure out since I've never developed ROM related stuff.

New to Android. Just looking for some pointers.

Hey all. Long time Blackberry user here. I have a couple questions about my note 5 I just picked up.
- Can I root the device (I'm on verizon)? I've done a bunch of googling and so far it seems like verizon has done a good job at making it impossible?
- The main reason I want to root is to just to rid my phone of all the JUNK apps I don't want. If rooting my phone isn't possible, what's the best way to prevent the apps from taking up space and using up data? With no sdcard slot, space will be a premium, and I'd like to free up as much as possible.
-RYknow

-RYknow said:
Hey all. Long time Blackberry user here. I have a couple questions about my note 5 I just picked up.
- Can I root the device (I'm on verizon)? I've done a bunch of googling and so far it seems like verizon has done a good job at making it impossible?
- The main reason I want to root is to just to rid my phone of all the JUNK apps I don't want. If rooting my phone isn't possible, what's the best way to prevent the apps from taking up space and using up data? With no sdcard slot, space will be a premium, and I'd like to free up as much as possible.
-RYknow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right now without root access on our Verizon Galaxy Note 5s there's no way to get rid of the apps to free up space. However there is a way to disable the apps by using Package Disabler but you have to make sure that you don't disable anything if you don't know what it does because you can end up causing the phone not to work or not boot in which case you'll have to do a restore and lose everything. I actually made the mistake and disabled some things that I shouldn't have and it caused the phone to get stuck at the Verizon logo so just be careful what you do with it! Also if you disable certain things that the system needs it can actually become detrimental to the battery life and make it run out faster. Personally I'd say to just leave it alone unless it's actually doing something because on mine I noticed that if I don't use them or tap into them they won't run anyway.

-RYknow said:
Hey all. Long time Blackberry user here. I have a couple questions about my note 5 I just picked up.
- Can I root the device (I'm on verizon)? I've done a bunch of googling and so far it seems like verizon has done a good job at making it impossible?
- The main reason I want to root is to just to rid my phone of all the JUNK apps I don't want. If rooting my phone isn't possible, what's the best way to prevent the apps from taking up space and using up data? With no sdcard slot, space will be a premium, and I'd like to free up as much as possible.
-RYknow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi,
Here's a few pointers, what i do (managing free space)
Firstly, i am also on a branded version. No root, stock Rom.
I found that i could uninstall most of my carriers bloatware,
( see... Device /Settings /App Manager)
Other system bloat apps, i just disabled in App Manager.
Check system apps like...
Eg S Voice.. Briefing.. S HEALTH ?, (if you can disable.)
Secondly your stock Smart Manager, /App Powersaving, the apps i hardly use, i set to always... optimizing.
I used to store movies on my ext Sd card, (but as
we have no Ext Sd card) , i keep my movies on
a mini OTG SanDisk. If i want to watch,i plug /attach, OTG and watch.( Saves a lot of space)
Eventually, you just "adapt" to the limited space.
Good luck
Post note,
Root, is not always the answer.!
Sometimes you just create, more problems /issues
for yourself.
All my other devices Note 2/3/4 is rooted.
My Note5 is not rooted and i am overall very happy with device.
I only have 2 x small system bugs, nothing to stress about /root (Found a roundabout way to fix these.)
Otherwise.......
(Battery life is good , Device runs very smooth, optimized good)

willcor said:
hi,
Here's a few pointers, what i do (managing free space)
Firstly, i am also on a branded version. No root, stock Rom.
I found that i could uninstall most of my carriers bloatware,
( see... Device /Settings /App Manager)
Other system bloat apps, i just disabled in App Manager.
Check system apps like...
Eg S Voice.. Briefing.. S HEALTH ?, (if you can disable.)
Secondly your stock Smart Manager, /App Powersaving, the apps i hardly use, i set to always... optimizing.
I used to store movies on my ext Sd card, (but as
we have no Ext Sd card) , i keep my movies on
a mini OTG SanDisk. If i want to watch,i plug /attach, OTG and watch.( Saves a lot of space)
Eventually, you just "adapt" to the limited space.
Good luck
Post note,
Root, is not always the answer.!
Sometimes you just create, more problems /issues
for yourself.
All my other devices Note 2/3/4 is rooted.
My Note5 is not rooted and i am overall very happy with device.
I only have 2 x small system bugs, nothing to stress about /root (Found a roundabout way to fix these.)
Otherwise.......
(Battery life is good , Device runs very smooth, optimized good)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. I've gone through and just disabled all the verizon apps that I could, as well as a few of the samsung apps I feel pretty confident I won't be using. Seems like rooting is more of a headache then I really want to get into right now with a new device, and a brand new platform (I've literally been using an android for 2 days now).
Thanks again!
-RYknow

-RYknow said:
Thanks for the response. I've gone through and just disabled all the verizon apps that I could, as well as a few of the samsung apps I feel pretty confident I won't be using. Seems like rooting is more of a headache then I really want to get into right now with a new device, and a brand new platform (I've literally been using an android for 2 days now).
Thanks again!
-RYknow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah , dont root it. It voids your warranty, and also few features will not work. Like private mode, Samsung Pay etc

Maze Alpha X shipped with adware?

Accidentally I stumbled upon the folder gangyun and pref_storekeytool inside.
I scanned the Maze with an antivirus scanner and beautysnap.apk was reported as adware.
I guess beautysnap.apk is part of the system camera?
Unfortunately no app can beautify me, so I would like to delete this app. Is it safe to do it?
TIA

bestunameever said:
Accidentally I stumbled upon the folder gangyun and pref_storekeytool inside.
I scanned the Maze with an antivirus scanner and beautysnap.apk was reported as adware.
I guess beautysnap.apk is part of the system camera?
Unfortunately no app can beautify me, so I would like to delete this app. Is it safe to do it?
TIA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What virus scanner did you use? I've just received my Maze Alpha X. There are some bad things about this phone, I'm a bit disappointed. The worst in my case is that the front camera doesn't work. It's like there's no camera at all.

Yeah unfortunately this phone is loaded with precarious apps, adupsfota for instance disguised as the ota wireless update is full of dodgy adware/spyware and if you look at the permissions your see just how worrying it is, it has permission to access banking apps, android pay, key-logger, microphone, camera the list goes on, I've disabled it several times but it manages to re-enable itself. Beautysnap is also a bad one which I have managed to disable for good, LocationEM2 is another suspect app, Fotaprovider which is also adups related. Basically this phone really needs an alternative kernel/custom rom before it can be safely used but as far as I'm aware there isn't one as yet.
The CPU usage is always very high too which is not a great sign, not good at all, I'm surprised Amazon can sell phones in this state tbh.

McSwifty said:
Yeah unfortunately this phone is loaded with precarious apps, adupsfota for instance disguised as the ota wireless update is full of dodgy adware/spyware and if you look at the permissions your see just how worrying it is, it has permission to access banking apps, android pay, key-logger, microphone, camera the list goes on, I've disabled it several times but it manages to re-enable itself. Beautysnap is also a bad one which I have managed to disable for good, LocationEM2 is another suspect app, Fotaprovider which is also adups related. Basically this phone really needs an alternative kernel/custom rom before it can be safely used but as far as I'm aware there isn't one as yet.
The CPU usage is always very high too which is not a great sign, not good at all, I'm surprised Amazon can sell phones in this state tbh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please say what scanner did you use?

dangerous666 said:
Could you please say what scanner did you use?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive used a few but the adware/malware/spyware that the phone has installed as standard on the kernal/rom it's shipped with are installed as system apps with the exception of beautysnap so you need to go through them manually. I used an app called SystemPanel2, it's a great app that gives you a really complete overview of whats running on your phone and what not, it can record system processes, memory, battery and cpu usage over a period of time as well as network stats.

McSwifty said:
Ive used a few but the adware/malware/spyware that the phone has installed as standard on the kernal/rom it's shipped with are installed as system apps with the exception of beautysnap so you need to go through them manually. I used an app called SystemPanel2, it's a great app that gives you a really complete overview of whats running on your phone and what not, it can record system processes, memory, battery and cpu usage over a period of time as well as network stats.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't be able to find those suspicious apps. I've run a bunch of virus/malwares scanner, nothing reported. I've installed SystemPanel2 and I didn't find the processes you list. I believe our phones run different firmwares. I've got mine from Gear Best.

dangerous666 said:
I couldn't be able to find those suspicious apps. I've run a bunch of virus/malwares scanner, nothing reported. I've installed SystemPanel2 and I didn't find the processes you list. I believe our phones run different firmwares. I've got mine from Gear Best.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Under your Wireless Update system app what does it say? On mine for instance is says "com.adups.fota". If your firmware is good/clean then that's a good sign that if I put a fresh stock rom on here it should be fine, I was thinking maybe all the maze alpha firmware's were affected.

My com.adups.fota "seems" to be clean.
For hibernating apps on my rooted Alpha X I use SD Maid Pro.
Under app control you set several things
A) Hibernate the app
B) Disallow start on boot
C) Look up where all the files of the app are located
D) Remove app completely
E) etc

bestunameever said:
My com.adups.fota "seems" to be clean.
For hibernating apps on my rooted Alpha X I use SD Maid Pro.
Under app control you set several things
A) Hibernate the app
B) Disallow start on boot
C) Look up where all the files of the app are located
D) Remove app completely
E) etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No such thing as clean addups I'm afraid dude.
A newly discovered malicious app is found on China-made mobile devices running the Android OS. This is a baked-in system app used to update the device’s firmware but is found to also steal personal information, among other things. A blog is recently published about this malware by Kryptowire.
Already we have had inquiries on whether we detect Adups or not. The answer to that is I believe we do. You see, the app in question, which goes by the package name of com.adups.fota, has a couple of variants. There is an older version seen around 2014 and a newer version that emerged mid-2016. This older version we detect and have done so since 2014. I can verify that this older version was indeed pre-installed on various Chinese mobile devices bought cheaply on online stores, mainly Amazon. I know this because ever since we started detecting this older version of com.adups.fota, we have received support tickets periodically about why we are detecting a system app that cannot be uninstall—I’ll get to how to address this later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2016/11/mobile-menace-monday-adups-old-and-new/
I want to know if theirs a firmware for the Maze Alpha and the Alpha X without addups baked in, I hope so because it's a great phone otherwise.