New to S3. I want more freedoms

[crazyjoejoe]

Hello,

I am coming from owning a droid x with the liberty rom to a stock galaxy s3. I want to remove all of the bloatware and have more freedom with the phone. Any help?

 

[zZvaNyaZz]

I had a liberated droid x as well. Had lots of fun with it. This S3 is the only phone I've had that I feel needs no tweaking with custom roms. If the bloat is that troublesome for you just do as you did with your X. There are a couple of roms out there you can find with a quick Google search. Good luck.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

Thanks for the reply. I just hate all of the extra google aps they come with.

 

[zZvaNyaZz]

I'm with you on that one. But honestly not a big deal you know.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

Yeah not huge just annoying

 

[bsweetness]

Thanks for the reply. I just hate all of the extra google aps they come with.

Go to your app drawer, long press the app you don't want on the phone, drag it to the bottom of the screen and drop it over "App info." For most pre-installed apps, the button at the top right will say one of two things - disable or uninstall updates. If it says disable, tap it, and the phone will freeze the app. This will prevent it from ever running, and it will remove it from your app drawer. It's exactly the same as freezing bloatware with Titanium Backup (except it won't jeopardize the success of future OTA updates installing). If the button says "uninstall updates," tap it and let it uninstall the updates. After that, go back to the app info screen for that app, and it will give you the option to disable. With a few apps, that button will be grayed out, and won't let you disable it. But those are few and far between. Most of the bloat and pre-installed apps, and some of the processes, can be disabled or completely uninstalled.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

Copy that. I tried that with a few of them and only one said I could disable it.

 

[bsweetness]

Copy that. I tried that with a few of them and only one said I could disable it.

Which ones wouldn't let you?

And if you really want to install custom roms, there are several options out there. Check out the threads and links in the Galaxy S3 Development forum.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

Play Books, google +, guided tours, kies air, s suggest, setup wizard, etc

 

[bsweetness]

Play Books, google +, guided tours, kies air, s suggest, setup wizard, etc

Play Books, Google+, Kies Air, and S Suggest can all be disabled. I have them disabled on mine. Did you choose to uninstall updates first like I mentioned in my post above? After you do that, open the App Info screen for that app again, and you'll be able to disable each of them.

Guided Tours and Setup can't be disabled because Samsung doesn't want the "instruction manuals" to vanish.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

Copy, ill try that. I didn't uninstall updates first.

 

[bsweetness]

Copy, ill try that. I didn't uninstall updates first.

Yep, gotta do that first before you can disable.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

Thats working. Thanks!

 

[bsweetness]

Thats working. Thanks!

No problem! You can't disable everything, but there's quite a bit that you can. If you go to Settings -> Application manager -> All, you'll have a list of all of the applications and processes on the phone (many of which do not show up in the app drawer). You can go through that list and disable a fair amount of stuff. Just make sure you don't disable anything that will impact something that you use. You shouldn't be able to disable anything that will adversely impact the ability of the phone to work (unless you disable the something like the dialer or messaging app and don't install a third-party app to take its place). Also, all of the apps you've disabled show up at the bottom of that All list, so if you decide you want to use one of them in the future, or your phone is acting up because you've disabled something, you can enable them again from there.

 

[crazyjoejoe]

What does vpn client do?