New to Z3C - safe bloatware apps to remove? - Xperia Z3 Compact Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm new to this forum so apologies for any mistakes.
Anyway ive come from the ipHone over to the Z3 Compact and noticed there are loads of pre apps installed which I don't want. Apps such as Talkback and Hangouts. Ive gone ahead and tried to disable these but wondered is there a list of 'safe' bloatware apps I can disable?
Also after i disable an app and click the back arrow, it always brings me back to the start of the Apps list (Starting with 'A'). Am i doing something wrong cause i assume when i click back it should take me back to the next item after the one i've just removed? For example if i disable the Talkback app, it takes me right back to the start of the apps and not the next one starting with 'T'??
Thanks

Related

Autostarts (Must HAVE)

Hi fellow XDA'rs.
As most you probably know, the way android and most os's works, every time you start up your device some/many apps startup with it.
This certainly bogs things down on startup but also in the long run when they stay resident idling in mem.
Android allows apps to register for events that are then started whenever triggered.
For example, on my phone prior to getting this app, everytime I pressed the camera button Camera, SMS commander (WTF), ChompSMS (WTFF), and Snaphotopro ran code. I could even see it happening in a task manager.
Sometimes apps stay in memory indefinitely after doing something irrelevant to their function like clicking camera/downloading something .
So I disabled everything except my main camera and everything still works the same, but ONLY SnapPhoto runs code and uses memory.
The real place i think autostarts shines is that it not only allows you to selectively disable what starts on boot, but also control what happens on every event.
It's on the market for like 98cents or some crap, and I REALLY think we should support the dev for this top-notch app.
It does way more for me than overclocking etc.. and i'm not advertising LOL.
What do you guys think??
Stock Apps that May Be Unsafe To Disable
Messaging (Disabling Is Known To Hinder SMS-Retrieval)
Google Talk (Disabling Is Known To Cause Trouble with the Market)
Stock Apps That Appears to be Safe to Disable
Maps (Disabled on startup without issues)
Clock (Disabled on start without any issues thus far)
Camera (Disabled Stock camera from running when camera button is pressed without issue)
Pico TTS (A text-to-speech thing that runs code every time an app is installed Disabled without issue)
MP3 Store (Runs code whenever an app is replaced, disabled, no issues)
i used it before, but i noticed that if you disable some apps on startup, it will make those apps not function anymore. for example, i remember i disabled the default message app and a bunch of other "normal" apps, and then i would not get any SMS anymore or some of my apps stopped loading. also even after you uninstall the app, it would not return to normal. they listed this as a bug for the version i tried so i couldnt restore the apps i disabled.
right now i just use advance task manager and put the one click widget on my home screen. so after every event i get in the habit of just clickin that widget and it iwll close all apps. and everything works fine.
That's true. Disabling messaging will prevent you from getting sms's even if you have chompsms, chomp's main functionality is as a front-end to the messaging app, not the core. This is not the apps fault
The reason I made this post is so we could compile a list of apps that are okay to disable and aren't. I forget to mention that in the OP .
I will edit the first post with the list but I need input from the community.
So far..
Messaging (Disabling Is Known To Hinder SMS-Retrieval)
Google Talk (Disabling Is Known To Cause Trouble with the Market)
For the most part disabling stock apps isn't the brightest idea.
Autostarts will warn you when you try to disable a stock component.
Also you can view only non-stock apps, if you don't want to mess with the settings.
Some can be disabled without any apparent trouble.
In my case..
Maps (Disabled on startup without issues)
Clock (Disabled on start without any issues thus far)
Camera (Disabled Stock camera from running when camera button is pressed without issue)
Pico TTS (A text-to-speech thing that runs code every time an app is installed Disabled without issue)
MP3 Store (Runs code whenever an app is replaced, disabled, no issues)
There are several more instances of the same apps that are disabled.
So far no FC's or problems. I've reduced the amount of times I need to end all apps by about 90%
Feel free to help add to the list!
I don't disable any stock apps as they seem to die by themselves after a while. Meanwhile I disable pretty much all 3rd party apps (except things like Sim Checker).
This app is amazing!
By the way, if you disable "Widget updating" it also removes unwanted widgets (I tend not to use any).
Glad it's working well for ya Karolis.
Thanks for the tip!
I havent actually tried it, but i'll remember that if I ever have too many widgets in the list.
Another tip is to check out Menu -> View.
You can enable the unknown's and have more options to disable
Is anyone else annoyed by devs who don't allow their apps to be purchased through your T-Mobile account? Something about putting $0.99 on my credit card annoys me. No biggie, but it would be nice if that option was available for this app.
TeeJay3800 said:
Is anyone else annoyed by devs who don't allow their apps to be purchased through your T-Mobile account? Something about putting $0.99 on my credit card annoys me. No biggie, but it would be nice if that option was available for this app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well what can we do except take it
I use Startup Auditor, works pretty well, compared to Autostarts. I also believe it doesn't list anything that would damage your bootup.
tehseano said:
I use Startup Auditor, works pretty well, compared to Autostarts. I also believe it doesn't list anything that would damage your bootup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hadn't heard of Startup Auditor either, but after reading about it, it seems a little more appealing than Autostarts. Especially the part about not disabling anything important from starting. Thanks!
Startup auditor isn't bad.
It doesn't have even a third of the options as autostarts though.
I tried it and although the GUI was nice, and it worked, the lack of choices made me uninstall it in a matter of minutes.
Also, if you're worried about messing up your phone with autostarts just go to Menu -> View -> Hide System Apps and its pretty much the same thing as startup auditor.
I just purchased Startup Auditor and it seems like a nice app. However, I disabled a few apps and then rebooted. When the reboot finished, some of the apps that I had just disabled were still running! I've e-mailed the dev and will post if I get a response. Has anyone else experienced this with Startup Auditor or any other startup app?
I've been using Autostarts for a while and I really notice the difference on boot up time. Before Autostarts it would take forever to boot up the system, then it would be super sluggish. Now since it doesn't start nearly half the apps on boot, it's much faster.
Some apps I question on why it's doing what it's doing. Like Tunewiki for instance. Why does it need to start when an application is replaced or removed? Cleared those out and everything is much speedier!
A lot of them are triggered by strange things.
Like you said, tunewiki when adding or replacing an app.
I think this is their way of staying in the background, which speeds up opening tunewiki but at the cost of slowing everything else down.
I hate developers that do this..
How does the system determine which apps to run at boot?
Whenever i try to disable the amazon mp3 autostart the program tells me to wait and gets stuck on the please wait screen... Any clue if this is normal operation?
amazon mp3 does not seem to want to be disabled.
edit: i think i figured out the problem with amazon mp3. you have to disable it in two places, once in the after startup but also in the connectivity changed section. also i was having trouble with other programs but i forgot i those had widgets. i think for apps that have widgets will cause those apps to load on start up. if you want to disable them you have to do so in the widgets section. just dont do it for widgets you actually have in use.
Does this app not work on latest superd? i get fc everytime on g1.
Anyone know where there are two (2) Messanger apps AND two (2) Handcent apps listed for after startup?
Seems like I should be able to disable messanger, but from these posts perhaps not.... can I disable handcent with no issues... seems like a text received would trigger it to open with no problems.
Why (and can I stop) is Voice Dialer involved with all changes to applications (installed/removed)?
s15274n said:
Anyone know where there are two (2) Messanger apps AND two (2) Handcent apps listed for after startup?
Seems like I should be able to disable messanger, but from these posts perhaps not.... can I disable handcent with no issues... seems like a text received would trigger it to open with no problems.
Why (and can I stop) is Voice Dialer involved with all changes to applications (installed/removed)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was wondering this too. Maybe it starts to read the app names so it can "read" the filename so if you call it through Voice Search it knows what app to call up. Not sure.
Imho, this app is absolutely amazing.
I had the problem, that although i am using Handcent only, still every text was shown as new in the message application as well (and the icon on the homescreen shows one new message). Now i have removed message completely - only my handcent widget shows any test infos
Besides that, i could disable a lot of useless or at least strange applications starts triggered by certain events.
In this point of view, it's very useful, for Galaxy S as well!

[Q] What Bloatware have you frozen/uninstalled without incident?

On my LG Revolution My SystemPanel App shows about 350 MB memory and 12 GB on the SD card. It also cites System Storage 1 GB, Application Storage 1.5 GB and Cache 193 MB. The SuperBox app shows 1.5 GB "Phone" memory. With about 25 applications "active" and several widgets installed, I still have 134 MB memory left
So far I've found the battery life not great, definitely have to charge during the day with 4lte and wifi on.
Noticed a bunch of the bloatware widgets took up memory even when I deleted them from the homescreen. Used TitaniumBackup to Freeze
Apps I've frozen with no apparent problems (yet).
411 Search
AutoRun
Backup Assistant
Bing
BitBop
Blockbuster
Bookmarks Widget
City ID
com.android.LGSetupWizard
com.android.providers.applications
come.lge.mobilehotspot
DeskHome
Digital Clock Widget
Email
Email Widget
Friends+ Widget
Guided tours
Home 2.2.2
In Touch Widget
Lets Golf
LGWirelessChargingService
LTE Test Application
Message Widget
Mobile IM
Music Visualization Wallpapers
Netflix
News 1.0
Polaris Office
Rhapsody
Rock Band
Setup Wizard
SmartShare
Software update
Sync Service
Today+Widget
VCast Apps
VCast Media Manager
VZ Navigator
Weather
What's New
What's New Widget
Wi-Fi control widget
World clock widget
Cutterstark said:
On my LG Revolution My SystemPanel App shows about 350 MB memory and 12 GB on the SD card. It also cites System Storage 1 GB, Application Storage 1.5 GB and Cache 193 MB. The SuperBox app shows 1.5 GB "Phone" memory. With about 25 applications "active" and several widgets installed, I still have 134 MB memory left
So far I've found the battery life not great, definitely have to charge during the day with 4lte and wifi on.
Noticed a bunch of the bloatware widgets took up memory even when I deleted them from the homescreen. Used TitaniumBackup to Freeze
Apps I've frozen with no apparent problems (yet).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya, coming from the incredible, even stock I would have 100-150 mbs of ram, and rooted I'd have usually 180-210. This phone, having the same amount of ram as that, will be anywhere from 30-100 usually. That's some pretty bad bloat.
In 3g only network, the phone actually has a really good battery(compared to the incredible), I can go all day without root so far, the baddest part is the % i lose just sitting there without use and the screen off, it sucks.
And have you been able to assign Google where Bing had priority before? I have the bing search relatively good, just really laggy.
Thanks for this list! I had started to experiment but kept it on the safe side since we don't have a recovery yet.
I noticed that there is quite a bit more listed in Bloat Freezer over Titanium which was my first freeze app. I tried Bloat Freezer when I noticed that some things that were frozen were still showing running processes.
A couple of notes to add on to this -- I'm running Go Launcher and cannot use any of the LG specific widgets, Friends+, What's New, etc. but:
What's New is still running and has functionality beyond the What's New widget. I forget the details but I think on a missed call I got the What's New app to display missed call, sms and email count from the pull down alerts. It was late and I didn't think twice about it until the next day (which is what prompted me to find out what was still running in the background even though I'm using Go Launcher.
I'm not sure exactly which Verizon app is responsible, but i recently unfroze all Verizon specific apps while experimenting and I was prompted to try the new data usage widget from Verizon. When I originally froze all these apps, that widget had stopped working in stock home. So it is not dependent on your home/launcher, but it is dependent on one of the VZ apps.
I'm tempted to just go down your list and freeze everything all at once, but maybe I'll do it in small batches and report back any findings.
Again, thanks for the list!
Wow, that is a ton of frozen bloatpops... didn't think too much of it but that's more apps than i had on my Inc. total on CM.. lol.
Sent from my VS910 4G using Tapatalk
hmm.. how to restore search button?
I can confirm the following, as well:
DeskHome
Digital Clock widget
Email
Email widget
finance
friends+ widget
guided tours
home 2.2.2
lg keyboard
lgwirelesschargingservice
news 1.0
rhapsody
slacker
sns
v cast apps
v cast media manager
vs navigator
vzw package installer
vzw sms filter
vzwservice
weather
world clock widget
I also just completely uninstalled bing search + bing voice.
I seem to be experiencing a couple issues:
1. Search button did not remap to Google Search... so it does nothing at all
2. Lockscreen music controller seems to control a separate instance of the notification area music controller
Avail: 154MB +29MB in 4
(bah!)
I've gone through most of these without a problem -- the last one is VZWSERVICE which is now repeatedly popping up:
Sorry!
The application com.vzw.push.vzwservice (process com.vzw.push.vzwservice) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every time I click on "force close" it just pops up again. I'm about to pull the battery.
...
Rebooted OK.
I'll add a few more to the list:
Amazon Kindle
Bing Voice
Quick Reference Guide
User Guide
I'm curious though what purpose do these serve:
SNS
VZW SMS Filter
VZWService
I have them frozen and already recieved an SMS, so no hindrance there. I recognize the SNS icon from when I first got the phone (one of the widgets I think). I can't see any effect of having them frozen other than the obvious of course.
Be careful with these, I used Bloat Freezer to freeze a small subset of the apps listed in this thread (and none others) and now don't have a home screen. I turn on the phone, slide to unlock, and then the screen is black (normal indicator icons at the top). Holding home gets me to a recent apps page with no recent apps. Nothing else does anything, I can't even turn off the phone without taking the battery out. Any ideas?
the ones i posted can be frozen with no incident.
of course i use a custom launcher (launcher pro) so i can't attest to the home screen working
however, after freezing some other apps listed in other posts my bluetooth wouldn't work...
I use Go Launcher and I was able to add a few to the lists above:
Tunewiki
Sync Service
Mobile IM
Messaging Widget
Messaging (I use GO SMS)
Does anyone know what the LG and Verizon hidden menus processes are?
System seems a lot faster now and has better battery as far as I can tell.
Only issue I can think of, is that When I have my BT earpiece on and connected, I can not seem to get music out of the 3.5mm jack and into the car's aux.
Anyone else have this problem? What is the solution?
What wifi tether is everyone using? My market won't update. So if anyone can post an apk that'd be great.
Also don't freeze autorun 1.0 i think it is. That is the connectivity option for our usb and hdmi slots. Without that it'll work but you can't change the options ever. So you'll be stuck with hdmi off or on and usb charge only cause i think it always starts as.
Little Buddy Sr.
OP:...just a thought, take it or leave it haha
It would be greatly appreciated if you could update the list every so often with new ones added throughout the thread. Then maybe this could become a sticky at some point.
Also:
Anyone else realize Latitude and Twitter for LG doesnt show up in Ti Backup yet is running every once in awhile.... or maybe it's just my phone?
Um I don't even remember twitter being on my phone, I use bloatfreezer and pretty much froze everything on the OP list. I don't think there is to much else that you want to freeze with out risking your phone
revolutionaryV said:
Be careful with these, I used Bloat Freezer to freeze a small subset of the apps listed in this thread (and none others) and now don't have a home screen. I turn on the phone, slide to unlock, and then the screen is black (normal indicator icons at the top). Holding home gets me to a recent apps page with no recent apps. Nothing else does anything, I can't even turn off the phone without taking the battery out. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you use the stock launcher and then freeze Home 2.2.2 then you will have no home screen.
I use Go launcher EX so I was able to freeze home with no problems.
Only thing I can think of is a factory reset. But I'm sure others have better ideas.
I don't think Twitter for LG (or anything for LG) is active without the LG Home active.
I left lg home active, twitter doesn't show up anywhere in bloatfreezer. I have nothing on my phone that even refers to twitter.
Yea i'm not really sure where it's at. I think it's a sub-app(?) of something like one of those facebook/twitter/etc feed widgets. But every so often it shows up in my "running" folder on Go Launcher EX, and I used to see it in my task killer when I had one but i've never seen it on a list anywhere else.
rogue bloat? a new age in ruining our phones haha
As major said, and from what i've seen he's right 99% of the time, I haven't seen it since I froze/.bak LG Home. I'll post a screen shot if I end up seeing it again though
is there a reason that we can not just delete the .apk files from /system/app?
jxcgunrunna said:
is there a reason that we can not just delete the .apk files from /system/app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
we're pretty much able to do that....but the hesitation has been because we have not had a recovery system and it's risky to start deleting any files at all.
However....a recovery system has been through testing lately(yesterday/today) and was released. There's no saying it's perfect but I haven't heard of anyone having big issues. So if you are comfortable with the recovery system available, delete away.
nick99wj said:
we're pretty much able to do that....but the hesitation has been because we have not had a recovery system and it's risky to start deleting any files at all.
However....a recovery system has been through testing lately(yesterday/today) and was released. There's no saying it's perfect but I haven't heard of anyone having big issues. So if you are comfortable with the recovery system available, delete away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will pick one up tonight and see what I can do once I get root and CWM on there. I will post my findings.
revolutionaryV said:
Be careful with these, I used Bloat Freezer to freeze a small subset of the apps listed in this thread (and none others) and now don't have a home screen. I turn on the phone, slide to unlock, and then the screen is black (normal indicator icons at the top). Holding home gets me to a recent apps page with no recent apps. Nothing else does anything, I can't even turn off the phone without taking the battery out. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hopefully you have this fixed already if not:
not sure if this will work but...connect your phone as a USB and hope it connects as a Mass Storage. Go into data/app and delete the Titanium Backup .apk
No idea if this will work, but it's possible that with TiBackup gone it will unfreeze everything.

[Q]Uninstalling stock apps and replacing with third party apps (dialer/message/cal)

Hello Boinic XDAers
My question is how deeply integrated are the stock apps such as Dialer/Messaging/Calender/Blur launcher ?
I'd like to download 3rd party ones such as go sms and custom dialer/contact apps and uninstall the stock ones.
will any of these cause continuous force closes or a soft brick?
Thanks!
Marc
Go ahead and install the new ones. Just dont uninstall the old ones. Once you set the new apps as the default you will never have to see the blur ones again. But yes it will probably cause issues to uninstall them. Besides, why? There really is no point to uninstalling the default ones.
If you really don't want to see the stock apps, you could try freezing them through Titanium Backup. If something goes wrong, you can unfreeze them.
Freezing an app this way does the same thing as uninstalling it (removes it from your app list/drawer and stops the system from reading it, basically hiding it from the system behind TTB's walls) but allows you to bring it back with ease.

Is there anyway to remove save apps out of Play Store?

So being a somewhat compulsive about Flashing new ROMs and having the same problem for testing apps my list of apps in the play store has become impossible to navigate.
It was great at first as it had a list of apps I could easily use to update my phone should I be moving between different versions of Android without using titanium backup.
The issue is now I have so many apps in there, most of which I hardly use, or in same cases have used only once which I don't want. This makes it a waste of time as I need to scroll through a lot of unwanted apps to track down the ones i actually want.
Anyone got a way to remove these apps from the list? That way I can just keep my purchased apps and ones I need in the list.
I have attempted a search on XDA and Google without much luck so just wondering if someone has a solution.

Deleting Bloatware

Hi Guy's/Girl's,
So i just successfully rooted my device with SuperSu and I'm looking to delete some bloatware, I've read good things about Titanium so i thought i'd give it a go. I'm mainly just removing all the stuff i don't use on this Tab to speed it up as all im doing with it is playing Mobile Legends and browsing, I've noticed that after removing app's their icon is still viewable in the draw but when i click on it nothing happens.. Does this mean that the app has been successfully removed and i just need to hide the icon?
I was also wondering would i be able to delete TouchWiz if im using another launcher (NOVA Launcher) or will it bug out?
Thanks in advance,
Cheers.
I generally freeze things in Titanium initially. Then, if no problems crop up after a reasonable time, I'll go back in an uninstall. If problems *do* crop up, I can thaw the app with (hopefully) no harm done.
That said, I've left TouchWiz alone since it is tied fairly tightly to the whole OS (and yes, I do use Nova).

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