Galaxy Reset or New – Privacy, Backups, Access and More
Tech | Tools – Samsung Updates
Before we move onto our dual-sim experiments, I wanted to share a few Samsung Tips or Tricks that might help you debloat your Galaxy series devices.
Let’s jump into it, a quick deep dive in the world of ‘de-bloating’ we had a good run there for awhile, yes, there has always been native apps included on various platforms, OS, iOS etc. But, for awhile now, it’s been 90’s PC sales all over again. That goes for both Android and iOS device types. Until we have a user-friendly Linux based mobile os, or an open source mobile kernel in which we can bloat or de-bloat based on our own needs; we’ve got this. Mobile phones tied up with Google bloatware, same with iOS, when did Homekit, Health, Health Sensors and Siri come preinstalled ‘on’ all the time with a million hoops to jump through to stop the madness. Good luck essentially, cause it ‘ain’t’ going away. However, as of late, I’ve been trying new settings, os specific knobs and switches with the goal of reducing bloat, bloat-warez, de-googlizing access, de-bloating Samsung Galaxy series phones with the latest OS. Whether it’s a fresh Galaxy S22, 215g or 10, or perhaps later… we’ve got some new ways to help take back your device. Diving right into it, whether you’ve got a new phone or now, Hard Reset is required… backup what you need, store it some place safe. Most of the time it’s auto saved somewhere, and we plan to take back that control and manually take steps to move the process forward. The time to de-googleize, de-samsungize or de-bloat your device is right now.
Short Tutorial(updated):
Fresh Hard Reset an existing phone or take your new phone out and start with the basics… First, do NOT add or allow any Samsung, Google or non-platform service you don’t want running regardless of power status. The big, bright red sign says “don’t sign in nor allow data transfer to any external services” that are not native to the system or required.
NEXT, disable any and all permissions by app, stop and remove permissions and alerts for unwanted apps, this is key as we don’t approve of the input/output by any of those particular apps we don’t approve of. Especially those that are third party, external and considered bloat, to track and find what you allow. We need to turn all of those apps or systems apps off. More over, move all apps around how or where you see fit, we typically combine those Samsung native apps that are required, place those in a separate folder with other Samsung apps, or Google apps. Do NOT turn on cloud services, sign in or log in to those (any) systems you will want later.. so not just yet.
Moving on then, we move into customization, customizing the base os and apps native to the phone, once the native and general IOS services have been disabled, force stopped and/or disabled i.e. Facebook, Netflix etc… Let’s start with keyboard and home gestures… add one handed app later, sounds… vibration basic beep beep and vib, connections before sounds… turn off connections you don’t need like such as NFC(near field communication) or bluetooth assuming BT is not applicable, control notifications. Once this has been completed, then we can move into non-native apps which will require you to sign in Google play… remember, only check the boxes that are required, removing any and all extra services, connections or space provided by the platform. Download apps that you desire, repeating the above steps for all apps downloaded and installed moving forward. This will keep you a baseline, a one time download all assuming all apps saved in library, move apps to desired locale, wallpaper blank. We recommend one hand companion for running apps, navigation and such, more on that later…
Tasks… with the ‘baseline’ in tack, we want to maintain that baseline, or non-bloat state. Back in the settings menu… we want to sign out of Google and any google services and remove Google Play. I like to think when it’s not installed or running we are cutting down what data can be transmitted legally. Work on your home and lock screens… if you so choose or want dynamic backgrounds etc. we don’t, cause it chews into performance, same for biometrics. Turn off bio-security, this helps to curtail privacy intrusive apps, hooks, api’s, services and so on. I spent a lot of time here, delete all ids, services not allowing any permissions… TURN OFF ANY AND ALL PERMISSIONS, when pressed, turn off precise location then the general permissions allowed for all apps, account, google, advanced turn all off, go through all panels… i mean all of them. Again this is key to combat geo-fencing, location hungry wifi, hotspots, anything that would be used to capture device names, ids, IMEI etc.
Finally, and time for reintroducing existing settings, we want to re-import contacts, any bookmarks or saved ‘behavioral’ help settings that are a must, and that goes for the Google/Samsung requests to access the phone; which remain a no. Clean up the home screen to your liking, add email accounts (preferably non-Samsung/Google accounts), remember iOS you need to add an app password from your apple acct., Browser settings when your ready, no go on Chrome, Google or Samsung Internet, we use brave with all turned off…
DON’T FORGET THIS, make sure privacy settings are changed to meet/match your needs. As usual leave a comment below, let us know what you’re thinking?
