Commando bloat is now famous!

[Rafael]

Smartphone Bloatware Is Bad For Everyone - Network Computing

I bet he is referencing this forum in that article.

 

[rjglenn]

Without a doubt. No where else that I have looked does bloatware on the Commando get talked about, and what to do about it, to the extent or detail than it does here.

So what can be done about it? Stop buying phones that have bloatware? That would be about as effective as a gasoline boycott.

 

[cbreze]

A gasoline boycott? That's about right.
It's obviously all about making money for the providers and bloatware is never going to go away. Be nice to have an easy uninstall method tho.

 

[Rafael]

If you look at the recent ratings and reviews of the Commando Bloatware apps on Android Market you will see that those apps have gone from so-so reviews to horrible reviews and ratings......many of them are complaints about the bloatware.

Someone at the Market is fudging overall ratings, though. There is no way that those apps deserve the avarages listed.

Verizon can do as they wish, but so can we.
That's why I keep bringing it up......to help future buyers be aware.
If it creates enough discontent they may rethink the strategy.

If I could get Verizon service without human interaction and bloatware on phones, I would prefer it. My conversations with Verizon employees are, for the most part, lessons in futility. Dishonesty and ineptitude in the average employee, matched with the bloatware, really sours the deal and makes we users appreciate the fact that we CAN go elsewhere.

Sew the seeds of discontent!

 

[jova33]

What are you talking about? All the vcast apps have 4+ stars! That most mean they're good!.......

Then read the reviews of pages and pages of people giving it one star and why can't I delete. Do these not average in to the rating?

If I buy a computer, I can delete anything I want off of it. My phone is basically a pocket PC, so why does that void the warranty to do such? I'm not making any changes to the hardware.

 

[Rafael]

LOL
Yeah.......it's pretty funny how it can have hundreds of 1-star reviews yet maintain a 4 star rating. The really screwed up thing, if the ratings average is correct, is that there must be one heck of a lot of people who prefer these crappy pay-apps over the superior free ones from Google and others.

Does anyone really like VZW Navigator more than Google Maps?

 

[cbreze]

Does anyone really like VZW Navigator more than Google Maps?

Ha! I used VZ nav once right after I got my commando and was out of state. IMHO google maps which is free obviously was loads better. Even the turn by turn sounded better and easier to hear. +1 for google maps.

 

[cbreze]

RE the bloatware and need to be rooted. The more android savvy among you may have to cut me some slack as this is my first android device, but I'm not seeing that much(if any) real issue with having it(bloatware)around. I don't ever use it so I hide it and never see it, so that's not an issue. If I understand correctly it just sits there possibly taking up a certain amount of storage memory, but not operating memory(RAM) which is the more important one. If activated then RAM is taken. I monitor my RAM available and find it to always be anywhere from 150 to around 220MB depending on which launcher I'm currently using.
RE being rooted, when I used wm5,6 and 6.5 devices I was always looking for a better ROM to install to get more satisfaction from my mobile experience and there were usually many to choose from. When I used BB's I was always loading leaked stuff to get a better experience. So, with the commando being such a niche device and no custom ROMs available, I'm not getting the need for rooting other than being able to stick it to Verizon and say "F" you Verizon I removed your effin crappy bloatware.
My battery life on the 1800 is good for a day, all I need as I'd charge nightly no matter where it's at.
Easy tether connects instantly for my tethering needs.
As I mentioned all bloatware is never seen unless I look it up.
My speed is great and the plentiful RAM is most likely why.
So with never having rooted before, I'm a little leery as to messing up an already good thing and with no custom ROMs available I'm not really seeing the point.
What am I missing? What kind of RAM are you guys seeing on a rooted commando? I'm tempted to root just for the experience, but have heard issues from total bricking to operating issues like stuff not working later on and having to hunt down some file. I uninstalled amazon app store once and found somethings like easy tether stopped working, had no idea it was inter connected.
Cheers all and have a good weekend

 

[rjglenn]

What are you talking about? All the vcast apps have 4+ stars! That most mean they're good!.......

What vcast apps? There are no vcast apps on my phone...

And to cbreeze, there are a couple of the pre-installed applications that a fee for use. People borrow my phone, my kids play with it. I would be unhappy if someone activated one of those fee services either by accident or to help me out. Plus, I suppose it is a little bit of saying "F" to Verizon.

It's also something to do.

 

[cbreze]

And to cbreeze, there are a couple of the pre-installed applications that a fee for use. People borrow my phone, my kids play with it. I would be unhappy if someone activated one of those fee services either by accident or to help me out. Plus, I suppose it is a little bit of saying "F" to Verizon.

It's also something to do.

Gottcha, was kind of wondering if it really increased operating(RAM)memory that much, that would kind of make sense then to go for it. otherwise like you said, it's something to do as well as F verizon, by showing their crap can be gotten around.

 

[pokskip]

i give up i typed out this long paragraph giving my input on everything and i pushed a wroung button and lost it all so heres a short sweet version. verizon has hidden services running on the phone you cannont see. before rooting i was running 20% allways. after im allways at 90% the vcast apps are using about 5mb of ram each. along with the nfl app. don't belive me? try adding up the ussage of the running services and stuff and see if it comes out to what your actually using. after removing the bloatware my phone lasts 2days if i dont watch movies or play games. if i allways run facebook trolling that and texting and talking to the phone it lasts about 30 hours. with about 5 hours or screen locked time. hope this gave some people some insight on bloatware. if not sorry about wasting 2 mins of your time =P

 

[runsondiesel]

I rooted my Commando yesterday using paxcristos' one click v 2.2. Worked like a charm. Then bought Titanium Pro, backed up to sd card and copied the backup file to my laptop. So far I've only "frozen" crap like vcast, slacker, social beat, nfl mobile, v music, v tones, and stuff like that. I plan to watch it for a few days to see if all is well before I uninstall all that stuff.

So far, the phone is much snappier than it was before and battery life seems better too. Like rjglenn I like tinkering with it too.

For those more versed in this rooting business than I am, is the "recovery" package necessary only if I were to put a custom ROM on the phone? (Should one become available.) Or is it something I need to do if I just want to free up RAM and internal storage?

As far as going back to stock or "unrooting" for an ICS update, my guess is that won't be necessary, because I doubt the Commando will get ICS. That will appear on its successor.

 

[rjglenn]

If you are going to be "tinkrering" with the phone, then the recovery with a saved nandroid is an absolute necessity. There is a poor soul in another thread who has bricked his commando by freezing the wrong thing and is now stuck in a bootloop. I have a commando that is stuck in a bootloop because I made a small change to a small library file and the phone rejected it. This was before the recovery was available. With the bootlooped phone I can briefly control it with adb, so if I had the recovery on that phone, I could restore a nandroid.

 

[runsondiesel]

Thanks rj, I'll get those in place before I do anything else. It pays to ask those who have blazed the trail.

Scratch what I said earlier about better battery life post-rooting. I took it off the charger at 0500 and by 15:30 this afternoon it was down to 19%. Usage was normal for me. That's pretty typical performance for the OEM battery. I do notice that if I leave it on the charger for 10-12 hours it lasts much longer. Maybe that's why Mugen says to charge the 1800 that long. Problem is I only get about 7 hours re-charge time a night.

My other rooting goal is to wipe about 50-70mb of storage. Currently it's 269 used/131 unused. Too bad more of this stuff can't be on the sd card because my 16gb card is about half used, and I could always go to a 32gb card. In RAM it's 281mb used/87 unused. In looking closely at what's taking the RAM, I find that the GO launcher and GO keyboard take 33mb between them, Weatherbug takes 36mb and Lookout another 22mb. That's better than 90mb just for those four. Overall 208 used/112 free. Before I froze the v stuff and skype, slacker, et al, I was often down to about 40-50 unused. I really like the GO apps and Weatherbug, but have to weigh if I like them that much. Lookout seems to be a must have for malware even though it looks to be the best of a weak group of anti-virus/malware apps. I have the ADW launcher on my HP Touchpad tablet that I ported Gingerbread to and I like it, so maybe I'll give that a try.

Thanks again.

David

 

[kb0nly]

I see no advantage to taking the bloat off other than the three apps that ask me to update them every couple days, that google books, NFL mobile, and something else i don't recall right now.

My battery life is good, i use it pretty heavily every day, usually grab it off the desktop dock at 8am and it goes back on around 10pm, so over 14 hours of use i usually have about 10-20% left depending on how much i did that day, generally email, texting, a dozen phone calls, even a bit of web searching if i need a bit of info.

Overall i can't complain!

 

[paxchristos]

My other rooting goal is to wipe about 50-70mb of storage.

Have you tried pm setInstallLocation 2 ??

That should free up more space...

 

[Rafael]

Android 2.2.1, rooted and with certain apps removed, had better battery life than 2.3.3 has even after deleting everything I can think of.

I would love to go back to 2.2.1.

As to freeing up ram, 2 suggestions........
You can use Titanium to incorporate system-app updates (such as the Market app update) into system ROM. This moves the updated app from RAM to ROM.
Also, you can move user apps to ROM.

Long press the app to see these options.
It is pretty easy to get more than 230-240 MB of free RAM using these methods.

 

[Techniq]

Android 2.2.1, rooted and with certain apps removed, had better battery life than 2.3.3 has even after deleting everything I can think of.

I would love to go back to 2.2.1.

Thanks for the insight Raf, I haven't updated mine yet and now don't plan on doing so.

As for the bloatware is concerned, it reminds me of the whole MS Internet Explorer issue that went to the courts...remember when the courts ordered MS to have IE more easily deleted from the OS? Is it gonna take a court order for these carriers to add "Uninstall" to their bloatware?