• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Some questions after rooting (how to remove apps, etc)

C

ClutchFan

Newbie
Hi all, so I finally rooted my samsung galaxy s3 mini (G730A) today using kingo root. Everything seems to have worked fine, I can go to a terminal and run the "su" command to get a # prompt. I also tried testing by powering off, then holding volume down + power button to get a white screen of some sort that I saw mentioned elsewhere, but that didn't do anything.

Anyway, assuming the root is good, the next thing I want to do is remove unwanted apps like this stupid browser bar app. I tried the normal way through application manager but it doesn't give me the uninstall option. Is there some other way to remove it (and other things like the games app, etc)?

Also, a friend of mine mentioned something about an app called LBE security, that allows me to set permissions for all other apps on the phone (like allow internet access, etc) but when I looked at it on google play it said it wasn't compatible with my device. Is there a similar app that will do the same thing?
 
Titanium Backup not only backs up apps and data but allows you to freeze (disable) or uninstall apps that the system menu won't.

Use with care, of course: don't disable anything that might be critical for the system. If you've not done so, I'd suggest taking a nandroid backup (i.e. a backup made using a custom recovery) before messing with system apps, so that if you get something wrong and you can't use the phone it's easy to undo it.

The permissions thing probably depends on OS version - if it is using the built-in (but hidden) permissions management than you'll need to be running 4.3 or later if I recall correctly.
 
thanks Hadron, I grabbed the free version of titanium. I see I can individually backup all the apps. What about a full system backup, does titanium do that or do I need something else?
 
You need custom recovery to back up the complete phone. Im guessing thats what you were looking for in Power, Home, Volume Up?
 
funkylogik said:
You need custom recovery to back up the complete phone. Im guessing thats what you were looking for in Power, Home, Volume Up?
Click to expand...
no, I saw somewhere on the web that you can test if your phone is rooted by power off, then hold volume down + power, and you should get a white screen that says something like "root" or whatever. Anyway it didn't do that for me so I gave up.

so how does custom recovery work, is that another app?

all this just to remove the trash that samsung and AT&T polluted the phone with, unbelievable.
 
A custom recovery isn't an android app.

"Recovery" is a separate program from the Android operating system. You can select it from the bootloader (which you access by pressing some buttons when the phone starts to boot up - different between different manufacturers, but Funky referred to the method for Samsungs in his post), or if your android ROM is missing/hopelessly corrupt the phone will boot straight into recovery. Stock recovery programs don't let you do much, just factory reset the phone and install official, signed software.

A custom recovery is a replacement for the official recovery program. This allows you to flash unsigned software, such as custom ROMs, and perform full system backus, amongst other things. Many rooting methods install one of these during rooting, or even as a step on the way to rooting (as you can root the ROM using a custom recovery), but I don't know about the method you used. The best place to get advice on this for your phone is our S3 Mini root forum, since you need to ensure that you only install a recovery that's been built for your phone.

The reason I recommended taking a system backup from recovery first is that if you accidentally delete something that the phone needed, and the phone either won't boot or is too unstable to do anything with Android, then you can just go into recovery and restore it and the problem is solved. That's why Titanium can't do a full system backup: as Titanium is an Android app, if the system is unable to boot then you can't get into Titanium to restore a backup. The whole point of recovery is that it's independent of the Android ROM, so gives you a way of recovering if the Android installation is messed-up.

Of course you can just freeze or uninstall the carrier bloatware using Titanium without a system backup. Just make sure that there's nothing critical that depends on it first.

As for why so much effort, it's because this stuff was installed as system apps, so you need system permissions to remove it, which by default you don't have (that's what "rooting" means, giving you access to system administrator permissions). Now there are good reasons for preventing the casual user from deleting system files: it would be very easy to render the phone unusable by deleting things without understanding why they are there. The problem is that Samsung and ATT decided that everything they put on the phone should be installed as a system app, including stuff that no sane person would want but was put there because the distributor paid the carrier to include it. And that's why you have to jump through hoops to get rid of it.

As a footnote, you should perhaps freeze stuff first before/instead of uninstalling. This will stop it running, but is easier to undo (as long as you can run Titanium). As system apps live in a different storage partition you won't gain space for your own apps by uninstalling them, so freezing is effectively the same as uninstalling really.
 
ClutchFan said:
no, I saw somewhere on the web that you can test if your phone is rooted by power off, then hold volume down + power, and you should get a white screen that says something like "root" or whatever. Anyway it didn't do that for me so I gave up.

so how does custom recovery work, is that another app?

all this just to remove the trash that samsung and AT&T polluted the phone with, unbelievable.
Click to expand...

Button presses are not generic, they vary by model. If the article you saw wasn't for your phone, forget you read it.

Android = embedded Linux operating system + a runtime environment (either ART or the Dalvik Virtual Machine) + apps that run in the runtime environment and call on services provided by the embedded Linux operating system

Below all of that is a bootloader (that varies by make and model). Its job is to manage startup and very low-level things. Unless interrupted by you, its default is to quietly point at the Linux bootup and let your phone be a phone.

The white screen you're describing after a Vulcan nerve pinch of buttons is the hidden bootloader menu. When you see it, Android is not running.

The next building block is recovery.

When a phone gets an over the air update requiring a reboot, what really happens is - update package stored to reserved location, reboot command to the bootloader to start recovery, recovery recovers and installs the update package, and then gives the normal reboot command.

Recovery is a small, automatic installation manager. Either it runs or Android does, never both at once.

A custom recovery is a separate installation manager that replaces the stock one.

In addition to installation, it will also provide the ability to do a full image backup of your Android *everything* and naturally also lets you restore those backups as you see fit. Also, it provides a number of tools that you'll need to manage all aspects of you maintaining your own Android installation.

Rooting simply means that you have administrator rights to your Android operating system, same as on a PC.

Rooting by itself has nothing to do with recovery.

Separate steps are required to allow your bootloader to allow and help with installing a custom recovery. Many models require a separate operation to unlock the bootloader to make installing a custom recovery possible.

Each model has its own custom recovery. It's not a generic or one size fits all deal.

Not all bootloaders can be unlocked and so not all phones can get a custom recovery.

Follow bootloader unlock and custom recovery installation steps SPECIFIC to your model only. Failure to follow that advice will often lead to a bricked phone with no hope of repair.

Because bootloaders vary by make and model (and sometimes even by version from the manufacturer), no generic operating advice applies to them.

Hope this helps! :)

PS to any staffers at a PC - we might want to pin this somewhere for re-use, it's covered all the bases.

And where I said phone above - it's all still true for tablets and other Android devices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom