Orange and firmware

[Bouchehog]

I'm just getting to grips with my lovely new HTC Desire. I'm just wondering whether I can remove all of the crap that I don't use - particularly the demos and pay applications that I'm never going to use and are therefore just wasting space.

Secondly, when I use Apollo's task manager app killer I notice that a whole load of apps that I don't use are constantly running such as Peep (presumably a twitter app), etc. Are these eating up memory and battery life and if so can I stop the things from loading in the first place (or uninstall them!).

Lastly, can I switch my firmware to HTC's own version? It strikes me that they're more likely to update things properly and won't fill their updates brim full of crap.

Thanks for the help!

Ben

 

[Pryomancer]

The only way to do this is by rooting your phone, you can then install the default 'vanilla' build of 2.1 with Sense UI, without all the crap that Orange puts on it.

 

[Bouchehog]

I have no idea what "rooting" is. I'm assuming that this is a total wipe of the existing firmware and replacing it with HTCs. Either way do you have any links to how I go about this? Does anyone have any experience with having done this procedure?

 

[DCFC79]

I have no idea what "rooting" is. I'm assuming that this is a total wipe of the existing firmware and replacing it with HTCs. Either way do you have any links to how I go about this? Does anyone have any experience with having done this procedure?

theres a link at the top of the main desire page for rooting, theres also a guide floating about somewhere

 

[azz]

Naa forget that mate, don't root, just create a gold card and install generic firmware of HTC. That will get rid of nasty Orange branding, that's what I did, look on here or Google on creating a goldcard for your phone

 

[Bouchehog]

This guide seems relatively straightforward and I think I'll do that (this one not so much!). I am concerned that I might need to be able to restore the Orange ROM if I ever needed to return the phone to them for some reason. Does anyone know if I could use a similar process to restore the ROM if needed?

The above guide has an unlocking section - anyone know if I need to buy an unlock code for the phone in any event or does the generic ROM work happily with Orange's sim lock.

 

[azz]

It will work fine I flashed mine from orange to generic Rom. Works a treat. Never regretted it. good luck