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The Case Against Bloatware
Since the proliferation of the Android operating system in the last year, one of the repeated arguments against picking up one of the many powerful devices released by a carrier are the massive amounts of what’s come to be known as ‘bloatware’ pre-installed on the phones. Every carrier is guilty of this: ringtone stores to pre-installed game demos, every Android device you buy (with the happy exception of a few) will inevitably have some carrier-sanctioned additions.
Just the other day, Mike Jennings from the UK publication PC Pro railed against Vodacom’s version of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro which comes pre-installed with a copy of McAfee’s WaveSecure anti-virus software that prompts you to register for its service before you even sign into your Google account. Not only is this an unconscionable UX disruption (especially for a smartphone novice, at whom that device is aimed) but it contradicts the inherent security of a mobile operating system. Sure, Android is becoming a hotbed of malware activity, but it’s still much more difficult to get infected with a mobile virus than, say, clicking on errant .exe in Outlook.
What this re-inforces, more so, is that carriers and manufacturers alike view Android as the new OEM version of Windows, where they can load a device to the brim with branded, often disruptive software that cannot be removed. This makes it even worse than purchasing a PC from Future Shop and having it pre-loaded with bloatware: on a Windows machine, you can freely remove software from the Control Panel. There’s even an argument that pre-installed software is more allowable on a new Windows PC since the OEM is licensing Windows and including it in the price of the hardware. So too I could buy a copy of Windows 7 separately and avoid the issue entirely.
But Android is free: manufacturers and carriers pay nothing for the opportunity to use the software, and are having a field day partnering with various software firms, be it antivirus, game or music service, to further their influence on our technology habits. Theoretically, then, when we buy an Android phone we are paying for just the hardware (and I suppose, the licensed patents).
Now, Canadians arguably have it a lot easier than their American or British peers: none of the incumbents pre-load their Android devices with disruptive or offensive stuff, opting rather to build their own content services into separate apps. The issue is that unlike on Windows, these applications cannot be removed without some serious software hacking, and many of them autoload with the operating system, affecting performance and battery life.
Further, if carriers choose to bundle third-party applications, which often amount to nothing more than advertisements in application form, the consumer should benefit financially for this. The argument given to consumers is that licensing deals bring down the cost to consumers considerably, but that only benefits those users signing a 3-year contract. Those who choose to pay full price for an Android phone should, by that argument, be allowed to remove that software or have it not shipped on the phone at all.
But whose fault is this sudden emergence of PC-like bloatware on smartphones? The carriers’? The manufacturers’? Or rather, could it be argued that it is Google’s, who leaves the source code available for anyone to modify, for free. But why, then, does the Nexus line of phones come with no carrier- or manufacturer-sponsored bloatware? Google has even taken the defensive tack of marketing the Nexus One and Nexus S devices as “pure” Android experiences, tacitly acknowledging that OEMs and carriers are somewhat tainting what could be a aesthetically-pleasing, high-performing operating system.
Let us remember how Android rose as quickly as it has: without its relatively open nature, which in turn allowed for OEMs and carriers to differentiate remarkably similar hardware, it wouldn’t have received nearly the marketing push as it has. Windows Phone 7, which along with iOS does not allow carrier or OEM modification, has been a market failure so far not due to its inherent inferiority — it is a gorgeous, fast and capable operating system — but because, like webOS it did not receive the marketing dollars that Android, with its oily fingers in licensing and advertising dollars, was afforded.
Personally, I love Android. I love it because of its customization abilities. But I won’t touch a device that I cannot easily root, optimize and ultimately delete whatever bloatware is pre-installed. This is the same reason I love the Nexus S, which not only encourages hacking, but is remarkably usable out of the box, untouched by the carrier or OEM.
So what do you think of the bloatware issue? Does it bother you? Do you go out of your way to remove it, or just accept it as a part of the game?
Discussion
41 comments for “The Case Against Bloatware”
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The bloatware is so awful, it’s all shitty services you would never use using up all the memory in your phone..
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To be honest, I think carriers are starting to realize they can’t treat this like they treated our dumbphones. The Infuse 4G was suprisingly devoid of most Rogers Bloatware which was pleasantly surprising.
That being said my next phone will be a Nexus device whether I get it from my carrier or imported if they drag their feet about it.
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This is one place that Windows Phone 7 has an advantage. Without rooting, you can delete these apps. Coming from webOS, you had to at least change a flag in a text file to be able to delete them. Not all of us care about a Nascar app. In fact, fewer than you would think do… Sprint.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Had an HTC magic. Rooted it and installed cyanognemod. Then I got a Nexus One. It was pretty awesome stock but I rooted it and installed cyanogenmod. A little under a month ago, I got a galaxy s2. Hello, crapware. Within minutes I had rooted and uninstalled a bunch of things. 24 hours later I installed cyanogenmod. Stop screwing with my devices carriers/oems.
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This is exactly why I bought the Nexus S, and will continue to buy Nexus phones. Not only is the bloatware intrusive and irritating, but the updates are so delayed because of going to the manufacturer to do their thing, then to the carriers to do their thing. It’s crap piled on top of crap, and you have to wait for it!
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As long as the bloatware is not intrustive and I can simply not run it, I’m fine with it. There are a number of things in my app tray that I don’t use. It doesn’t bother me because I generally just put shortcuts and widgets of the apps I use most often on my home screens. If I can’t remove it, I simply ignore it. So far, not being able to remove bloatware doesn’t bother me too much.
What I do not want to see is bloatware that is in my face or disabling of features on my phone. The example with the Xperia Mini Pro in this article bothers me. I would really hate it if a bloatware shortcut or widget is stuck on my home screen and I cannot remove it.
I know some carriers disable certain features on the phone. One person is on a US carrier and WiFi hotspot is disabled on his phone unlike mine. This is something I am against.
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Bloatware, custom launchers, modified icons/graphics. It’s all too much. There is no consistency between devices. I came from a Nexus One to a Sensation and they are world apart to use.
The Sensation has the whole Sense crap which doesn’t work for power users. The Bell version is littered with a bunch of crap that I will never use such as Bell PVR, Cybertron Voice Commander, and the NOVA demo (rather, the link to download Nova). I recently checked my memory usage and Cybertron was taking up 25MB. I never once opened the program!
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This is the reason I will not buy anything but the Nexus line of Android phones. I had a Nexus One, and I currently have a Nexus S. If I accidentally dropped my Nexus S in a bucket of water tomorrow, I’d rather buy a brand new Nexus S at full price than any other Android phone currently on the market. It doesn’t have all the latest and greatest hardware specs (3D? dual-core?), but not having to deal with the hassle of bloatware is far more valuable to me. Also, since it is carrier-unlocked right out of the box, I can use mine (AWS version) on T-mobile during my short trips to the US on a pay-as-you-go plan where data (if needed) is only $1.49/day, and 1000 minutes is $100 (and they don’t expire for a full year).
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@Shawn
They are! I remove Calculator when I flash a rom since I prefer realcalc.
Bloat is anything you don’t want, if you prefer to open a browser and load theweathernetwork.com, the weather app is pointless and taking up space.
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Bloatware doesn’t bother me as I simply ignore it. If the bloatware is in my face and I cannot move it out of the way, then I would have an issue. I don’t like the bloatware like the example of the Xperia Mini Pro in this article. I would also have an issue if the bloatware shortcut or widget were on my home screen and I cannot remove it. If it is in my app tray, I don’t have a problem with it as I simply ignore it.
I would also have an issue if carriers start disabling features on my phone. I know some carriers in the US disable the WiFi hotspot feature on phones. This I am totally against.
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Even Google’s “pure” experience can be tainted. The Rogers compatible Nexus One that I purchased directly from Google came with bloatware as well. It included Amazon’s MP3 Store app, which cannot be removed and is also useless to me because I don’t live in the U.S.
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Apple is guilty of this as well. Their Weather, Youtube, Notes, etc. apps are all pre-installed. If you like them, great. But if you think they suck (like AmazonMP3 on the Nexus One), then you can’t do anything about it. At least Google didn’t force that AmazonMP3 icon to be on your home screen.
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While you at it why not say Calculator, Calender, Stocks, Compass are bloatware too?
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I love my Nexus S for this very reason. I’ve had many many phones and the Nexus S is by far the smoothest and most reliable. I have yet to encounter one issue where I felt like the phone was being bogged down by software or the hardware wasn’t keeping up with what I wanted to do.
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This is a GREAT article and I’m glad you brought this issue up.
This is also the reason why the only Android devices I’d consider purchasing are those that bear the Nexus name.
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Speaking of the Nexus S, the voice search bug has yet to be fixed…..
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=49e8ca84071d51a4&hl=en&start=1
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I hope google takes moto, removes blur, and shows all the other folks how using the pure experience can be profitable.
before 2.2, when apps could not be saved to the sd card, every k of space that can be spared was needed. now after 2.2 its not that bad…
a few bloat wear apps are ok, as long as i can remove them. its messing with the OS that bothers me. if i buy windows 7, i want windows, not the DELL skin of windows
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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If you don’t like one Android phone, there are a bunch of others that may be to your liking. If you don’t like the one iOS phone, you don’t get an iOS phone.
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How is it a mess?
Bloatware is a choice on Android. If bloatware bothers you then buy a Nexus.
Or root your phone (this is becoming much more widely supported recently) and install cyanogenmod.
Also, I would take issue with the article saying that WinPhone7 failed because it wouldn’t allow customization. If you look at it’s history you can see that even when carriers bought a bunch of them and tried to sell them they couldn’t.
I’m not saying WP7 is bad, I’m saying that consumers didn’t want them. (I suspect that WP7 was just a little late to the party – by the time it was really ready Android had already exploded.)
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though i dont know much about this bloatware, I too own a nexus s which is my very first android device and it i must say is the best phone ive had.
ps been trough alot of smart phone regular phones and the all soo s**t IPhone!
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I’ve never used the stock firmware on a phone longer than I needed to figure out the phone if was working before I bought it. Bloatware is an ugly thing, but rooting has gotten so easy that its almost a moot point.
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I was pretty disappointed with Google when I found out my Nexus S came with bloatware. I have Google Books and Google Earth preinstalled on my phone….. I don’t need that s**t!!!!
Google Earth also takes around 25mb of space, which is more than all apps I’ve installed so far!
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Also forgot to mention that Android is not an isolated case. In fact, Blackberry phones have the most bloatware I’ve ever seen on a smartphone. For example, my Telus Blackberry curve came with Yellow Pages and some other crap I don’t use.
Carriers should not be allowed to prevent customers from uninstalling these apps, period!
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Unlike most bloatware, Google Earth can be moved to your external SD card. It’s not that big of a deal.
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One of my reasons for buying a smartphone was the realization that I was severly limited in what I coudl do to my phone, despite it’s power. I could only keep 50txts at one time, even though I had an SD card in there to expand storage. I could play MP3s, but couldn’t set one as my ringtone.
As soon as I got my phone I rooted it. Not totaly to remove bloat, though that’s part of it. I wanted the phone to do exaclty what I wanted and nothing more. Now it turns 3G and wifi on and off when I want it to, by itself, I can store as many txts as I want and back them up, it looks how I want it to, and has only a few apps I don’t need, only because I’m too lazy to uninstall them. I will never buy an Android I can’t root, and a BB or iPhone would need to be exceptional to pull me away from Android at all.
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This is why I only buy Nexus devices.
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“Every carrier is guilty of this”
Sasktel isn’t. The devices are still packed with bloatware, crappy slapped-together UIs, and general inefficiencies from their manufacturers though.
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I didn’t know you couldn’t uninstall bloatware on Android phones. It must be a requirement to be able to uninstall apps on Windows Phone because there is nothing on my HTC Windows Phone that I couldn’t remove in seconds including the HTC Hub if I wanted to.
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@Tom,
If you read the article, I didn’t say WP7 failed because it doesn’t allow customization, I said that because the carriers have less customization options they are less inclined to advertise . I’m not saying it’s direct cause and effect but it certainly contributed to the fact.
I also have never said that it is a failure but that sales have been disappointing.
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I don’t care about Bloatware as long as I can uninstall it.
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I root and remove bloat apps, but I think all should be optional to remove without messing with your phone.
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try and try to remove as much as i can
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I was fortunate enough to get the Milestone which came with stock Android and a few Motorola enhancements (Motonav) if you so chose to use them. They were easily removed from the Applications menu. However I now run CM 6 which has turned an absolute horrible manufacturer’s 2.2 update into Froyo heaven.
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Bloatware is one of my biggest pet-peeves. I got rid of my old HTC phone for an iPhone for almost that exact reason, and HTC has to be one of the worst companies for it. I understand the subsidization benefits, but I don’t feel like re-signing a three-year contract for an android phone that, not only is loaded with ram-sucking bloatware, but will be outdated in 17 days anyways. Even Google Maps sucks my current Nexus S’ battery significantly. Maybe make the software removable after a certain period?
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My first android was a Moto Backflip, filled with some of the worst motoblur crap! Now I have a Nexus S and I will never go back from “pure” android. My next phone will for sure be a Nexus!
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I have an HTC desire from Telus, which I’ve had for almost a year, and it is soooo incredibly slow now due to all the cr*p that’s on it. I sometimes even get the “low on internal mememory” notification icon. It’s just ridiculous to put so much garbage on a phone with such little memory.
As soon as I hit the one year mark, CMod here I come.
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Playing with Rogers and Bell devices, I notice how TELUS has nothing compared to them (and usually they actually have nothing at all added)
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Why root? You want to void a warranty. Be our guest. Brick it by accident. You’re liable.
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I love Android, I’m with Bell Canada and even though the bloatware is not too bad it’s still enough to make the experience a little annoying, but Bell will never allow its users to get rid of all the extra apps that nobody wants nor do they need, shame shame
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