Smartphone users in South Korea will soon be able to have the option of deleting unnecessary pre-installed bloatware, thanks to new industry guidelines commencing in April.
“The move aims to rectify an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players,” said the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, in a press release.
New regulations that fly directly in the face of the biggest player in mobile – Samsung. Odd, since we were told that Samsung owns the South-Korean government.
I do wonder where the line is drawn, though. Will South-Koreans also be able to delete Newsstand and Weather from iOS, or the Calculator from Android?
How will this be any different to when Microsoft were ordered to stop making Internet Explorer installed by default and removable. It’s still there even in Windows 8 installs!
Just to set this right:
1) Every OS needs an engine to get online, its pragmatic to use the libraries of the Browser, because they are fast. (No slow IE Jokes please)
2) Microsoft volunteerly paid a fee because browserchoice was forgotten in Windows 8.
Imagine a Standard User to download any Browser he wants – without a browser… Paradox?
So what’s wrong with WGET or the equivalent in Windows to get the first browser of choice?
Having to wget a browser is insane, I honestly can’t believe people still complain about this.
No one is suggesting using wget as a browser.
You’re right no one is, including me.
Insane on a modern PC and OS, yes. On retro hardware/software, it’s a different story.
Just this weekend the hard drive in my PIII laptop died. I normally run Windows 98 and BeOS on this old beast, for access to old games and BeOS nostalgia respectively. I had a spare hard drive but I hadn’t gotten around to cloning the other one to it yet. So, I started fresh with a Windows 98 CD, my wireless drivers, and a tall glass of diet soda. All set, right? Wrong. The version of IE included couldn’t render most sites well enough to navigate them properly; sometimes the scrollbars disappeared, and sometimes the browser just choked and crashed.
I finally managed to get wget downloaded, and using my phone I found a link to a really old version of Opera that rendered modern sites well enough to finish installing drivers and such.
I’ve backed up the drivers and apps onto a flash drive for safekeeping in case it happens again, and I could always have sneaker-netted them from my main PC. But it was good practice, and it’s good to know I can use old school tools in a pinch.
Morgan,
“I’ve backed up the drivers and apps onto a flash drive for safekeeping in case it happens again”
I’ve made of habit of saving drivers as well. It is frustrating how poorly some manufacturer websites work in safe mode with stock browsers. Sneakernet works, or sometimes I’ll use a linux live cd to download the windows drivers to the hard disk. Isn’t it ironic!
Another gripe is how many spammy results comes back when searching for obsolete manufacturer drivers, another reason I keep my own copies.
Edited 2014-01-28 03:38 UTC
About as insane as claiming you still need a browser to download another browser in the age of the app stores.
Wget is just the GNU project trying to reinvent the wheel and using GPL license.
What’s wrong with cURL bedside the fact it is licensed under a MIT/X like license and not GPL?
And cURL is the technically superiour software.
First release of wget: 1996
First release of curl: 1997
So how exactly wget reinvents curl’s wheel?
The person you’re replying to makes me laugh. The discussion isn’t even about wget or curl, but some equivalent to download a browser based on user choice.
Wouldn’t it be nice if EITHER of them were built into Windows? But yeah, wget came out before curl, and most of the walk through for things still use wget. I wasn’t even aware that curl wasn’t GPL though. Learn something new every day, I guess!
Who cares, both applications work fine.
Edited 2014-01-28 19:32 UTC
Shouldn’t that be ‘forgotten’ in the sense of they had no intention of leaving out IE from Windows, regardless of lawsuits etc.
Having a version of Browser Choice which downloads and installs the users choice of browser via WGET or similar is a fair way of doing it and does not require a default browser of any kind!
I agree. I don’t really care if IE is on my (home) machine, but I would like to choose “get me firefox” when I install Windows.
It is a trivial amount of work to implement, but I suppose it would require consent from all the third parties. Opera kicked up a stink about even having the IE icon on the choice screen … and Microsoft kinda told the US Government that IE was an essential part of the OS … so they need to include it.
BTW, there is a powershell command for the equivalent of WGET.
http://superuser.com/questions/362152/native-alternative-to-wget-in…
You mean they got forced to “volunteerly” pay a fee of $2.17 billion because they repeatly violated anti-trust rulings?
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-24/microsoft-sent-eu-antit…
Edited 2014-01-28 20:12 UTC
Well with Windows there is a separate ‘K’ edition which is sold in Korea and I think has some media player changes or links to other media players included.
See:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922474
So there is precedent for Korea making these requests and software companies honouring them.
Edited 2014-01-27 17:04 UTC
This isn’t much of a problem with Windows Phones. It’s mostly aimed at Android.
I wish they address the carrier problem. Where the cancer is thriving.
Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised to find I could remove every single carrier app from my Lumia, something I’ve never been able to do with any other phone OS without rooting.
Yep, our “big four” is about to become three, if the rumors about Sprint buying T-Mobile are to be believed. Yay for even more carrier shenanigans; the second worst offender buying the only one moving in the right direction.
That’s okay, the two are about equal in actual coverage and service quality anyway. T-Mobile might be amazing in Europe but they have done deliberately false advertising in several locales in the states (including mine) where you don’t even get reception outside of a T-Mobile store. Yet the stores are outfitted with MicroCells which make reception look amazing… just enough to get people to sign, then be screwed. Right direction, my ass.
I was actually referring to their progressive movement towards contract-free service across the board. Their solution isn’t perfect, but it’s a far sight better than the other three. Sprint in particular is nasty when it comes to getting out of a contract; there are no loopholes, you pay the $350 ETF even if your phone’s non-subsidized price is far less. I’m glad to be rid of them.
I’m on Straight Talk now, which is month-to-month unlimited service for half what I was paying at Sprint, and I can use any unlocked GSM phone, or even carrier-locked T-Mobile phones if I choose to.
The definition will be different based on who you ask.
Is TouchWiz bloatware, or an integral part of the designed user experience?
Essentially, the manufacturers are likely to have little to worry about – this will probably hit the telcos that install their own apps, and degrade the user experience of the manufacturers.
Of course, when the manufacturer’s handset is still performing like crap, then they won’t have so many places to hide.
And any three letter agency back doors?
Nothing but bloatware as far as I’m concerned!
Better not, they put those backdoors in there for your own safety.
Thanks Thom, out of all the blogs and websites that posted about this, yours had the correct headline – ie “bloatware must be deletable” instead of “Korea says no to bloatware” “Korea will be bloatware free” “Korea bans bloatware” etc.
Surely, they’ll just redefine what unnecessary means. Either that, or they’ll make the “unnecessary” programs a part of the contract.
Edited 2014-01-27 14:50 UTC
Delete could mean actually uninstalling the apps themselves or merely deleting the icons. Uninstalling the bloatware would free the space for something else. I wonder which is meant here?
Some are comparing it to the windows/ie bundling. In the US version you can upgrade/downgrade IE, but not uninstall it (only hide the links to it). Does MS allow IE to be *uninstalled* on European editions? As a web developer I wouldn’t want to, but I’m just curious.
Has anyone actually seen that “European edition” ?
This will not help recover free space anyway, since the OS in Android phones resides in it’s own partition.
They allow you to hide the shortcut to it , but not unistall it, since lots of software relies on IE to render hypertext. But even if you “uninstall” IE and you accidentaly click a mshtml file, surprise, you get IE greeting you. I chose Firefox in the ballot screen, but IE opens everytime I open an mhtml file. Also, the special europe-only “N” versions of Windows (without the media player) don’t really exist, no store sells them, and they cost as much as the ordinary version, so it’s kinda pointless to buy them too.
Exactly. Is S-planner, Paper Artist and S Memo “bloatware” or an integral part of the OS? Also, most Samsung “bloatware” is integrated into other apps in the form of gestures and add-on features (“music square”, “group play” etc). The only apps I can think of that fall squarely into the “bloatware” category is Samsung Apps and Chat-on. But how making those apps “deletable” will enhance competition? More likely, it will make Google’s grip stronger.
The only thing that should be deletable from smartphones is anything that is “trial” and antivirus software (most OEMs have wisened up and don’t ship Android phones with antiviruses anymore, like my Optimus 2X did, but antiviruses should be mandatory deletable just in case)
Edited 2014-01-28 12:26 UTC
kurkosdr,
Even so, it doesn’t strictly mean that the preinstalled bloatware apps reside on the OS partition. I don’t have a smartphone to check this on, it could be different from one phone to the next. Regardless after this law it seems the most obvious place to put the bundled apps is in the regular app partition such that they behave like other all apps. This would not only be following the “spirit” of the law, it’s by far the simplest to implement.
I know there are other formats that will launch in IE after the icons are hidden. Obviously if you could uninstall IE you’d loose it’s additional features and formats. The same goes for windows media player, windows messenger, mspaint
, etc. Truthfully I didn’t even remember what .mhtml was until I looked it up, so I wouldn’t miss much if it were gone. IMHO it should be your responsibility to make sure you have whatever you need, and in this case opera supports .mhtml and there are plugins for firefox and safari too.
Anyways thanks for answering my question; you cannot uninstall IE on the European version of windows, just hide it.
I think more ambiguity exists with TouchWiz than the examples you cited. The duck test applies: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc, then it’s a duck.
NSA spyware or South Korean snooping software.
Samsung owns the South-Korean government.
And soon, the education system. Samsung will eventually run high schools here in Korea and overseas.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140126000337
The future is scary.
[quote]Will South-Koreans also be able to delete […] the Calculator from Android?[/quote]
Most probably. In Korea, the calculator is considered bloatware, since they’re kings of mental arithmetic
The installed bloatware isn’t really that big of a problem. Someone is paying to have the bloatware put in your phone/computer. Users would probably pay more for their devices if they came bloatware free. The problem is not being able to delete the bloatware from your device. This is why I will never buy another cell phone from a carrier. PC decrapifier is a great tool for desktop computers.
I definitely would. It’s like Kindles – you can either get them with ads, or without ads for a few dollars more. That works for me. Because if something had ads built in without the option to remove them, I wouldn’t buy it. Roku is a good example here – that giant-ass ad on the home screen is the only reason I don’t own one.
I’m not sure it actually is against Samsung. Most current Android phones, including Samsung’s ones already have an option to disable “ROM” applications. This removes its icons from everywhere and disables every related services, making them effectively uninstalled from system. Not sure if anything like that present in iOS.
Edited 2014-01-28 11:26 UTC
I don’t have the link handy, but I recall seeing a system diagram from Apple that showed how the flash memory is divided up. There is a portion that is dedicated to system use, and the built in apps live there, along with other things.
Therefore they don’t take any storage the user can ever recover. As such I doubt they would apply to this bloatware ruling.
As a side note Google used to do the same thing with apps like gmail, browser, etc. The problem was that it then required a system update to update them; and we know how problematic that is in the Android world. So they moved the apps out into the user space.
Actually I don’t think this has anything whatsoever to do with the motivation for the law. It’s not about freeing space so much as giving users the right to manage the bundled apps just as they would 3rd party ones. The English literature I’ve read isn’t very clear on details though. I don’t know if it distinguishes between apps bundled directly from the OEM rather than added on by the carrier?
From a user point of view, it shouldn’t really matter who bundled it if I want to remove it from my device.
Now I am not going to drill into the details, because frankly I am just not motivated enough, but if it is only what you described then the same goal can be achieved by creating a folder and putting everything out of sight.
I am making a point ONLY about iOS. Those bundled apps (like stocks, weather, etc) ship as a part of the OS, don’t change the behavior of the OS (or those behaviors can be turned off), and do not occupy any user space.
So to Thom’s speculation, I doubt it would apply.
jockm,
All the more reason that it should be possible to uninstall them I say. Again I don’t know the particulars of this law, but I’m really not following your justification for excluding apple here. As a samsung user, if I want to get rid of a bundled application that “ships as part of the OS”, how is that any different than an apple user who wants to do the same thing?
To be consistent you’d have to extend this logic to others also: any devices can skirt the deletable app law so long as the apps are bundled into the OS partition. Although I have no evidence to contradict you, to me your interpretation seems completely contrary to the point of having such a law.
This is great up until recently I had a Samsung prevail phone that I could not update because of low space on the phone please keep in mind the only app I had on this phone is Navigator, so Android crappware wasnt event able to fit the phone. The bad thing is since they are considered part of the OS there is no option to move some of these apps to the external SD card. Google lets you remove some apps like gmail, youtube, but next update reloads them. So pretty much every day I had messages stating update to application X, Y, Z failed because of low storage space. So why do I have to have non vital app on the phone. if I choose to remove an application I dont want it reloaded with the next update.