It is important to save your settings when you consented to tracking and your device is identified and corelated to other devices, but not that important when you did not give consent.
How about a feature where we can uninstall the apps we never wanted in the first place? Social media we don't use, carrier apps, etc.
You can disable or "uninstall" an app for a particular Android profile. It won't be uninstalled completely, but it can not execute or even appear in launcher. Uninstalling an system app is not possible without root, because system partition isn't writable. It is mounted in read-only mode I believe. It has drawbacks, but it increases security and reliability.
I've had phones where things like Facebook and Twitter could not be removed. I have no intention of using either.
Did you tried to use adb to uninstall it from profile? If yes and it was still unsuccessful can you tell us what vendor it was and where you bought it, so we won't end up with that phone?
Any Samsung phone I have purchased from AT&T has been loaded with junk. In fairness I am on Google Fi right now and it is much better. I won't be switching back.
Never understood why pre-installed non system apps are treated in that manner as if they were crucial system apps in Android.
I recently used universal android debloater which made the process of trying to get [at least some] crud out of the way, slightly less painful. https://github.com/0x192/Universal-Android-Debloater
From bloat perspective it is usually better to buy from general consumer electronics store/shop. It may have some junk anyway, but usually less. You can still emulate uninstall via adb commands. Good thing is that you can't brick your phone by that - at worst factory recovery will remove any modification you made via adb commands. If you are interested listen to EPISODE 246-Android Sanitization of "The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show" podcast and search for commands on page inteltechniques[.]com Universal Android Debloater GUI mentioned by @Fad also uses that. It just presents a GUI instead of typing adb commands.
Yep. It only helps with limiting some data transfer (not much probably), battery life, privacy, memory consumption, and decreasing number of icons in launcher.
Which would leave rooting the phone as the only viable alternative in this scenario. And rooting the phone will essentially void any warranty(s) the phone came with.
Less bloat = Andoid One phones > https://www.android.com/one/ Nokia 5.3 and Nokia X20 here. Previously Xiaomi Mi A1.
Yes, I also have a phone from that series. Too bad Xiaomi does not handled Android One well and won't release new A* phones.
