Update: Samsung Caves In To The Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission, Rolls Out Solutions

On the first week of July, news broke out that the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission filed cases against smartphone makers Samsung and Oppo for carrying bloatware. The government agency broke the news of their legal moves to the media on July 2nd. On July 29th, The Korea Times reported that Samsung is already rolling out apps to allow users to delete stock bloatware.

“Bloatware” are those apps that OEMs bundle with their devices. They usually take up space in a device’s ROM, but these do not necessarily prove useful for the user. Usually users feel compelled to root their devices in order to get rid of these stock apps. However, rooting is a highly technical process that comes with certain risks, such as possibly bricking a device. Also, most rooting methods prove to be complicated, thus, the average consumer won’t even dare to attempt the move.

In an unprecedented result from the legal battle, apparently, the Chinese consumer protection rights agency won and managed to compel Samsung to remedy the “bloatware” problem.

According to Ubergizmo, Samsung caved in and agreed to roll out the apps capable of deleting the bloatware in August. Had they been reluctant to cooperate, the Chinese agency reportedly threatened to continue the legal process, as well as possibly even expand it.

There is no comment about whether Oppo has made similar concessions to the commission, and there is no word yet regarding how Samsung aims to treat the bloatware issue for the rest of the world.

***

For users who want to at least be able to disable bloatware on their devices, try these steps:

1. Go to Settings > Application Manager.

2. Swipe to the menu that shows “All” applications.

3. Tap Force Stop, to stop the app at once.

4. Tap Uninstall Updates, in order to uninstall and delete added data. This will free up the space on your device.

5. Tap “Turn Off” or “Disable,” which will then cause the app to stop running, unless you tap and activate it again.

Until Samsung decides to be kind to the rest of their users around the world, kludges like these are the only solution.