The Facebook app, deactivated or not, logged in or not, is spyware. No-one knows when an app update will activate a background process that will work even though the app remains officially deactivated, because FB is a sleazy and intrusive company that pulls those stunts all the time.
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I had an exploding Note 7, then a Samsung Edge 7, and now a few months ago got a Note 9.
This has been true on all of them, and I wish festering rectal gangrene on Zuckerberg.
The most annoying thing about the note 9 I have though is definitely the dedicated Bixby button that they stuck right next to smaller volume buttons. I would like to go back in time to that board meeting decision and burn down the building.
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Feces bovum. Facebook comes preinstalled on S8’s from other carriers, and users have no problems deleting the app. The readonly backup image might reinstall it on factory reset, but that’s not the running image on the phone. I don’t care whether it comes back on factory reset - I just want it off my running image!
I always delete it, because I use my phone in the field, and the FB app is a battery hog even when it’s not open. It also has a way of interjecting annoying messages if a phone is left in airplane mode longer than a few hours . My phone is in airplane mode on a lot of trips because I go out of cell range. I don’t want to burn through the battery having the phone trying to ping a tower that isn’t there, which is what happens if I don’t turn off the radios.
Except GPS. I once had my track logger running for six days straight, which required an external battery pack approximately the form factor of a brick. It was sixty miles (plus some side trips) between resupply points, and even then I had to have a charged battery in my mail drop because the post office was the only service in the tiny hamlet.
Sure, I also didn’t want FB inviting me to post a selfie at the post office. I just wanted to get into my box of food, my spare socks, and my additional supply of anitergium, and dispose of my trash.
So, thanks for the warning that Verizon is up to its old tricks! I remember in the early days of smart phones that had only enough memory for 2-3 apps, that I really, really resented a monstrous bloated FB app that I couldn’t delete, but I still jealously guard my battery life.
(Come to think of it, back then it might have made sense not to be able to separate the read-only backup from the running image, but that was a long time ago.)
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Valid technical reasons??
Facebook is on play store. My Pixel 2 didn’t have it preinstsalled. So I did went impossible installed on play store. Stop making excuses bloated hardware.
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I was being funny. I’m an iOS developer, so whenever I whine about something like preinstalled crap, Android users are always “pshawww! Just jailbreak it dude…”
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It’s a quirk of generic Android. The Uninstall button on the Android App Manager changes its caption to “Disable” in the case of a pre-installed app. But a Disabled app is for all practical purposes uninstalled. DAta is deleted. The app can’t run. All updates.are uninstalled
Why? My guess is that the difference is in what happens next. A disabled app can be “Enabled” again from the read-only data on the restore partition. The only way to re-enable an uninstalled app is to download it again from Google Play.
To be concerned about a Disabled app continuing to run on Android after being disabled is about as paranoid as worrying about an uninstalled app continuing to run after being uninstalled. Which is, I suppose possible on primitive OSes 
but impossible on Android barring a root-level exploit (which would be a big deal). The ability to disable pre installed apps was added in Android 6.0. Thank you Google. Certified OEMs (ie any OEM who preinstalls Google Play) are prohibited from messing with the Disable feature.
In practice, de-disabling a disabled app is a dubious advantage, because any app that gets reinstalled that way is going to be completely replaced with an update within minutes.
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My question is: which phone should I get? My old iPhone is getting towards the end. I want to get a phone that has no spyware, that doesn’t install anything I didn’t want to install. That rules out another iPhone. Is LineageOS a reasonable choice? I thought about Sailfish but it’s not really open source. What about the new Librem 5 from Purism? What are the best options?
I want to believe this…
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Facebook, the world’s largest social network, wouldn’t disclose the financial nature of the agreements, but said they’re meant to give the consumer “the best” phone experience right after opening the box.
Technically true, provided one realizes Fecesbook’s “consumers” are the companies and people buying ads and analytics on the users. The app certainly provides advertisers the best experience on users’ phones right out of the box. /s
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Do you mean root your Samsung? AFAIK jailbreaking refers to unlocking a carrier-specific phone to work on any compatible network. And yes, rooting should remove the FB app since the entire Andriod install is overwritten along with the Samsung GUI. But that’s not a reasonable thing to expect the average user to be up to doing, advisable though it may be.
ETA: didn’t realize you were being sarcastic.
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I hope my S5 lasts forever. The “upgrades” seem like worse options.
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Yep. If you’re not paying, you’re not the customer. You’re the product.
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#deleteyoursmartphone
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I have an S8 and even tried rooting my phone to get back control of it, but just like brexit it was doomed to fail as it broke pokemon go, so i could not play it 
But it did not want to rid my self of facebook, i purchased my phone outright from amazon.it for £500 and had it shipped to the uk, as paying £64 a month for 2 years for a lower level of service (24 gig of data a month) made no sense when i only pay £17 a month for unlimited data on my sim only plan.
How ever said phone came with carrier software for italy vodaphone, crap ware that constantly asks to be run, and displays the red message icon saying “OPEN ME” all the time, i hid in in folder in the end so i dont have to see it, but i can not even disable that as its carrier built in.
Its about time we got control of our phones back!
Even more so when you buy them out right!
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I don’t own a Samsung and never will, but any extra bloatware is bad whatever the make of phone.
I deleted my Facebook account back in the summer. Why should I want the Facebook app using up valuable electrons even if it’s disabled?
I use an iPhone and it is by far not the worse option, as you can use it without icloud. I also use a Samsung A3 with lineage OS and only free software from f-droid or github. It was a lot more involved to get it to run, but it works reasonably well. But you can’t run banking software on it or any commercial software which deems the platform “not secured enough”. I don’t use streaming services, but I don’t think they would work.
Also, I don’t think that voice over lte is supported by lineage os.
The A3 has a very nice screen.
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You don’t, but FB and Samsung do. And that is when you find out that you don’t actually own the phone you have in your hands.
Even when you are paying, you are the product. Samsung phones are not free.
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iPhones have no spyware.
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LineageOS is excellent (very lightweight, works way better than typical bloated Android installations and there’s no preinstalled spyware), but you have to get a fully supported device - some are only partially supported with features like GPS not working.
You can even decide to not install entire Google ecosystem, including Google Play store and use only FDroid.
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I am not sure whether you are serious or sarcastic but, even if I am a iPhone user, I would not say the platform has no spyware. The iCloud functions are borderline. Applications can request permissions and refuse to work without them. There is a unique advertising i.d. The GPS sends data back to Apple. It is generally better than typical Android phones, but far from perfect.
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