Help Cleaning up a used phone?

[a_mirajkar]

Hi,
I have ordered for a Galaxy S and eagerly waiting for it. The only concern I have is that it is a used (second-hand) phone and so there might be some spy/monitoring applications on it (though not sure if it is possible at all).
How would I check if such applications are really there, and how do I get rid of them?
Thanks.

 

[beer-in-box]

Wipe data, do a factory reset, and you might want to flash a ROM, too. That way everything changes and all data in the phone is deleted.

 

[a_mirajkar]

Thanks, I also thought so. However will that erase the vendor supplied in-built (pre-installed) apps too? Or those are part of the ROM image?

 

[beer-in-box]

Stock apps and your carrier's apps are different.
Carriers prepare a 'modded' ROM from the stock ROM. They put their apps which are usually useless and you can only use them if you have their ROM.
But stock apps which will come with a brand new Galaxy S(Aldiko, AllShare, etc.) would be on any ROM you will find on samfirmware.com.

So, if you download a ROM from samfirmware, it will have all apps that Samsung provided for Galaxy S. But they won't include your carrier's. That is good, I think.

But usually, stock ROMs are slow and you will find yourself looking for a faster phone. Then you will see there are custom ROMs, and you will learn how to flash one of them and start using them.
I mean don't worry about the vendor apps, you'll get bored eventually And when this happens, we'll be there to help you.

I suggest you to use a stock ROM for a while and see what happens with it. Maybe you like it.