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Android Cellphones Operating Systems

Bloatware Pushes the Galaxy S23 Android OS To an Incredible 60GB (arstechnica.com) 92

Posted by BeauHD from the red-flags dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As a smartphone operating system, Android strives to be a lightweight OS so it can run on a variety of hardware. The first version of the OS had to squeeze into the T-Mobile G1, with only a measly 256MB of internal storage for Android and all your apps, and ever since then, the idea has been to use as few resources as possible. Unless you have the latest Samsung phone, where Android somehow takes up an incredible 60GB of storage. Yes, the Galaxy S23 is slowly trickling out to the masses, and, as Esper's senior technical editor Mishaal Rahman highlights in a storage space survey, Samsung's new phone is way out of line with most of the ecosystem. Several users report the phone uses around 60GB for the system partition right out of the box. If you have a 128GB phone, that's nearly half your storage for the Android OS and packed-in apps. That's four times the size of the normal Pixel 7 Pro system partition, which is 15GB. It's the size of two Windows 11 installs, side by side. What could Samsung possibly be putting in there?!

We can take a few guesses as to why things are so big. First, Samsung is notorious for having a shoddy software division that pumps out low-quality code. The company tends to change everything in Android just for change's sake, and it's hard to imagine those changes are very good. Second, Samsung may want to give the appearance of having its own non-Google ecosystem, and to do that, it clones every Google app that comes with its devices. Samsung is contractually obligated to include the Google apps, so you get both the Google and Samsung versions. That means two app stores, two browsers, two voice assistants, two text messaging apps, two keyboard apps, and on and on. These all get added to the system partition and often aren't removable.

Unlike the clean OSes you'd get from Google or Apple, Samsung sells space in its devices to the highest bidder via pre-installed crapware. A company like Facebook will buy a spot on Samsung's system partition, where it can get more intrusive system permissions that aren't granted to app store apps, letting it more effectively spy on users. You'll also usually find Netflix, Microsoft Office, Spotify, Linkedin, and who knows what else. Another round of crapware will also be included if you buy a phone from a carrier, i.e., all the Verizon apps and whatever space they want to sell to third parties. The average amount users are reporting is 60GB, but crapware deals change across carriers and countries, so it will be different for everyone.
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Bloatware Pushes the Galaxy S23 Android OS To an Incredible 60GB More

Bloatware Pushes the Galaxy S23 Android OS To an Incredible 60GB

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  • It's a zip file (apk) with some Java bytecode in it. It compresses really well. Now the assets, where you include a pixel perfect PNG for every resolution device you make, takes a massive amount of spcae and does not compress well. Using scalable graphics or lossy compression would help. Running optimization to discard assets during install that will never be used is another.

  • Sounds like the earlier Android days when I owned one. After a few apps the 16gb phone would be nearly filled. You could move some apps to the SD card but some wouldn't give you that option. Eventually I rooted the phone and deleted some things manually to regain some space.

  • Please! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Monday February 06, 2023 @07:41PM (#63270877)

    Bloat is the sole reason I left Samsung. Let me permanently remove all that trash, and I'll think about returning. Until then I'm sticking with the Pixel.

    • Re:Please! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @12:26AM (#63271397) Homepage

      Try Motorola Moto G. Very little bloatware, as close to stock Android as it gets. And the phones are only about $200 unlocked.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by cdmn1 ( 9615524 )
        That was my path, I was using a work Samsung J7, it had nice hardware but was completely unusable due to bloatware, after a clean install with all updates applied there was less than 1GB of free space left, mopst stuff could not be removed or auto-updated without permission. Been happy since moving to a motorola
        • All of the Samsung Galaxy store, the Google play store, and os updates have options to disable auto updates, so not sure where you're getting this "without permission". To wit, my s10 has both of those turned off and nothing has ever updated itself without permission

    • Until then I'm sticking with the Pixel.

      Can you remove all the trash from the Pixel?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by tbords ( 9006337 )

        Until then I'm sticking with the Pixel.

        Can you remove all the trash from the Pixel?

        What's your definition of trash and how much work are you willing to put into it? Can't answer your question without specifics

    • Bloat is the reason I'm looking at other Android phones. From what I've read online, specs and reviews, it looks like the Pixel 7 Pro is a decent choice.

  • This is half the reason why I dumped them for another Android provider. That and their interface was utter garbage.

  • Samsung is contractually obligated to include the Google apps, so you get both the Google and Samsung versions. That means two app stores, two browsers, two voice assistants, two text messaging apps, two keyboard apps, and on and on.

    I've found that's generally a good thing. They both suck in different ways such that it's nice to have a back-up app when one can't do the job, and you don't have time to shop for a 3rd party one.

  • I stopped using Samsung devices when they stopped supporting more than 2 version of Android past the release one on their devices. I don't need to throw away a phone every 2 years or so.

    • My Note9 was supported between 2018 and July 2022.

    • My last/only Samsung (a S3 mini) was obsolete within 6 months of being purchased (a couple of months after it was released), so never going there again...

      It did soldier on for a while thanks to Cyanogenmod et al, but even they gave up on it after a couple of years (probably should never have bought it to be honest)

    • Why did you throw it away? Did it stop working?

  • Samsung (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Monday February 06, 2023 @08:03PM (#63270961)

    First a disclaimer: This A52 5G on my desk is my first Samsung phone (about 1.5 years ago and going strong), after using lots of models from all kinds of companies- Google, Motorola, HTC, etc, etc. It is, by far, the best phone I have ever had, in every respect, and isn't even expensive. It is packed with features, had the headset jack I want, great cameras, FANTASTIC OLED screen with almost zero wasted space, in-screen fingerprint sensor, SD card slot, great battery life, physical controls on the side, and is fast and updated regularly. Third major OS upgrade and still hasn't fallen apart (like every other phone has). I couldn't be more pleased.

    Yes, it is true Samsung includes their "version" of lots of the Android apps. But they are also often *BETTER*, like their Email app- which just works and doesn't force me to use Google's infrastructure. Or their great media player or file browser. And I don't mind having these alternative apps. I *like* choice.

    I don't even mind pre-installed non-Samsung software. But what I *DO* hate is that these should be REMOVABLE, and not installed on the system partition. Yes, I can "disable" most of them, but not uninstall them, and they do rob space. So yeah, Samsung, you are doing a lot of really good stuff, but this is a very legit complaint.

    • Re:Samsung (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Monday February 06, 2023 @08:40PM (#63271017)

      If you liked choice, you'd just download one of the countless mail apps on play store, or get one from github like I do. Same for media player and file browser, and everything else. For example, I use self updating fairemail straight from github repository, and VLC and total commander from play store.

      What you like is having shit shoveled down your throat and asking for seconds. Because as you correctly note samsung crap cannot be uninstalled. You're stuck with it regardless if you like it or not. And best part is, shit like Bixby is always running in the background. So it's not just the storage space. It's RAM and CPU cycles. It's battery drainage. And of course, spying on you.

      Oh and "disabling them totally disables them". Oh you sweet summer child. Run an OS update and then check again. Almost every time, they're all re-enabled.

      Heck, in case of many of them, just restarting the headset will re-enable them.

      But it's telling that basic flagship features are all "omg amazing, surely no one else has them" for you.

      • >"If you liked choice, you'd just download one of the countless mail apps on play store, or [...] What you like is having shit shoveled down your throat and asking for seconds "

        My point was that the article implies the Samsung apps are crap, and many of them are not. The world is not ending because Samsung phones have a suite of Samsung apps and services installed and non-removable and non-disableable.

        >"shit like Bixby is always running in the background"

        I have no interest in Bixby, it does consume a

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by cdmn1 ( 9615524 )
          To be fair most is crap bloatware but 2 or 3 are (or were) actually OK Samsung Gallery was far superior to the native google (Photos) counterpart but google has since caught up. Samsung Calendar still has a superior UI compared to google's terrible pastel colored scheme calendar. Still for all of these they can be replaced with far superior IMO apps found in F-Droid Samsung Internet (their browser) also worked nice and had a dark theme implementation early on but eventually Chrome also caught up One nice

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Pretty much every major phone manufacturer has a variant of "gaming mode" nowadays with various levels of features, and I'm pretty sure google calendar has followed system theme for a very long time on android.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by slaker ( 53818 )

            May I ask a sincere question? What did Gallery do better than Google Photos in the history of ever?

            Google Photos has pretty much always had amazing face, context and object recognition and it has always operated concurrently with photos.google.com on the web.

            Samsung Gallery syncs to OneDrive, which AFAIK doesn't have any sort of photo-specific search nor useful web interface for images. I think it exists primarily to hinder people from switching off Samsung devices; those who never bothered to open Google P

      • It's weird, I run a128gb s10 and with all the bloat as you call it, i still don't notice anything problematic. Yes, there's office, Spotify, and a handful of other apps that i disabled... and you know what? They only take up 1 or 2 gb. 4 if you factor in the stuff viv actually use or install myself from samsung. 2 of 128gb is not much. An inconvenience to be certain, but a barely noticeable one for me

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          It's called "being used to it". Many people living next to a landfill don't notice horrible smells after a while. You adapt to things in your environment that you cannot help.

          Heck, you don't need to go that far. Put on cracked glasses and wear them for a month. You'll stop noticing the crack. Same phenomenon.

      • First, find an mainstream commercial OS that isn't spying on you. I'll wait. Oh, you can't find one? That's so sad. At least in android, you can root or install custom oses. Also, you competely fail to understand Android's power management if you think disabled bloat is actually taking up battery

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          First, the fact that you're unable to see anything other than black and white in this is telling. Second, you clearly didn't even read the rest of my point, and focus on a single red herring that was merely a small part of the point, pretending really hard that this is was the point in its entirety.

          When you have something that is bad, but it's such an integral part of your identity that to admit that it's bad would cause you pain. So you instead cope and pretend really hard that it's good instead, usually b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      And I don't mind having these alternative apps. I *like* choice

      wait ... your samsung doesn't have an app marketplace? look again, it's probably called "google play" and that's where abundant choice is to be found for every android phone (plus you can also sideload, e.g. f-droid has some nifty little pearls).

      if samsung explicitly doesn't want you to get that choice from the proper source that can never be a good sign. either they don't really trust their apps are good enough for you (or any of the billion android users for that matter) to even bother fetching them ... o

  • I'm running a Samsung phone, but with Murena's /e/OS on it instead of the stock image. The core OS is 8GB, plus I've got 6GB of apps on it, for a total of 14GB of my storage consumed. Can't imagine how much crap would need to be installed to take up 60GB of space. The app screen on the stock image must be crowded.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sremick ( 91371 )

      I'd love to, but Samsung started locking all the bootloaders. I got around it with my S7 by buying the Canadian version off eBay since that one still had an unlocked bootloader and would work fine with AT&T. But my S10e is my first Android phone (all of which were Samsung) that I haven't rooted and installed a clean, custom ROM on.

      I'm not even sure there are any custom ROMs that'd work on an S10e, judging from my last peek at XDA.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by c-A-d ( 77980 )

        I have the same problem with the S10e. And what's worse, there are different S10e models. One is supported, the rest are not (inluding the U1 model I have).

  • > crapware deals change across carriers and countries, so it will be different for everyone.

    This means updates are even harder to get because they come in {Model} x {Country}, with so many models and countries your particular combination might be out of luck.

  • I see no reason to buy any Android phone full of useless bloatware when you can get perfectly fine vanilla Android phones. Why is anyone buying this Samsung trash?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slaker ( 53818 )

      On the high end, Samsung S series phones usually have the best screens you'll likely find on a phone, being both very bright and high resolution. Samsung phones with Snapdragon rather than its in-house Exynos SoCs also tend to be near the top of the pack for performance within a given generation.

      Until a couple years ago, Samsung was still including both SD card and headphone jacks on their phones, and they were also offering large amounts of RAM as well (the S22+ and S23+ top out at 8GB RAM rather than the

  • Only time will tell if this new piece of something useless has this #GSOD feature [youtube.com]
    But "the size of two Windows 11 installs" ??? M$ has this fat OS problem of its own already. And @Samsung @SamsungMobile managed to double that ??? Wow, impressive.

  • It is good that these kinds of tactics are revealed to the public because it's rare that you read that in regular reviews. Not that Samsung was high on my what-to-buy list anyway because they are also very bad at letting apps run in the first place [dontkillmyapp.com].

  • Out of the box you will get:

    1. A bunch of services running in the background tied to Samsung's app store, cloud etc. Stuff that nobody asked for and nobody ever uses. Just clones of Google stuff but shittier in every way. It's just there, doing... something. At the very least it's bloatware, eating up firmware, CPU & battery. Only some of it can be disabled.
    2. The usual 3rd party crapware that Samsung puts on devices without people wanting or needing - Microsoft apps, Facebook etc. Even if these apps are disa
    • Ironsource is only added to markets that have extreme difficulty affording even basic smartphones in an effort to bring the price down. You don't like it? Buy one that doesn't have it. Or just untick the option for it to install and never agree to its eula. Inconvenience? Sure, but those people are getting more hardware / paying less than you would otherwise.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )

        No it isn't. This shit is appearing on phones in Europe. Not subsidized phones, but actually full price contract free phones. And how exactly are people to know that a phone does or does not contain malware, especially when it comes from a supposedly reputable firm like Samsung? The answer is they don't and shouldn't have to. This crap uses dark patterns to insinuate its way onto phones and is an inexcusable betrayal of consumer trust.

        I'd add that this is a pattern that Samsung is repeating across other pro

        • Again, simply don't agree to the terms and conditions. It's up front, and asks you if you want to use the service BEFORE it does so. None of this is behind the users back - it even mentions "ironSource" so you can google it and make an informed decision, unlike Apple. https://www.business-standard.... [business-standard.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DrXym ( 126579 )

            No, it's not "up front". It's indefensible that anyone would anyone justify this garbage yet here you are...

        • Additionally, you neglect to mention that it's only the budget phones - the A and M series devices (and yes, I misspoke earlier about low budget regions). If you don't want IronSource, simply buy the S series. Don't want to pay so much for the? Then why are you complaining about ironSource keeping the cost of the phone down, especially when it ASKS you to turn it on? https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DrXym ( 126579 )

            This is a stupid argument. People don't buy a phone in the understanding it is laden with shit. That's just you justifying a terrible sleazy practice that Samsung is doing to its own customers.

    • Wow, the IronSource thing is very scummy. It's something that I'd expect from no-name Chinese manufacturers. This, and Microsoft adding publicity for their own products and third party apps on Windows are very worrying trends in OS. I'd really really like the option of paying a bit more money at purchase time and get rid of all that publicity

  • Samsung runs a lot of it's own "value add" (Score:4, Funny)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:18AM (#63271715)

    Samsung's OS goes beyond just cloning and change for change's sake but also integrates into a shit ton of other Samsung produces, to a frigging annoying level.
    Our bathroom is behind our living room, the ceramic throne literally half a foot away from the TV. Take my phone to the thinking chair, sit down, ... popup: "Do you wish to clone your screen to this TV"?

    No I don't. It's a shit ideal, and while it is the place for shit ideas it's not the time.

    It's not all bad. Some is good. Samsung pass works really well, integrates into all applications. Knox works brilliantly to keep work and home profiles separate to a system level which includes not just protecting companies from employee's personal bullshit, but visa versa as well (e.g. isolating pushed SSL certs to the work profile so companies can't snoop employee's personal traffic).

    Samsung Browser is also just Google but with the ability to install an adblocker, i.e. an actual functional browser unlike the turd that is Google Chrome Mobile.

    And SmartSwitch is a godsend when upgrading a phone. Press the button, hold the two phones back to back and the world magically transfers from one to the other including all settings, apps, data etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      Samsung pass works really well, integrates into all applications

      good luck using a password manager made by the company that thinks a mobile os filled with nearly 60gb of bloat is a good idea. is your password 1234 by any chance?

      Knox (...) visa versa

      ditto for a security app. how you even bother about work/home separation and don't already use separate devices is beyond me. but to my real point, pardon my pedantry: it's "vice versa". it's always about the vice!

      btw, google android has "magic transfers" and password managers out of the box, and "brave browser" is basically desktop chrome with a

      • Your knock on Secure Folder just seems petty to me. It works extremely well, just like the multi-user accounts found on Stock Android but completely isolated (which is inconvenient and good at the same time). The MDM can initiate a "factory reset" on the Secure folder side only, leaving your personal shit intact.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by znrt ( 2424692 )

          what can i say? enjoy!

          longer answer: i reckon i have no idea how secure folder works. i'm happy it functionally works for you. i just don't see how putting two sensitive environments you absolutely want to keep separate into the same physical device, same discrete os image no less, is a smart idea, whatever software component it is you want to sell your soul to to keep them separated. this is just asking for trouble, unnecessarily, because the cost of a second phone is negligible for a business and there is

      • good luck using a password manager made by the company that thinks a mobile os filled with nearly 60gb of bloat is a good idea. is your password 1234 by any chance?

        I don't need luck. It works just fine. And the idea that bloatware and feature creep of an OS somehow leads to security issues in another app is just stupid. It's like saying "good luck getting 100000miles out of your car engine from a company who thinks red is a nice colour".

        how you even bother about work/home separation and don't already use separate devices is beyond me.

        Why would I carry around two devices? Why would I buy a second device when my company literally pays for one for me? and above all what am I being bothered about here? The integration is entirely seamless. It seems like an incredible b

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by znrt ( 2424692 )

          nah i was just drunk. btw your car analogy is wrong, as car analogies tend to be :-)

  • CalyxOS and LineageOS are a breeze to install

    It's your phone

  • I can remember when my first computer had 16K of RAM and an accessory box upped that to 48K and everyone said "What the hell are you going to do with 48K of RAM?"

  • I had resisted buying Samsung phones because of the completely unnecessary changes to the user interface. Eventually, I wound up buying a Note 7 out of desperation to try and get something approaching reasonable battery life.

    That phone was *incredible*. In a completely different league than anything I had before. I had one more Note and now have a Galaxy S22 Ultra, and they have all been fantastic phones.

    They definitely come with lots of crapware and nonsense you have to disable or uninstall and I wish t

    • Disagree about the features. A *HUGE* amount Samsung's features have made it into Android. Lower power mode, scheduled texts, theming, etc. all of these were Samsung firsts. If it weren't for Samsung pushing so hard, Android would be half of what it is today. I don't agree about all they do (Bring back MST on Samsung Pay!), and yes, not everything everyone uses or is even aware of said feature..
  • I had a Google phone. I loved that it wasn't loaded with crapware but I needed DEX and I needed to attach drives directly. I get that with Samsung. My S22+ is now my only remote PC. I don't use my table much and never use my laptop. I just remote to what i need if it's not local. Be that said, I HATE THE SAMSUNG APPROACH. I hate Bixby and wish they would just get that it's not as good not as accepted as Google's. A whole bunch or crap I have to hide so I can use the apps I need. The doubling up on
  • It looks like the post itself explains why the System partition is so large - it's literally Used Space minus all the other options. If you delete a 30GB video and you've turned on the Recycling Bin feature, then the System app just ballooned by 30GB. I mean, all it takes it one guy to post a factory fresh device to debunk this.
  • Never buy a phone without a locked bootloader. Being able to root the device to setup hosts based ad/crap blocking should be your first step with an android phone.

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