Protect Your Android Phone By Killing All Its Crapware 201
jfruh writes "Like Windows, Android has built a dominant market share because any hardware manufacturer can license it — and as they did with Windows, those manufacturers are loading up Android devices with their own proprietary crapware. Although the process is a bit convoluted, you can get this crapware off your phone — and in doing so you'll actually make the device more secure."
Hooray (Score:5, Insightful)
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Disable is disabled (Score:5, Informative)
On my Galaxy S3, which is loaded only with genuine Samsung crapware, disable is disabled on those apps.
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Re:Disable is disabled (Score:5, Funny)
Just like the article says, which supposedly nobody on slashdot needs to read.
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Nope. Disable is disabled. It will not let you uninstall them without rooting the phone.
Re:Disable is disabled (Score:5, Informative)
Correction. A few will let you disable them. Many will not, whether you uninstall updates or not.
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The ones you can't disable are required for the phone to work. They are kind of like drivers for specific parts of the phone like the proprietary Samsung sharing, or required for operation of the default Samsung launcher (which you can replace with one of your choice from Play).
If you want rid of all of them just install Cyanogen, but of course you lose access to Samsung specific features.
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Uninstalling updates enables "Disable" on some apps, but not others, unfortunately (on non-rooted devices). I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and can't disable the Samsung Music app
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That was the first thing I did with my phone. Also, the Verizon S3 is fully loaded with Verizon Crapware, not just the Samsung crapware.
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Buy a copy of mybackup pro or something and you can back up all your apps and data to your flash drive in advance. It doesn't seem to need root to do this.
It's a bit of a convoluted process if you allow the original image to boot before you boot to the recovery -- it'll reinstall the stock recovery without so much as a
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Having only just recently (a few days ago) flashed my phone with Cyanogenmod - it probably depends on the phone, but in the case of my Samsung Epic 4g, flashing Cyanogenmod didn't break any functionality. Or I should say, it did break autorotate out of the box, but there was a fix for it (temporarily boot into stock, run a calibration tool, reboot). I haven't seen anything else working worse; this includes the camera, which seems the same.
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My Samsung GS3 (d2tmo) works fine with Cyanogen, and I have had fewer issues than with the stock. The stock d2tmo wasn't bad, but it had all the T-Mo crap I will never use, since I am not on T-Mo service.
Camera, especially with Focal (app/beta) works great. No issues. I'm currently running CM 10.2 M1 and have a couple "odd" issues, and two random reboots, but generally am happy. I ran CM 10.1 for several months without ANY issues, and I'm sure that once CM 10.2 goes stable, it will be "stable". But it is a
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Doesn't it comes with serious caveats, like losing some of the phone's functionality? I remember last time I researched it, you'd lose camera completely or camera quality would degrade massively and some other functionality of the phone got lost upon installing cyanogenmod.
Sometimes nightly builds have this issue. Usually by the time you get to release candidates this issue is solved. My Droid 4 has been happily running Cyanogenmod for several months.
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Hmm. I was under impression that the issue was that modders had no access to some drivers, causing loss of functionality as they basically had to code a substitute that wouldn't perform as well as the original.
Good to know. I should look at it again.
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Can't you compile Android from scratch and install it on your phone?
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On my Verizon Galaxy S3 I rooted and installed BoneStock ROM. I chose this over Cyanogenmod, because it is mostly the stock ROM with lots of tweaks. Since it is basically the stock ROM, you don't lose any features and have less chance of bugs. (For example: No losing your camera.) However, it allows you to pick pretty much everything you want to install on the device and re-enables base features disabled by Verizon. (Wifi tethering for example.) I unselected most of the Verizon bloat along with many Samsung
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Same on my HTC Evo 4G LTE. Some of the Sprint crapware is also undisableable.
Worse, in my opinion, is the stupid Facebook for HTC Sense app. You can't uninstall it without rooting, and even disabling it won't let you install the stock Facebook app, which means that you perpetually have this stupid notification icon that harasses you to sync Facebook with Sense (so it can update your contacts with all your random Facebook friends).
Overprivilaged Apps Security Risk... (Score:2, Insightful)
But root your phone to remove them. Yeah, because rooting doesn't make the phone inherently more vulnerable.
Oh and it's nice that he's recommending basic Android 101 stuff (i.e. disable the app) which is presumably meant for a novice. He then recommends rooting to this same group knowing full well that these people shouldn't ever root their phone because it will cause more harm than good. Nice.
Re:Overprivilaged Apps Security Risk... (Score:5, Informative)
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I think the grand parent sees root as a risk 'cause it introduces additional level of complexity which could contain potential exploits. Superuser app is not bulletproof and may contain bugs. There is also a human factor. How many of us managed to dismiss a dialog box without actually reading them? I know I did not because I click everything, but because those thing may popup at most inconvenient time, when you want to click on something else.
To keep root or not to keep depends on users' needs. I just wan
Or buy an iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
As reviled as Apple might be by gearheads about issues like flexibility and not letting samsung et all reap all the rewards for taking none of the risks, Apple stands up to telcos and don't let them put crapware on the phone, and the stuff Apple themselves makes and puts on the phone they actually attempt to make decently. The walled garden keeps the bad people out as much as it keeps the good people in. Stuff like this generates loyalty, folks. It's not just fanboyism.
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Re:Or buy an iPhone (Score:5, Funny)
If I remove the crapware on an Apple iPhone (iOS), it won't work at all.
Let's see how many Apple fans got a sense of humour.
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Well, it did get rid of the Android crap ware all right!
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There is a major difference. Most iPhone users don't give a flying fuck about rooting or modding our damn phones. Many of us have enough in our day to day lives with work computers, personal computers, friends and family's computers that the last thing we want to do is fuck around with the computers in our pockets.
That is major difference I see between iOS users and Android users around here.
For better, and probably worse, Android is the new Microsoft Windows. iOS is still pretty much the same old Mac in
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There is a major difference. Most iPhone users don't give a flying fuck about rooting or modding our damn phones.
True
iOS is still pretty much the same old Mac in terms of user base.
Very, very false.
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And although you can't remove the stock Apple apps, some are optional like Remote (for AppleTV) and they don't do something dumb like locking the apps to a specific screen or location. I have an app folder with a bunch of seldom used Apple apps on the last app screen.
Re:Or buy an iPhone (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly you can't replace Apple apps. No replacement home screens, keyboards, browser engines (all browsers are just crippled Safari wrappers), SMS messengers, personal assistants (Siri), text to speech voices, one touch dialers, market places or anything else that Apple considers to be duplicating functionality. I want the ability to duplicate functionality with something better or more suited to my needs.
At least on Android you can always just hide the crapware away, disable it in the app manager and replace it with something from Play.
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Most of the "crapware" seems to be either replacement apps or the like from the vendor or phone company, or commonly used stuff. Ie, HTC Sense is crapware to some people but vital to others (though it's mostly subsumed since Android updated to have similar features). Or AT&T wants to tie together it's messaging and tv and other stuff, which is no better or worse than Google doing the same, or Apple doing the same, or whatever, but still easily disabled. Then there's the REAL crapware, like automatica
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I'd be OK with an iPhone much as I hate Apple and the lack of flexibility and the control they exert over a device I own.
Except...the features.
There are too many features that Android has that generally make me more productive, that iPhones lack.
Apple fanbois tend to dismiss widgets and homescreens and the ability to organize apps intelligently....but really, at just a small sampling, all those features makes me more productive, allow me to use my phone more efficiently and ultimately frees up more of my ti
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It's not flamebait, but it's quite inaccurate. You can't remove pretty much any of the Apple apps, and you can't automatically have replacement emails apps, browsers, etc work. The only difference is most of the apps you're forced to leave installed are at least decent, although almost never the best of breed.
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It boils down to personal preference. Apple's apps are decent, but if there is a feature you want (browser client certificates, gpg plugins), you are SOL. Android might have default apps which might be "meh" level, but they can be replaced. Tired of the stock keyboard? Download Swype. Tired of the stock music player? There are plenty of other players. Want a better SMS client? Plenty out there on the Play Store.
A good example is mail. With my Android phone, I like keeping my "professional" E-mail a
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It is a decent app, although the fact that it wouldn't allow one to move a document to another editor or app killed it for me. For a business with BYOD, that feature is useful (to keep work documents in one place), but for me, it didn't work out well, since I might want to stash a PDF E-mailed to me onto my local samba server without forwarding it to another account.
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It's an engineering tradeoff. You take away user's ability to change to custom keyboards and give them protection from a malicious, or even worse, well-intentioned 1 pixel high custom keyboard that effectively makes the keyboard disappear.
There's this wonderful and probably highly embellished anecdote about mac creator Jef Raskin where he had this friend that ranted and raved about how wonderful it was to be able to skin his Windows installation anyway he wanted, and challenged Raskin to prove otherwise. Ra
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Apple's apps are decent.
Maps?
It's why I stick with Nexus devices (Score:5, Informative)
Stock Android. Nothing disabled, I can tether my phone at no charge, no crapware...
Other phones may be faster, but not enough to justify the headache of crapware.
It's the same reason I stick with Asus for laptops. Well built machines with minimal crapwear that are pretty easy to open up if you need to.
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It's nerdy and ineffective, I know.
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Good Idea... Until you start to realize that pretty wel everything you do is sent directly to the Chocolate Factory 'to improve their advertising outlet' i.e. your device.
Cite?
Crapware on the website (Score:5, Funny)
Crappy Android (Score:2)
"Like Windows, Android has built a dominant market share because any hardware manufacturer can license it."
If that is the only reason that Android has for having a dominant market share, any old phone manufacturer can load it with crapware and sell it to the gullible?
Nothing like competing on merit is there.
A story about rooting a phone? On Sashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
What's next? A story about the great wonders of alternate current?
(including Edison vs Tesla flame wars, to boot)
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License like Windows? (Score:2)
Android is licensed under the Apache Software License, Version 2.0* and GNU GPL Version 2.0 (the Kernel), for everyone and for free. The license is telling you: here is the code, do what ever you like. To compare that with the restricted Windows EULA or license that you have to buy for at least 3$ per phone** is very deceptive.
* Android Open Source Project License [android.com]
** Windows Phone licensing cost revealed by ZTE: $23 – $30 [geek.com]
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Google Experience - which is now the only way to get the current releases of things like the messages app - does have a licencing fee.
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I assume you are talking about this in the summary:
I don't think the cost of the license is relative in this instance. The point the author was trying to make is that the handset manufacturers are allowed to make changes to the OS that makes their crapware uninstallable just like
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There is no android... (Score:4, Interesting)
...there is only cyanogenmod. What is this crapware you speak of?
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Live wallpapers
CM Account
Daydreams
cLock
CM Wallpapers
DSP Manager
Dev tools
Face Unlock
Photo Screensaver
Some of these programs I use daily yet to others they may be considered crapware.
I enjoy being a regular user of CM. I have it on several devices and try to foist it on other people. This post was just to answer your obviously humorous question, which didn't pass as far over my head as you may suspect.
cLock (Score:2)
cLock -- WTF? Serioysly?
I'm not arguing, but for such a small app, Clock seems to really piss people off and I've always wondered why. Is it too simple, or complicated, or invasive, or clumsy? What is it doing wrong or not doing? What's a good replacement for it?
CyanogenMod and Custom Firmware (Score:2)
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I will use the stock ROM to check that all the phone's features (camera, bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.) work. Then, the phone gets loaded with a new ROM, either CM, or if not, I'll see about a "stock" ROM sans the junk. Usually I go through a few ROMs as people get used to the device and write nifty stuff.
How about when it's not in that list? (Score:2)
crapware where? (Score:2)
Re:O'rly? No wai! (Score:5, Insightful)
Android vs IOS debate in 3.....2.......
Re:O'rly? No wai! (Score:5, Informative)
But there's still likely several you can't actually uninstall.
On my HTC phone, I can't uninstall Facebook, but I can disable it. On my Google Nexus, I've had Google re-enable some apps I've specifically disabled because I don't want them.
They all try to put their crapware on the devices, and can make it awfully difficult to remove or disable them. Because they like to pretend they still own the devices, and they figure their desire to monetize your device outweighs your desire to lock it down.
I specifically went with the Google branded Nexus so I wouldn't have to worry about the crap from a 3rd party, but that doesn't mean Google has made it any easier to strip out the shit you don't want -- I disabled the YouTube app altogether when the first time I launched it to look at it Google automatically signed me up for an account without asking.
Welcome to the exciting future, where you don't own the stuff you buy, and the company who made it has embedded everything possible to give them access to your information.
Re: O'rly? No wai! (Score:4, Interesting)
My Android phone is a pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile phone. No contract and I pick up a $35 card at the drugstore each month for unlimited data and 200 min voice. I had to give google one of my gmail addresses and some payment info to get set up with their app store, but little else. I specifically browse the web only with Firefox and never sign into any google property with it. Google keeps trying to encourage more Google+ connectivity, and lately every time I acquire something at the Play Store a dialogue pops up with them wanting my cell number for some form of SMS password recovery. The popup has my number all entered in it and it's an OK button click away from them having it. So their software already has the number, and I'm presumably just acknowledging that fact if I click OK.
The privacy issues with Android, since we've all dialed into the googleplex to have a Play Store account, deserve some thought.
Re: O'rly? No wai! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: O'rly? No wai! (Score:5, Interesting)
getting rid of an adwords account is even harder.
1. Get a throwaway email address from gmail (or anywhere).
2. Log into your personal account.
3. Send invitation to the new email address.
4. Log out completely from all Google properties.
5. Click on the link in the email (the new address)
6. Select "I already have an account" and continue.
7. This adds the new address to your account.
8. Log out
9. Log back in with the old address.
10. Confirm the addition and promote new user to admin
11. Log out completely.
12. Log in with the new address.
13. Remove your old address from the account
14. Log out completely
15. Proceed to accept invitation to the new account. (Select "I already have an account")
WFT!
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WFT!
WTF is that acronym?
Re: O'rly? No wai! (Score:5, Interesting)
+10 agree. Google are the NSA in disguise. The internet was built on anonymity and we're going to have to fight to keep it that way.
Maybe we should all start using "Luther Blisset" [lutherblissett.net] as our "Real Name" on anything that ask for one ?
Hell let's all actually change our names to Luther Blisset :)
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My android phone, I never get nuisances like that. My ipad is actually worse. It keeps asking me to sign in with gamecenter.
Not to say that google is superior, just that online services you
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So, tell it you were born in Auckland New Zealand, went to school at a Yeshiva in Morocco Spain, and currently live in Dublin Ohio and work at Starbucks.
Pollute their data. That was the only way I got them to stop asking (not with that particular combination, but run wild, have fun with it).
If they're so obsessed with having you fill in something, lie to them. What Facebook wants out of the deal isn't my concern.
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Missing Crapware on Android Tablet - Outlook Sync (Score:2)
I've got an older HTC Android phone with lots of crapware, and a Coby Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with almost none. The HTC phone includes one really important feature that's not included in the extremely vanilla Coby, which is syncing the calendar and contacts with MS Outlook over USB. There are some non-free apps that claim to be able to sync the calendar (haven't tried them), and a couple of freewares (one couldn't connect successfully; the other is a "limited to 20 events" demo that worked very
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Too bad only iPhones and Android phones exists.
If only there was other smart phones available...
PS: I heard that Blackberry phones let you remove almost anything you don't want and you can run android apps.
Re:O'rly? No wai! (Score:4, Insightful)
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I know. It's not "Kewl".
Your friends might laugh at you.
If you don't like the options then your current situation isn't that bad if you are not willing to vote with your wallet or feet.
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They have at least 3-4 years to go before you need to worry about that.
Subsidized phone contract last 2 years or so you'll be fine.
You should go back to whining about how bad your iPhone/Android is since nothing else is good enough.
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Why yes, I should run right out and buy a phone from a company I expect to be dead within the year.
Sorry, but I bought my wife a BB PlayBook ... and in my opinion it's a Steaming Heap of Innovative Technology (SHIT). It, in theory, ran Android apps -- in practice, well, it didn't. And then they stopped providing updates.
I have no interest whatsoever in the crap BlackBerry is selling.
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Yep, you have to root for this.
The fault is not android or HTC, this is exclusively and explicitly the fault of the carriers.
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If Apple was able to say "No" to the carriers when the carriers wanted to put their branding on their phone and install crapware, why can't Android manufacturers?
That's like blaming the carriers for not updating phones to the latest OS.
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But there's still likely several you can't actually uninstall. On my HTC phone, I can't uninstall Facebook, but I can disable it. On my Google Nexus, I've had Google re-enable some apps I've specifically disabled because I don't want them.
If you have root access you can just remove any apks you don't like from /system/app and they're gone for good. You can always get root if you buy the Nexus phones or the so-called "developer" phones. If you can't have root access because the your device is locked down from the bootloader (and no one has yet published an expliot to unlock it), then that essentially means you don't "own" the hardware.
They all try to put their crapware on the devices, and can make it awfully difficult to remove or disable them. Because they like to pretend they still own the devices, and they figure their desire to monetize your device outweighs your desire to lock it down.
Well, to be fair, they feel that way because they sold you a $600 phone for $200. So it's not really that ou
Re:O'rly? No wai! (Score:4, Interesting)
This really is one of the better reasons to get an iphone. Apple fought the carriers HARD to get their nickle-and-dime shitware off the iphone, and as a result only ATT was willing to pick up the iphone at first.
Who do none of you fandroids remember the bad old days of carrier phones where built-in features were turned off, replaced by carrier specific crapware and sold back to you at a subscription-only premium? Want music? Maps? Ringtones? Games? Share photos? That will cost you. Each time. And you have to pay a monthly fee just for the privilege of giving us more money each time.
I just got the 5c and it was effortless. (Previously had a 4)Turn on phone, choose restore, punch in icloud credentials Done. All apps, music, photos, settings, accounts all migrate back over. Easy. Done. Nothing I didn't want. (The fingerprint unlock isn't a gimmick by the way. Its fucking amazing. It's literally faster to unlock the phone than punching in a code, and you can easily and consitantly unlock the phone without looking at it)
My co-worker got a galaxy S4 at the same time. Nice looking, huge screen, great display. Loaded to the brim with throw-away features that half work, samsung's really awful attempt at copying icloud, and a full page of ATT shitware that actually makes the phone objectively and subjectively worse. She's still trying to get all of her stuff moved over. - The google services, though, migrated perfectly. Google has their shit down, but they lack the clout to tell carriers to go fuck themselves like apple can.
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The news is that the MSM realizes it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:IT==Moron (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why anytime someone says IT (as opposed to CS or engineering), I think moron.
How funny - I get the same impression from people who think IT, CS, and engineering are interchangeable terms.
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I know it is unpopular 'round these parts, but SSDs are still referred to as "hard disks" among the unwashed masses. I don't even mind, because it's preferable to the days where you had to teach people that there were different kinds of memory.
A better point might be: how the heck did this article get posted to Slashdot? Aren't we more of a custom ROM (also a misnomer) crowd than a "disable apps" crowd?
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What else would you call an SSD? It's not an optical disc, USB drive, or floppy.
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Flash drive?
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I think in the vernacular, 'flash drive' is already a synonym for 'USB drive' or 'thumb drive.'
Of course, not all drives connected over USB are thumb-sized, either...
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If you want to be really nerdy, I think you'd just say "persistent storage". But I'm cool with "hard drive".
By the way, remember how Palm kept everything in memory all the time, which is how they had such great performance on such spartan hardware? I think there might be some room for that on smartphones, which would further blur the line.
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Well, like I said, I'm comfortable saying "hard drive" because it lets me communicate adequately. I don't complain when people say to "dial" a phone number, either.
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Or you can just flash GApps into it like a normal person. :p
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http://www.cyanogenmod.org/ [cyanogenmod.org]
http://replicant.us/ [replicant.us]
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"Android" hasn't, any more than "Windows" has. It's up to the individual retailer (of the phone or of the PC). My first phone had hardly any crapware; my second phone was chock full of it. Oddly enough, both phones were from Samsung, just different phones.
And it's not to prove anything in either case - it's completely to make them money by bundling crap you don't want. The only difference is, you can remove it off your PC generally just by uninstalling it the normal way - while you probably need to root you