Samsung is Spamming Galaxy Phones With Multiple Note10 Ads (androidpolice.com) 72
An anonymous reader shares a report: In case you were living under a rock this past week, it was hard to miss Samsung's big reveal for the Galaxy Note10. It was all over social media, news sites, televisions, and... notification trays. That's right, Samsung is once again spamming Galaxy phones with advertisements, this time for the Note10. This time around, push notifications advertising the Note10 are being sent out by at least three pre-installed applications -- Samsung Pay, Bixby, and the Samsung Push Service. Bixby wants you to ask it about the Note10, Samsung Pay is offering points when you look at the phone's product page, and Samsung Push Service just gives you a banner ad with no indication of where it came from. I received the Bixby ad on my international Galaxy S10e, but I haven't personally seen the others. To make matters even worse, Samsung has blocked disabling these alerts by holding down on them, at least for the Bixby app (again, I can't verify the other types of alerts). To disable the Bixby notifications, you have to open Bixby, tap the menu icon at the top-right, select Settings, and set 'Marketing notifications' to off.
But on slashot we suppse to hate Apple. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know Apple is the big company, and many of its fans are raving lunatics, and Apples Products are on the high end of price, and doesn't have the customization we want...
However it seems to be a trend with Samsung and other Android phone makers to be just as bad as Apple and then add additional problems to the list. At least with Apple Devices, for nearly the same price as Samsung, we get better security, and less pushes to try to keep the Apple fan inline.
Re:But on slashot we suppse to hate Apple. (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot hates everyone. Literally no company can do right by them, even when the company does a thing Slashdot complained they weren't doing.
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That's not true. I'm quite happy with my Xiaomi Mi Max 3.
For the price that cost, I really don't find much to gripe about... and I'm REALLY good at griping.
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Bastards are doing their best to suppress your natural abilities.
How dare they?
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I was worried that Moto would go to heck when they were bought out by Lenovo, but so far I'm quite pleased with Lenovorola.
I don't hate everything, I don't even hate everything that sucks. I hate everything that tries to screw you around. Just be honest and let me make an intelligent purchasing decision.
Re:But on slashot we suppse to hate Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
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You choose where you want to get screwed. Apple will charge you five times what the hardware is worth and then treat you pretty well the rest of the way. They'll even take you out for a walk if you bring your leash to them. Android usually has enough choices that with a great deal of research, you can find a fixably terrible phone that will last for two years before having to do the research all over again..
My current experience is that LG is the least worst Android manufacturer. Headphone jack, expandable
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That must mean that Samsung is charging about SEVEN times what the hardware is worth; since they manufacture most of the high-cost components of their Smartphones themselves (displays, CPUs (outside the US), Flash and RAM), and yet charge as much, and sometimes more ($1299 Note 10+ 5G, anyone?) for their essentially feature and performance-equivalent (to high-end iPhones) models.
Why would manufacturing the components themselves mean the total cost would be lower? Perhaps they would see more cost savings if they outsourced the manufacturing. Considering Apple makes far more profit on their phones than Samsung does, I have a hard time believing Samsung is inflating their prices more. I know there are plenty of other factors, but the parts in high end Samsung and Apple smart phones are very comparable and their prices are nearly identical, so my guess is their profit margin on high en
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At least with Apple Devices, for nearly the same price as Samsung
Samsung phones are not at all the same price. If you look at the MSRP, sure they are in the same ballpark, with Samsung being just a bit cheaper. If you look at the "street price" however, the story is completely different. With Apple, there listed price is the price you are going to pay, with Samsung, if you can wait a couple of weeks and do your research, it is not hard to find it for ~30% less, new and under warranty.
Also, the value of Samsung phones depreciate much faster, which can be a good or a bad t
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With Apple, you have no choice in controlling your hardware. At least with an Android device, you could root and/or install a custom ROM.
That said, I'll never buy a Samsung product after reading about this unscrupulous, anti-user behaviour.
under a rock? (Score:1)
Some of us don't give a shit about whatever Samsung does with phones. No, I didn't see any of their ads because they're just noise to me, same as ads for golf clubs or sump pumps.
maybe you're the one under a rock, news of a new toy from your favorite toymaker makes you happy.
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I've literally heard nothing about the Note 10 anywhere but Slashdot. I use a Galaxy S8, I use Samsung Pay, but I have Bixby completely disabled and the marketing stuff disabled in the Samsung Account settings. My sister-in-law sells phones, and I haven't even heard about it from her.
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Samsung Pay - heard of it, never used it. Never even considered learning how or why to set it up. I leave the phone at home much more often than I leave my wallet at home.
The others - ne
Talk about desperate (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, how desperate can you be to peddle something? If anything, that flood of ads tells me that I should better not buy that junk because if it requires THAT kind of advertising to sell, it cannot be a good product.
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I imagine they are all getting pretty desperate somewhat. Android users don't tend to be as fanatic as Apple fans about manufacturers. Android users tend to be more fanatics about android than hardware. This is not a jab at apple users or android users, just an observation.
Without the brand loyalty that Apple has android makers have to use all kinds of gimmicks to keep their phones in the limelight. My rule is my phone isn't a platform for your advertisements. So if Samsung wants to spam my phone
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Samsung have ZERO respect for Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Specifically... if you watch a Bluray movie on a 9th Gen OLED Samsung TV and you have the Samsung "TV Plus" applet installed, you will see that it will start to offer up references to let you watch a streaming copy of something you've just watched via physical media. The ONLY way it can do this is if the TV has been configured to capture details of new movies being watched via connected hardware and send that data to Samsung for onward use.
Samsung have ZERO respect for user/owner privacy.
B45t4rd5...
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Recently, Samsung's 9th generation OLED TV's have been getting "Smart" with content, too...
Specifically... if you watch a Bluray movie on a 9th Gen OLED Samsung TV and you have the Samsung "TV Plus" applet installed, you will see that it will start to offer up references to let you watch a streaming copy of something you've just watched via physical media. The ONLY way it can do this is if the TV has been configured to capture details of new movies being watched via connected hardware and send that data to Samsung for onward use.
Samsung have ZERO respect for user/owner privacy.
Small problem with your complaint..
Samsung doesn't make OLED TVs
Re:Samsung have ZERO respect for PROPERTY (Score:3)
I once owned several generations of Samsung android phones. The last one being the Galaxy S5.
For a long time I really liked my S5. I didn't like all the crapware pre-installed. But I could live with it. At first.
Over time, this got worse. Updates got bigger. Available space got smaller. Toward the end of the phone's life, it got so bad that I could no longer do an OS update. I uninstalled all the apps I was willing to uninstall. But no
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I'm done with Samsung (Score:5, Insightful)
I've bounced between Motorola, LG, and Samsung for my Android phones. The ever-present and can't-disable Bixby pisses me off. This is the last straw. I'm cool with a curated or "enhanced" experience, but I should be able to easily opt-out of this bull feces. I jumped through hoops to disable Bixby (which required me signing up for Bixby first!), and am using Nova Launcher as the 'desktop' experience. But when Android Pie came along they re-enabled that stupid button on the side. I read just recently (on Slashdot!) that I can re-map the Bixby button, but honestly, at this point I'm just waiting until I "accidentally" drop the phone in the sink.
Enough of this crap Samsung. You have great hardware, but the rest of it has just pissed me off. If I'm surrendering all my data to Google anyway, might as well go for a Pixel.
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Re:I'm done with Samsung (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly I really don't even want a phone anymore unless it can run LineageOS. I'm done with everything else.
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Holy cow! I guess I'm seriously out of the loop. I cried inside when CyanogenMod was dropped - I didn't know there was a direct linage replacement! You have made this code monkey very happy!
*Googles supported devices & starts building a spreadsheet*
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Well, there goes my good deed for the day :D.
If your phone of choice is treble compatible, you'll find generic versions with a good chance of working. In those cases, it's just a bit of a gamble, of course.
I have a Xiaomi Mi Max 3. It doesn't have actual LineageOS support, but the Havoc OS generic ROM (Havoc is a slightly tweaked LineageOS) works very well.
The only strange thing is that when it's auto dimming, there's a short strobe effect. Looks weird but hasn't been a problem so far.
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I had a Nexus 4 [LG E960] and the digitizer failed. It was a decent phone before that, but it just confirmed that I don't like LG stuff. All the LG hardware I've ever had has failed.
I had a Moto E2 and it was pretty decent. The display popped out partway, but it kept working. It still works. I still have it. Maybe someday I'll even fix the adhesive problem.
Now I have a Moto X4, and I'm really very happy. I'll be even happier if I actually do get Android Q when that comes out. We'll see.
Out of curiosity, why
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The glass on my Moto G6 simply broke while sitting in my cupholder while being used as an MP3 player to my in-car stereo. Car wasn't even in motion, just sitting in the lot getting a wash.
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You were cupholding it wrong ;)
I presume it was out of warranty at the time.
Killswitched all three apps (Score:5, Informative)
Bixby got flushed and disabled as far as I could do in services, Told Pay to go peddle on the corner with the rest of the rabble, And Push got muted and isolated from all the other apps, it's powerless now. I've yet to get a single push ad regarding 10 or anything else since I did all that.
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Came here to post this.
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I was very frustrated to learn that I could only turn off Bixby by first setting up a Samsung account. I want to root my phone for the sole purpose of uninstalling it. I've installed NetGuard (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.netguard/) which acts as a VPN, and can block network access on a per-app basis to block the Samsung apps that I can't disable.
I would switch to Pixel for my next phone, but my phone is provided by my employer, and they don't offer non-Samsung Android options right now. (
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I just replaced my Galaxy S7 (broke the screen) with a ebayed- S9. The first day I literally spent getting the UI the way I wanted it, and disabling almost every samsung app on the phone. I did discover that you can't really remap the bixby key, but it's no great loss.
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just kind of .. telling that you'd need to go through all that trouble to avoid being nagged.
The next time my ancient iPhone 5s nags me about upgrading to yet another version iOS (which i refuse to install; fuck off apple.) , I'll bear your post in mind -- it could be so, so much worse.
Disable Marketing until the next update (Score:2)
It's opt in (Score:5, Insightful)
I just got a Samsung Phone a few months ago, and they ask during setup if you want to receive promotional messages. To turn it off, just login to account.samsung.com, and under your account settings, turn off "marketing information" under the privacy section.
I used to get these messages once in a while on my previous Samsung phone until I figured out how to disable them.
Re:It's opt in (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bump.
Disable notifications...permanently (Score:3)
Ditch samsung. Apple isn't a bad choice, it's not my cup of tea, but you can hardly go wrong with a pixel.
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In both cases:
1. No preinstalled bloatware. Just very basic apps.
2. I'm first in line for updates. Typically a security update every month, or less more recently.
3. I get the new Android OS upgrades. (Not that I'm always happy about it.)
While I'm sure a Google phone spies on everything I do, I don't seem to overtly notice it. I don't get spammed in the face with new phones, when my current phone is still in excellent condition.
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Add me to the list of happy Pixel users. I came from an iPhone 6S to a Pixel 3XL at the beginning of the year. Having always used crummy bottom end Android devices that were assigned to me by my job, I was extremely dubious, but my wife upgraded from her iPhone to a Razer Phone 2 at the end of last year, and I was extremely impressed.
Not needing all the pre-loaded stuff Razer puts on, (actually not complaining, it's better than basically every other vendor's crapware, and relevant to my wife's needs/wants,)
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Motorola catches a lot of crap, but my Moto G second gen and my Moto G5s Plus were both reasonably good budget phones with very minimal bloatware. Both of them worked fine but were eventually retired due to the adhesive that holds the screens in coming loose and th
TL;DR (Score:2)
summary is -
I gave Samsung permission to send me marketing notifications and now they're sending me marketing notifications about their new device
No (Score:3)
No. Summary is "Samsung opted me in to receive their marketing crap and made it difficult to opt out."
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I'm too busy enjoying on topic posting and seeing the few trolls left getting modded to oblivion. AC posting worked years ago when AC posts server a purpose other than APK and the like poisoning the well and undermining the moderating system. I've been advocating for this for a few years now.
As to the topic at hand, I hate Samsung's custom crapeare. The hardware is okay (though I'll take a pixel device over any of the branded android hardware) but I find their take on Android to be just awful.
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As I frequently get mod points (not being a 4chan troll or other kind of deluded racist maniac), I do try to read at -1 and 0. And really, if I avoided all the 0s, there have been cases of bad moderation and in the distant past ACs worth reading.
I do see you're on your way down. Pity that.
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Especially when ACs are a serious load on the electrical grid.
lost me at the headphone jack (Score:2)
I'm in the market a d since are so ridiculously large now anyway, I was waiting to see the note 10. No headphone jack. I'm not trading in my assortment of quality headsets for Bluetooth and I'm not interested in buying dongles in bulk.
SO glad a dumped my Samsung... (Score:2)
Razer Phone 2 is on firesale so I picked it up to replace my S7, so glad I got rid of the Samsung...
Samsung psychology (Score:2)
Samsung aren't capable of thinking differently and are indifferent to customer feedback. It's their culture and can never be different.
Too bad there are no serious Linux phones.
Spamming? I got a total of one on my Note 5 (Score:2)
It was just a notice like any other I get from other apps. I'm not replacing my note 5 anytime soon so I deleted it and went on with my day. I don't get what the big deal is.
Par for the course for Samsung (Score:2)
Sonys Ads (Score:1)
Expect More of This! (Score:1)
With profit margins dropping on electronics in general, manufacturers are finding new ways to squeeze alternative value from their products. This became very clear with the advent of Amazon's adware-bundled Kindles. Eventually we'll get to the point where lower-end companies will be selling their products at or near manufacturing cost... in return for ad revenue, mandatory user data collection, and paid subscriptions for advanced functionality.
Samsung must think I'm unqualified... (Score:1)
You *can* uninstall whatever you want without root (Score:5, Informative)
After a system update re-enable Bixby, including the Bixby button, I got fed up enough with Samsung insisting it knew what apps I wanted to research how to get rid of the stuff. I found this handy guide that allows you to remove stuff without having to root your phone. Instead it uses a CLI from your PC with the phone connected via USB.
https://piunikaweb.com/2019/03... [piunikaweb.com]
Philips does this on Smart-TV's as well. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is becoming an increasing and worrying trend, they do anything and everything to reach out to us and break our privacy, at any cost. ....
You know, I expect that the TV is MINE when I purchase a brand new 700$ flat screen tv. But no, the companies have other ideas. The minute I accessed my smart TV youtube functionality, I have to sit through a television ad for the latest Philips TV (hey buyer, the tv you just bought is SO last generation, here's an ad for the new one), and guess what, we'll show it to you tomorrow, and the day after, and the next day
I'm gonna hack my tv! Thanks for this, enough is enough.
That's nothing... (Score:3)
Can't join in the fun (Score:2)
"This time around, push notifications advertising the Note10 are being sent out by at least three pre-installed applications -- Samsung Pay, Bixby, and the Samsung Push Service."
Sadly I have none of those 'services' on my Samsung phone so I can't join in the yummy, ad-infested goodness.
And if they ever DID push an ad to me to buy a phone, I would absolutely positively cross that phone off my list.
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Not on my Samsung S9 (Score:2)
I hated Bixby so much, and was so annoyed by the fact that the only way to turn it off is to log in to it, which is the reason I didn't want it in the first place, that I installed LineageOs on it days after I got it.
There are many upsides to this (such as: I can use the "bixby button" to start the camera, and more importantly, not start Bixby), but one of them is that I did not get any notification about the Galaxy 10 in any way or form.
hardware is nice (Score:2)
the samsung hardware is nice, but their android implementation is beyond horrible.
only buy a samsung phone/tablet if you are intending to install a custom rom on it, otherwise don't bother and just buy yourself one of the Android One phones.
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and did they also get rid of all those pre-installed apps nobody wants or uses and are impossible to remove?