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[Tutorial] How to Remove Previous Carrier Bloatware on Samsung Phones + Load Public Mobile Settings

skylenth
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

If you're like me, you may have recently switched your mobile carrier to Public Mobile along with your carrier-bought phone and have ended up with a ton of your previous mobile operators branded bloatware, not to mention hard-coded settings (in the most extreme cases) that prevent you from changing things like APNs, voicemail settings, message center configuration, etc.

 

Provided you have a Samsung smartphone that has these issues (eg. a Bell-bought Galaxy will have all the Bell apps pre-installed, Samsung Internet and Google Chrome home pages hardcoded to the Bell customized Google Search page (literally Gogle's home page but with Bell's ads) the fix is easy. No matter what operator you switched to Public Mobile from, as long as it is a Canadian one and the phone was bought there, this method will work.

 

WARNING!!!: BEFORE PERFORMING THESE STEPS MAKE SURE TO BACKUP ALL YOUR PHONE DATA AS THE FOLLOWING STEPS WILL FACTORY RESET YOUR PHONE!!!

 

Ok, now that's out of the way we can proceed.

 

Step 1: Make sure all your data in your phone has been backed up.

 

Step 2: Open the Samsung stock dialer and type the following: *#243203855# OR *#272*IMEI# Replace IMEI with your phone's IMEI number

 

Step 3: You will be presented with a screen called "Preconfig" Scroll until you see PMB, tap it, then tap "Install" at the bottom of the screen.

If you don't see PMB, it is okay to use either KDO or TLS, although KDO is better for Public Mobile since it doesn't come with the Telus apps that don't work with Public.

 

Step 4: Your phone will reset, then reboot. You should now be rid of Rogers,Fido,Bell,Virgin, etc bloatware and your phone will be optimized for Public Mobile's network.

 

I originally meant to post this a few months ago, but the post accidentally got nuked during an edit. I hope this tutorial was useful. Feel free to PM me or reply for support or feedback 🙂

P.S: Loving this community so far, even though I lurk a lot lol

 

 

12 REPLIES 12

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @zero_gravity 

I spent many hours on a vacation in Hawaii fiddle f@rting around trying to do all this with an old LG phone. It's all quite intimidating for the first time. Trying some instructions. Thinking oh great now I've bricked the thing. Revive it somehow. Finally got it doing something. I was pretty chuffed. Success at last.

Then I was trying to get things going with the Play Store only to come to realize that that's no longer possible.

I just wanted it running a newer version of Android. I'm not too interested in being so hands-on with the thing. Finding and trusting downloaded APK's. Installing them. Will they work? Too much hassle.

Then I bent pins pulling a SIM frame out and that was that. 🙂

zero_gravity
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

To agree with the above comment, yeah rooting is the surefire way. You don't need to install a custom rom if you don't want to, but hey that can be fun too.

Just do a Google search for rooting instructions for your particular phone. It can be a bit of a time consuming process depending on what phone you have but not difficult if you have good instructions and take the time to understand them before beginning.

 

There's also apps that will forcibly remove bloatware such as titanium backup but they do require root access.

 

I was able to do this with my HTC M8. It had blaotware....both from bell and HTC. News republic was just a virus.

 

Future phones, look into ones that don't have the bloat. They do exist. I'm using a Moto G7 plus these days and there is no bloatware right out of the box. None!

 

These instructions are only applicable to some Samsung Android devices, not other Android devices, not iOS devices.

 

For other Androids, you've gotta root.

It explicitly voids your OEM warranty (which matters if/when you want to return, repair, or resell the device through the OEM). 

It implicitly voids your Carrier warranty (they don't like it but they also don't care, they can't detect it if you're savvy, and they can't/won't do anything about it anyways).

On many (not old) devices it also invalidates Google's Trusted Root Certificate Storage. In theory this means your device security is fundamentally compromised at the top hardware/firmware privilege level. In practice it means Google Play Store and Google Services (and any software which relies on them) will nag you at every opportunity (because you mistrust Google, you paranoid villain!) - unless you just download/sideload/crossload the app APKs directly through an SD card or USB/sync connection. But do yourself a favour and run everything through antivirus/malware scan before running or installing it - the risk is very low (with clean APKs from legit sites) but the consequences can be catastrophic (password theft/keylogging, ransomware lockout on your data, "permanently" brick your device, even infect/infest other trusted devices) once something bad sneaks through the door. 

And with ultimate power comes ultimate oops. The user has full access to everything - including system files which are normally hidden or protected for good reason - and can easily muck around or break stuff. Hard-reset back to factory default can (almost) always save the day, but it can also be a pain. 

OneClickRoot (baseon the venerable su-exploit) is, I think, the best option. It basically asserts itself as the highest-tier app (just below the OS level), loads itself before anything else, and allows/denies/controls other app execution or permissions as the user specifies. Stable, lightweight, simple, free. It's also functionally similar to a task-killer because it simply prevents garbage you don't want to run from ever running. 

 

For iPhones, you've gotta jailbreak.

I think this is basically just the iOS counterpart of rooting. I know it usually gets Apple to blacklist your device but I otherwise don't know anything about it.

Most people buy iPhone because it "just works" the way Apple wants, without any preinstalled non-Apple junkware, so apparently not much motivation for jailbreaking.

 

Don't forget that all the built-in apps are just apps. Stuff like Dialer, Messaging, Contacts, Browser, Clock, Calendar, etc. Even media files (wallpapers, ringtones, notifications, alarms, system sounds), startup and shutdown animations, etc. All of these things can be replaced by apps or files of your own choosing - all the ones you dislike or won't ever use can be removed to free up space. 


@will13am wrote:

@RobertQc wrote:

@skylenthThis is great thanks for trying to help out your fellow customers, I personally hate all the samsung bloatware but love a lot of their hardware which is why I always go with a custom rom like LineageOS, HavocOS, AquariOS, etc


+1.  The best solution is to avoid the bloat.  Bixby. You understand what I am saying?


Bixby can be bixbied (disabled).


@RobertQc wrote:

@skylenthThis is great thanks for trying to help out your fellow customers, I personally hate all the samsung bloatware but love a lot of their hardware which is why I always go with a custom rom like LineageOS, HavocOS, AquariOS, etc


+1.  The best solution is to avoid the bloat.  Bixby. You understand what I am saying?


@darlicious wrote:

Shouldn't this post be in phones and hardware?


Yes

 

I moved it because in my opinion, this is the exact type of message thread that belongs in this category.

Shouldn't this post be in phones and hardware?

skylenth
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen
@RobertQc I should try Magisk Hide on my old rooted phone it seems. Thanks for mentioning that.


@skylenth wrote:

@RobertQcYeah, Lineage is the way to go! Only issue with custom roms is the warranty void, and some apps, such as banking ones not working that makes it not for everyone. But I agree, some of my devices have Lineage on them.


@skylenth  Agreed. Before I make a phone purchase I always see what I can do with it first 😉

 

P.S. My banking apps and some other apps that did not got solved by using "Magisk Hide" now they all run perfectly, regardless of "custom operating system" and "root"

skylenth
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@RobertQcYeah, Lineage is the way to go! Only issue with custom roms is the warranty void, and some apps, such as banking ones not working that makes it not for everyone. But I agree, some of my devices have Lineage on them.

RobertQc
Mayor / Maire

@skylenthThis is great thanks for trying to help out your fellow customers, I personally hate all the samsung bloatware but love a lot of their hardware which is why I always go with a custom rom like LineageOS, HavocOS, AquariOS, etc

skylenth
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen
Apologies I misspelled a few things, but I can't edit the post without it nuking again
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