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Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

(smex.org)
845 points the-anarchist | 2 comments | 21 Jun 25 03:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.578s | source
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grishka ◴[21 Jun 25 03:52 UTC] No.44334337[source]▶
The "unremovable" part is inaccurate. While you can't completely remove it because it resides on the system partition, you most probably can still disable it with an adb command:

    adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.package.name
This command is very powerful as it works for any app, even those that have "disable" greyed out in the settings. I disabled the Galaxy Store on my S9 this way for example.
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1. kotaKat ◴[21 Jun 25 12:56 UTC] No.44337223[source]▶
This does not work on all phones. Some OEMs (like Motorola) leverage the 'nodisable' feature to prevent this and other APKs from being disabled.

On my 2025 Motorola RAZR 5G, in /product/etc/nondisable are a series of XML files listing carrier and activation apps for Dish Wireless, Tracfone/Verizon Value, T-Mobile, the Amazon App Manager, and two apps provided for finance providers PayJoy (who lock and disable phones for financial product recovery) and one for Claro internally (that operates similar to Payjoy).

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2. grishka ◴[23 Jun 25 06:32 UTC] No.44353020[source]▶
These affect the "disable" button and the "pm disable" command, I believe. The "uninstall" command can't be prevented from working to my knowledge.

But then I haven't had any experience with carrier phones. We just don't do that where I live, all phones are sold unlocked for full price and all plans are prepaid.