Disable (and hide), All Droid Turbo BloatWare Without Root!

[DroidModderX]

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There is nothing worse then spending a hefty chunk of change on a new smartphone just to find that it is bogged down and cluttered with apps that are preinstalled to net your carrier some extra money. By now consumers have complained enough that most carriers have enabled the option to disable these apps in settings. They still take up precious space from your internal memory, but at least they aren't cluttering up your device.

It can be a pain to go through and manually disable each app. Thanks to a new script by developer "RootJunky" you can now disable all bloatware on the Droid Turbo with a mouse click. His script will automatically disable bloatware. The apps will still be on your phone, but will be out of sight and out of mind. This actually turns out to be a pretty good way to deal with bloat. With the apps still being physically on your device you are able to accept OTAs when they come out. Head to the link below for the download.

via RootJunkysdl

 

[FoxKat]

Was hoping it was something I could flash right on the phone. So I'll have to break out the laptop.

 

[CaptainSS]

Before I devote like 15-20 minutes - How's this work? Do I then need my cord to hook the phone up to the computer?

 

[SquireSCA]

Debloat is easy, this just makes it a little easier...

You can either go into the stock app manager and disable the apps you don't want, which is easy and takes less than 5 min, or you can run this tool that just connects to the phone via the cable and ADB, and runs a script to disable the bloat apps for you. Essentially, they both accomplish the same thing...

 

[FoxKat]

OK, so I tried this but I can't get my laptop to recognize the phone in ADB. At least apparently that's what I think is wrong. All the functions installed properly and I can enter ADB commands in a Command prompt, but the script hands at "daemon started successfully" right after starting on port 5037.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[Poqdiam]

Ensure that you look at your phone and allow the computer access to your phone. The daemon restarts and if you didn't choose to allow that machine access every time, you will have to re-grant it permissions.

 

[Poqdiam]

Also, I happen to use Kindle and I like the new messaging app. in order to keep those you can either comment them out of the Block Bloat Ware.bat with a # or use the Unblock Bloat Ware.bat and comment out everything that you don't want to re-add. I found this out after I ran it. In order to comment out lines, open either file by:
Right click file -> Choose Edit -> Find the apps you want to change and place a # at the front of that line.
E.x.
#tools\adb shell "pm block com.verizon.messaging.vzmsgs" (commented out)
tools\adb shell "pm block com.motorola.zap" (Not commented out, will be disabled)

The line that is commented out is the new messaging app on the Turbo, so if you like it, be sure to comment that out.

 

[FoxKat]

Ensure that you look at your phone and allow the computer access to your phone. The daemon restarts and if you didn't choose to allow that machine access every time, you will have to re-grant it permissions.

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately the phone never asks for access. Instead the phone shows up as a Media device, I have full access to the storage with the computer file manager, but can't get ADB to recognize the phone. I feel frustrated because I've used ADB in the past to do root commands with prior phones, but I'm getting nowhere with this Turbo. ADB does respond when I type ADB and hit return in the command window, but all I'm getting when the phone is plugged in and the Bloat bat file is run is the following;

This window sits there and does nothing. When I enter ADB USB, I get "Device not found".

 

[Poqdiam]

In your device manager (Win8 -> Right click on Window button select "Device Manager") Do you have any yellow !. Ensure you have the ADB driver installed. Here is a link that may help. Tutorial Manually installing Android ADB USB Driver If you have already done this, my apologies, but I had the same issues and these are the steps I took.

 

[FoxKat]

OK, fixed it with these instructions...

Q ADB Driver - Post 5 - XDA Forums

 

[FoxKat]

Sorry, was looking myself when you were responding and was able to resolve. It's all about the Motorola ADB Interface driver not being properly installed. The instructions I linked above worked perfectly but I'm sure yours do as well. Thanks so much but I found it at the same moment as you were responding.

 

[SquireSCA]

In less time than it is taking to figure out what drivers to install or whatever, you could just disable the bloat manually and be done. hehe

 

[FoxKat]

In less time than it is taking to figure out what drivers to install or whatever, you could just disable the bloat manually and be done. hehe

True, but not completely. It takes about 20 seconds per application to disable so it takes a good number of minutes to disable/enable them all. Now that I have the ADB running, is a simple double-click and I let it do its thing. Is done all of the apps in about the same time as it takes to do only one manually.

Also, when you have to do an update its a small to take the phone back to stock first.

 

[SquireSCA]

True, but not completely. It takes about 20 seconds per application to disable so it takes a good number of minutes to disable/enable them all. Now that I have the ADB running, is a simple double-click and I let it do its thing. Is done all of the apps in about the same time as it takes to do only one manually.

Also, when you have to do an update its a small to take the phone back to stock first.

Well, if you are just disabling stock apps, you don't have to re-enable them to take the OTA. It will install with them disabled.

I guess for me, I can go into the app manager and disable about 40 or so apps in 2 minutes or so, and I can do it wherever I am at. Rather than wait till I get to a PC, plug it in, install the ADB software and drivers and then run a script.

I have done it with the script on other phones, and to be honest, I didn't save any time, especially if you run into any issue and have to troubleshoot... which of course you would never really have happen with doing it manually.

I am not down on scripts, don't misunderstand, I like taking shortcuts... but it is soooo easy to just disable what you want that I don't find it to be much of a time saver any more, that's all.

 

[FoxKat]

LOL, well my fingers are obviously no where near as fast as yours. I'm the lazy type when it comes to computers. I buy them so they will do more work in less time and relieve me of the responsibility so I can do other things - whether more or less productive (that's my prerogative). In this case, having the convenience of plugging the USB cable into the laptop and hitting a batch file is actually worth in the long run, all the trouble it was getting ADB properly configured. Especially seeing as now I can get my fingers a little dirtier working in ADB commands and such as I have in the past.