If you have ever
used a smartphone, a tablet, or a branded PC, you must be familiar with the
term “bloatware”. Essentially, the term is used to denote those software and
applications that the manufacturer of your hardware has deemed necessary to
include with the native operating system, often packaged as free versions of
various apps. Some people really find this helpful, as they get out-of-box
solutions for a lot of scenarios, but most of the advanced users would advise
you against that, because truth be told, these “free” apps are usually
promotion-ware that the manufacturer has only included to market the work of
its partners, thereby making money off of them. Why bloatware is specifically
bad is that it slows your computer or phone down considerably, and in other
instances, may take up valuable storage space (which is a real concern for most
smartphones).
In Android,
almost all stock configurations of all devices (other than the Nexus ones) come
loaded with such apps. Usually, the manufacturer included bloatware is resident
in system/app partition, thereby making it impossible to get rid of it with
ease. One option might be to use an app like root uninstaller, but that has a
catch; your device needs to be rooted first. If there’s no root available, or
if you don’t want to go down that road, you’re pretty much out of luck there,
too. For such cases, and the ease of many others, XDA member broadways has come
up with a recovery-flashable ZIP that can remove any APK that you want from the
system/app partition. What’s so special, you may ask? The mod works with stock
recovery, without requiring root!
The ZIP file
that you will use for this purpose was originally written for Samsung Galaxy Y,
and for that reason, will work out-of-the-box only for stock ROMs of that
phone. For all others, you will want to follow the steps highlighted below to
tailor the ZIP according to your needs.
Before we begin,
do remember that the system/app partition on Android houses all the critical
components of your device, that are required for it to function properly.
Before you decide to remove anything, make sure you know what you’re doing.
The process can
be divided into two steps, for the sake of ease.
Modifying the
Update Script
Step 1: Download
the bloatkill.zip file from the source link below, and place it at a convenient
location on your computer. Do not unzip the file.
Step 2: Open the file with an
archiving tool, like 7Zip or WinRAR. Within the archive, go to
META-INF/com/google/android/
Step 3: Extract the file named
“updater-script” to your system (only this file, and nothing else), and open it
for editing with a text editor (I recommend Notepad++).
Step 4: The second block of commands
contains a list of all the APKs that will be removed upon running the script. Simply
modify this list to your liking and need, and save the file again using
Notepad++.
Step 5: Put the
file back in the bloatkill.zip archive, replacing the copy that’s already
there. That’s it; you’re done tailoring the script to your need.
Using Bloatkill.zip
to delete useless system apps
This is fairly
standard. Place the ZIP file at the root of your device’s internal memory/SD
card, and reboot the device in recovery. In stock recovery (or even in custom
one), select “apply ZIP from SD card” and pick the bloatkill.zip file. Let the
script run, and then reboot. That’s it – bloatware system apps have been
deleted!
For more details, discussion and
downloads, head on to the source link. [Source]
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