Mobile devices come with lots of bloatware that is not used by many of us. Till there are legal regulations prohibiting the installation of factory bloatware, it pays to delete bloatware that is not used or never used.
Before proceeding with the steps to remove bloatware, make sure a data backup has been taken, because, if something goes wrong, you will not lose data, but can factory reset and restore it.
The below steps were performed using a Linux system. To start off, open a terminal window. In that window, type the following commands:
Install ADB and Fastboot Utilities on computer
To do this, type the command as below:$ sudo apt-get install adb fastboot <enter>
Enable Developer Options on the Phone
Click on Settings->About Phone->Software Information. Tap 7 times on the Build Number. Thereafter, you will see a popup saying “You have enabled Developer Option” on your phone screen.
Enable USB Debugging on the Phone
Go back to Settings->Developer Options. Within the options displayed, find and enable USB Debugging. After this, you will be able to perform the following steps below.
Connect phone to computer
Connect the phone to the computer. Since this is Linux, just plug the USB cable supplied with the phone into the USB port of the computer, and the other end to the phone.
Check Phone connected to Computer with ADB
On the computer in the computer terminal, type following command to check if the phone is connected to the computer and can use ADB:$ sudo adb devices <enter>
If it returns a device number, it’s connected, but if it returns an error that reads “insufficient permissions for device: user in plugdev group; are your udev rules wrong?”, then follow the steps listed at https://itsfoss.com/fix-error-insufficient-permissions-device/.
Start up ADB shell for phone on computer
Once the connection is successfully established between the phone and the computer, start up the ADB shell on the computer by typing the following command:$ sudo adb shell <enter>
This will start up the shell prompt from the computer and display a $ prompt on the screen. This indicates that you are now logged into the phone.
Using ADB to uninstall apps from the phone
You can uninstall apps from the phone using the ADB shell. To uninstall apps, the command is as follows:$ pm uninstall -k –user 0 <nameofpackage> <enter>
where <nameofpackage> is the name of the package you want to remove.
Note that once a package is uninstalled, it is no more available for the user for whom it was removed. However, it can come back by performing a Factory Data Reset on the Samsung M51. This also includes bloatware that was removed.
Listed packages below can be removed using above method on the Samsung M51.
package:com.android.bips
package:com.facebook.appmanager
package:com.facebook.services
package:com.facebook.system
package:com.google.android.apps.tachyon
package:com.google.android.contacts
package:com.mygalaxy
package:com.netflix.mediaclient
package:com.netflix.partner.activation
package:com.samsung.android.aircommandmanager
package:com.samsung.android.allshare.service.fileshare
package:com.samsung.android.allshare.service.mediashare
package:com.samsung.android.app.dressroom
package:com.samsung.android.ardrawing
package:com.samsung.android.aremoji
package:com.samsung.android.aremojieditor
package:com.samsung.android.arzone
package:com.samsung.android.calendar
package:com.samsung.android.game.gamehome
package:com.samsung.android.game.gametools
package:com.samsung.android.game.gos
package:com.samsung.android.messaging
package:com.samsung.android.scloud
package:com.samsung.android.smartswitchassistant
package:com.samsung.android.svoiceime
package:com.samsung.android.themecenter
package:com.samsung.android.themestore
package:com.samsung.discover
package:com.samsung.storyservice
package:com.sec.android.app.popupcalculator
package:com.sec.android.autodoodle.service
package:com.sec.android.easyonehand
package:com.sec.android.gallery3d
package:com.sec.android.mimage.avatarstickers
package:com.wsomacp
Note that each app removed must be documented and ascertained that the device works after it is removed.
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