Android phone question

[Alex321]

Well, feel free to tell me how, because t'internet's heaving with people bitching & moaning about it - it is 'a known issue', in spades - and I've yet to see anyone suggest a solution, short of rooting the phone.

TBH, I can't remember now. All I know is that I have both a galaxy Tab A tablet and an S10 phone, I don't use the samsung keyboard (or any other Samsung apps generally), and I never see any messages like that. I currently use Gboard on my phone, Swiftkey on my tablet.

I have bixby as turned off as I can on the phone - I never use it deliberately. I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

[DaveReading]

I once paid for an app that promised to enable me to unbundle the bloatware package and uninstall it bit by bit. Wonderful! And it worked. It did take quite a while to go thru' laboriously uninstalling all that crap, item by item, but it did it. Then Samsung's next update put it all back.

If it's essentially the same packages being reinstalled on subsequent updates, then just re-run the script you used to remove them in the first place.

 

[DCBassman]

One thing you Android guys might not have seen....
Google have put a Covid 19 contact tracing app on your phone. They haven't told you, and you can't remove it. By default it is switched off, but beware - it exists. Settings>Google will find it. Make sure it is off!!!!

There's one in iPhones too, you cannot escape...Google and Apple developed it together.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

One thing you Android guys might not have seen....
Google have put a Covid 19 contact tracing app on your phone.

Not an app just an underlying api (same as apple) that can be called to build a contact tracing app. Doesn’t do anything without an app on top of it.

 

[PaulSB]

One thing you Android guys might not have seen....
Google have put a Covid 19 contact tracing app on your phone. They haven't told you, and you can't remove it. By default it is switched off, but beware - it exists. Settings>Google will find it. Make sure it is off!!!!

Thanks. I looked at this. My Samsung is three weeks old and this setting was turned on. As I didn't know it existed it must be the default for my phone.

 

[PaulSB]

So there is.
Took me a bit of searching to find it though.

I went to Settings >Google and it was top of the list!

 

[PaulSB]

You want to try having a Samsung. They come pre-encumbered with vast saggy swamps of bloatware - all of it worthless, all of it ununinstallable. And bits of it particularly irritating - like the notification that pops up every time you wake the phone that says 'Wouldn't you like to change from your Google keyboard to a Samsung keyboard?' I've been swiping that nag away for five years now - must have done it thousands of times. You'd think it might have got the idea, but no: 'Wouldn't you like to change from your Google keyboard to a Samsung keyboard?' As a Samsung owner, you just get reconciled to the fact that the hardware's top notch, the software sucks. Google stuff by comparison is positively gentlemanly.

My wife has a Samsung tablet and I have a phone, albeit only for three weeks, and neither of us experience this or any issues related to the bloatware people refer to.

Other than the offer of a Samsung account on initial setup I've seen nothing.

 

[Blue Hills]

I went to Settings >Google and it was top of the list!

maybe it is keeping a special watch on you Paul.

<edit - just seen your other comment - mine was turned off - turning that on by default is seriously very dodgy indeed in my view. Or worse.>

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I went to Settings >Google and it was top of the list!

Its on both my tablet and my phone, top of the list and turned off.

 

[PaulSB]

maybe it is keeping a special watch on you Paul.

<edit - just seen your other comment - mine was turned off - turning that on by default is seriously very dodgy indeed in my view. Or worse.>

I agree. I've been running the NHS Test and Trace app since it was launched, scanned in whenever requested and have been happy to do so. I see it as a social responsibility, which is not to criticise those who don't use it but simply my view.

If Google asked me to switch on I would have considered doing so. Setting to "on" by default is something I object to and I'm now switched off. This is a three week old phone so I guess the policy has changed at some point from "off" to "on."

 

[Blue Hills]

I agree. I've been running the NHS Test and Trace app since it was launched, scanned in whenever requested and have been happy to do so. I see it as a social responsibility, which is not to criticise those who don't use it but simply my view.

If Google asked me to switch on I would have considered doing so. Setting to "on" by default is something I object to and I'm now switched off. This is a three week old phone so I guess the policy has changed at some point from "off" to "on."

is it possible that when you turned on the NHS test and trace thing you agreed to the google module being turned on?
(tho for sure seems if that was the cause you weren't exactly exercising informed consent/had things made clear to you)

 

[PaulSB]

is it possible that when you turned on the NHS test and trace thing you agreed to the google module being turned on?
(tho for sure seems if that was the cause you weren't exactly exercising informed consent/had things made clear to you)

It did occur to me but I didn't check. I've now read the Google blurb about this and yes it is switched on by the NHS app. I've been in to the NHS app and contact tracing was paused because Google was off, when I turned Google back on the NHS immediately became active again. I then suspended contact tracing in the NHS app and Google Settings immediately returned to off.

There is no warning in the app about Google that I can see but at least it's the NHS which is activating it and I've made a choice to be part of T&T.

 

[Blue Hills]

It did occur to me but I didn't check. I've now read the Google blurb about this and yes it is switched on by the NHS app. I've been in to the NHS app and contact tracing was paused because Google was off, when I turned Google back on the NHS immediately became active again. I then suspended contact tracing in the NHS app and Google Settings immediately returned to off.

There is no warning in the app about Google that I can see but at least it's the NHS which is activating it and I've made a choice to be part of T&T.

Am afraid I'm very suspicious of apps.
Lots of things ask for location for no good freason at all that I can see.
I have location turned off on my devices as default - only turn on now and again when i need it for a specific reason (these instances are pretty rare) then it's straight off again.

 

[PaulSB]

Am afraid I'm very suspicious of apps.
Lots of things ask for location for no good freason at all that I can see.
I have location turned off on my devices as default - only turn on now and again when i need it for a specific reason (these instances are pretty rare) then it's straight off again.

And rightly so. I do allow certain apps to access some details but only after considering whether the app really needs to.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Am afraid I'm very suspicious of apps.
Lots of things ask for location for no good freason at all that I can see.
I have location turned off on my devices as default - only turn on now and again when i need it for a specific reason (these instances are pretty rare) then it's straight off again.

The api for contact tracing does not use or store location.