Verizon Allowing G3 Users To Remove Bloat

[DroidModderX]

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One of the main reasons that many of you enjoy rooting your device is the fact that it enables you to then go and permanently remove unwanted bloat ware apps. Not only does this mean you no longer have to look at the eye soar of apps that you did not want and certainly did not download, you also get a bit more free space which is great especially for those of you on devices with only 16GB of internal memory. Verizon informed the guys over at Droid-Life today that they are testing a new feature with the LG G3 that allows users to fully uninstall some of the preloaded bloatware.

"Verizon is trialing a new service on the LG G3. Pre-loaded applications will install in the background during the activation and set up process. Once setup is complete, the applications will appear in the applications folder as though they have been traditionally pre-loaded. However, there IS one key difference; the applications can be completely and entirely uninstalled by the customer via the standard uninstall process. Customers will not incur any data usage or charges for the download and installation of these applications."

When i tested this on my own Verizon LG G3 i noticed that i was only able to uninstall 2 applications. Those applications were clash of clans and hotels.com. Other apps like Isis, IMDB, NFL Mobile, Slacker and all of the Verizon specific bloatware were not unistallable. I was however able to "disable" those apps which means they are still on the phone taking up space I just can't see them in my app drawer. Hopefully enough people will uninstall bloat to show Verizon that we really don't want these useless apps preloaded on our devices.

Via Droid-Life

 

[jackiescivic]

More like hopefully they add to the list of uninstallable

 

[cr6]

It's a great start! At least Verizon is finally recognizing this is a problem and taking steps (albiet baby steps) to offer this option.

I would like to add however that I'm really enjoying the Slacker app on my S5. Pandora has always been my "go to" music streaming app but I have to say Slacker really gives them a run for their money. The commercials are shorter and less frequent than they are on Pandora, and the transition between songs (whether fast forwarding or normal progression) is much quicker on Slacker, almost instantaneous. I'm pretty impressed.

tap'n on my S5

 

[mslaceyrose]

Great! That just raised Verizon an additional notch higher in my consideration of them as my next carrier

 

[GAstorino]

Yeah and now that Google effectively screwed us with not allowing full access to sd cards with KitKat, memory will be very important.

 

[HarvesterX™]

Well look on your /system partition on your G3 and check put the free space there. Uninstalling vs disabling really is more of a placebo effect how days (since there's usually a ton of unused space in /system anyways).

It's not like the average unrooted user can use a my of this space and since the /system partition is rarely written/read to (compared to other partitions) having that free space doesn't even really help speed anything up (well I imagine it would slow things down if there was no space left).

Moving regular apps there is a pain depending on frequency of updates. Hell even with all the Google updates I could remove most all my Google apps in /system since updated versions are in /data.

Titanium makes the process a little easier but even after all I've said I still feel the same. I'd b rather have t off my device than disabled. Before I ever flash anything I extract the zip and manually remove all apps/lib fils/binaries/etc I don't want then zip it back up and flash.

If manually removing bloat and rooted don't forget to clean up leftover files in /data (data directories and library files, dalvik, etc).

A step in the right direction though but I don't classify either Clash of Wallets (*cough* clans) or Hotels.com as bloat. Lots of people actually use those and I think Verizon was just in the radar regarding "bloat" so they tossed us two bones that we could uninstall and called it bloat.

Bloat is the NFL app I've never opened and never will. Bloat is ANY Verizon app that Google has out the better (Verizon Messenger, Verizon Navigation, etc). Backup Assistant is bloat and I remove it from both my device and so that it doesn't show in Settings. It's an OK app I suppose if you don't use Google but let's keep it that way...an option. If we use Backup Assistant then we can just install it. I'm not using anything you force down my throat.

Oh and their "Network Optimization" scheme....starting on Oct 1 they will start throttling those people on unlimited data plans still who fall in the top 5% for that area during congestion....which means basically ALL unlimited data users will always be getting throttled considering that they are a minority to begin with. Falling into that 5% tier doesn't seem too hard especially in a small town.

I download and flash a new ROM and that's the limit for lots of people's data plans. Their b speeds have slowed down here anyways as well. I'm lucky to see 35Mbs when I be as seeing 60MBs.

 

[liftedplane]

It's a great start! At least Verizon is finally recognizing this is a problem and taking steps (albiet baby steps) to offer this option.

I would like to add however that I'm really enjoying the Slacker app on my S5. Pandora has always been my "go to" music streaming app but I have to say Slacker really gives them a run for their money. The commercials are shorter and less frequent than they are on Pandora, and the transition between songs (whether fast forwarding or normal progression) is much quicker on Slacker, almost instantaneous. I'm pretty impressed.

tap'n on my S5

I haven't used slacker since my old BB Storm 2... that was my goto music app. then I went to pandora, and now I pay for google all access... it's a ton easier and not that expensive.