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How to uninstall a service?

S

Sunny Rio

Android Enthusiast
Something installed a service on my phone without my permission called "beautymakeup". I found it running by looking in the developer section, and can stop it from there. But since it's not an actual app, I can't uninstall it. How do I do this?
 
It lists it as "BeautyMakeup, 1 process and 1 service."
Under that is Services: "AdPolicy (started by app)"
Under that is Processes: "BeautyMakeup (com.gangyun.makeup) - main process in use"

A google search finds the APK to download, but with a different icon.

It's not listed in apps, just in the developer options for running services.
 
Rebooting is the problem. I can stop them in developer options, but rebooting makes them start again, there seems to be no way to disable them from starting. Is there a "startup programs" similar to in Windows?
 
Try the search box in (manage) Apps after going to the - 3 dot overflow menu - Show system apps.

Camera apps have beauty modes for selfies generally - I wouldn't worry about it

You don't say what device you have.
I couldn't find similar on my current Poco F2 but I'm sure I saw something like that listed in a Motorola or Nokia.
 
I don't have a search box, but show system apps made it appear there. I can only force stop though, and not uninstall. Why is uninstall not available for so many things? Does that mean it's a forced upon us useless Google thingy?

Are you telling me I can do a selfie and make my ugly face become sexy?

It's a VKWorld Mix Plus.
 
Sunny Rio said:
I don't have a search box, but show system apps made it appear there. I can only force stop though, and not uninstall. Why is uninstall not available for so many things? Does that mean it's a forced upon us useless Google thingy?
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No, this one is almost certainly a piece of junk that the manufacturer added.
Are you telling me I can do a selfie and make my ugly face become sexy?
Click to expand...
So-called "beauty filters" are more likely to transport you to the uncanny valley than actually improve anyone's looks ;).
 
Hadron said:
No, this one is almost certainly a piece of junk that the manufacturer added.
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Why doesn't android allow you to uninstall ANY app?

Dannydet said:
It was released in 2017.
Running Android 7.
Time for a new phone
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Don't be stupid, I've only had it 2 years. I've had my car 20 years, I've had most of my 7 computers about 8 years. Are you really gullible enough to throw away something designed only 5 years ago? Fashion victim in the extreme.
 
It runs everything just now, and I don't need to put any more apps on it that aren't made yet. I'm not stupid enough to spend £100s just to get the latest shit. FFS it has more computing power than my dad's PC which can run Windows 11. If Android was written properly you could upgrade it like Windows.
 
Android doesn't let you uninstall all apps because manufacturers don't trust people not to break it by uninstalling something vital and then expecting them to fix it. And to be honest they are right not to: there are many fewer people rooting their phones than there were a few years ago, but back when that was more popular one of the commonest problems people turned up here with was "I rooted my phone and deleted a bunch of things I don't use. Now it won't boot up...".

Now I do regard it as an abuse for manufacturers or service providers to protect junk apps that are not part of the system from removal (and even more so when they stop you even disabling the crap), but that's bad practice by the companies involved rather than a problem with the platform.

As for "if android was written properly you could..." I'm afraid there is no mobile device platform that does that: not android, not iOS, not the defunct Microsoft mobile operating systems, not the smaller platforms. The operating systems are built for the devices, and it's the manufacturer who supports them. If they stop providing updates that's it, unless you have the skills, knowledge and time to do it yourself - or someone else with the same device does, what's known as a custom ROM (but at some point they will move on too, or else the manufacturer of one component of the device doesn't provide a binary driver compatible with a newer Android version and then it's game over anyway).
 
If I broke my phone I'd expect to have to pay to repair it.

It's the platform's fault to not allow non-system apps to be removed.

It's insane that you can't just upgrade the OS.
 
The problem is that the manufacturer added the bloat as a system app. That is the manufacturer's doing, not the platform's. It's a choice they make either because they are lazy and that's simple for them or because they don't want you to remove the crap (which often means that they have been paid to put it there).

If you want rid of it you can root the phone (if it's possible with that model). Otherwise all you can do is not buy from that manufacturer again - but be aware that cheap Chinese devices frequently have junk app issues, as well as extremely poor software support (i.e. they are unlikely to receive updates, and if they do it isn't usually for long).
 
Why does android let anyone but themselves add a system app and not let you remove it? If I add a virus checker to windows, it will be a system app, running at a very low level, but I can easily remove it.

I have two cheap Chinese phones. One is almost unusable due to an incredible number of ads, I simply got all my money back from the seller and have kept it to run science research on. The ads don't appear when the screen is off, so they don't get in the way and use up RAM. The other one only had one problem that annoyed me, it loses contacts when powered off - very odd. I got a 25% refund for this, then found a simple workaround, use Google to store them. This beauty thing hasn't caused a problem, it's just odd it's there. Maybe it's taking secret photos of me to go into a magazine :-)
 
Sunny Rio said:
Why does android let anyone but themselves add a system app and not let you remove it? If I add a virus checker to windows, it will be a system app, running at a very low level, but I can easily remove it.
Click to expand...

Because Google doesn't dictate and control what stuff device manufacturers might put into their Android builds that they install on their phones, and tablets, etc. Especially devices from China, where Google doesn't have much to do with Android. In fact Huawei isn't even putting Android on phones intended for China now, and have gone over to their own Harmony OS.

Sunny Rio said:
I have two cheap Chinese phones. One is almost unusable due to an incredible number of ads, I simply got all my money back from the seller and have kept it to run science research on. The ads don't appear when the screen is off, so they don't get in the way and use up RAM. The other one only had one problem that annoyed me, it loses contacts when powered off - very odd. I got a 25% refund for this, then found a simple workaround, use Google to store them. This beauty thing hasn't caused a problem, it's just odd it's there. Maybe it's taking secret photos of me to go into a magazine :)
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I know a few smart-phone users in China, who like to beautify themselves :thumbsupdroid: when taking selfies for their WeChat, QQ, Weibo, Douyin(TikTok), etc.
 
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Sunny Rio said:
BeautyMakeup (com.gangyun.makeup)
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If you are sure this is the app and that removing it will not bootloop your phone, then proceed. Otherwise, just deal with the app.

To remove this app enable USB Debugging in developer options then connect your phone to your PC.

The following are commands to run in your terminal/cmd...

Check if device is recognized by PC...
Bash: 
adb devices

Get installation path/location of app(this command is only for linux)...
Bash: 
adb shell pm dump com.gangyun.makeup | grep path

Uninstall the app in question...
Bash: 
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.gangyun.makeup

This is how I personally remove all unwanted apps from a non-rooted phone. Note, I do not use windows, so I can't assist you with any windows related questions.
 
How do I know if it will bootloop? I'm pretty sure that app isn't part of Android, so is there a reason it would f uck up the phone?

And I use a normal OS, any Windows users in here?
 
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Sunny Rio said:
How do I know if it will bootloop? I'm pretty sure that app isn't part of Android, so is there a reason it would **** up the phone?

And I use a normal OS, any Windows users in here?
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There's no way of knowing if it would bootloop beforehand, but I think it's safe to remove. If it bootloops, then you'll have to factory reset. Unless you can still access adb in the bootloop which is possible in many cases. If you can then this command will get you back up and running.

You need to know the apk path from the previous command I gave you...
Bash: 
adb shell pm install -r --user 0 /PATH/TO/BeautyMakeup.APK

As much as I dislike Windows, it's still the most used OS.
 
Well I can't see a piece of crap that was installed making it not start. But you seem to think it's a possibility. Also I do not use Linux! So I can't try it.
 
Sunny Rio said:
Well I can't see a piece of crap that was installed making it not start. But you seem to think it's a possibility. Also I do not use Linux! So I can't try it.
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If you're using Mac, doesn't it have the "grep" command which is in that linux only command I listed. Mac is a unix system and Linux is a unix-like system so they share a lot of the same commands and utilities.
 
I use Windows on all 7 of my computers, as I previously said. I don't have any macs and I'm not going to install Linux just to fix a phone that might not need fixing.
 
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