Just got a shiny new Fascinate, and about to start customizing it. I would like to remove most of the large collection of cr*pware that came pre-installed, bing included. Is it possible to install superuser and uninstall this stuff without risking bricking the device?
I'm a relative Android newb, and I'd rather not dabble in custom roms as this is an employer provided phone and I'm not comfortable blasting a new firmware on it yet.
Also, if I succeed in removing the aforementioned software, can / will it be restored by resetting the device to defaults, if that's even possible? Or will I need to root the thing in order to install backup software?
Lastly, if I want to use a keyboard other than swype or the default android, do I need to move the .apk to the /system/apps folder like I did on my Nook?
Yes, you can simply root your device and not install a custom ROM. Yes, you will have to root in order to de-bloat, so be aware, although it is very simple.
Rooting walkthrough: (very painless)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=948722
Once rooted, download Titanium Backup from the Android market and de-bloat to your heart's content.
You might want to consider downloading ROM Manager (from market) and making a full backup of your rooted phone (called a Nandroid backup)
Keyboard: you can search the market for alternate keyboards (easiest method) or use adb push to /system/app if there is one you really want to use.
Cool, thanks for the response!
I'd already rooted, which would have been completely painless if I were running winblows. Nevertheless, after getting adb functional on Ubuntu it was relatively simple.
I've removed all the 'stuff' I don't want, any idea how to reassign the search button so it isn't pointing to bing also?
With Titanium and ROM Manager, would I need CWR or some other alternative boot app installed to restore this?
Also, I see lots of references to odin which is apparently needed for flashing over USB in the event I decide to take the plunge and dabble in custom roms. Anyone know if there's an equivalent for linux / osx? It astounds me that an android dev community such as this seems to be so windows centric...
for linux and mac use Heimdall, an odin clone.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
If you're still running EB01, then Bing search is hard coded. However, many custom ROMS remove this. I'm currently using SuperClean 2.9 and have both google search and google voice search (long press search button) set as my default.
A definitive list of Fascinate ROMS can be found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1013312
To restore, I would definitely use CWR, as it is the recovery method used by ROM Manager. This is done either within ROM Manager (Backup/Restore) or by booting directly into CWM. Just make sure ,with a Fascinate, you only use CWR version 2.5.x.x, since version 3.0 doesn't currently play nice with the older amend type scripting.
It downloaded EA28 right after activation - I believe it said this is a corporate contract build, which is part of why I'm reluctant to burn a custom rom.
Outside of the bing search and the speakerphone being too loud, I really have no qualms with the phone at this early stage.
Thanks for the info about CWR and such - I've been lurking here for months and find the more I read the more confused I get.
Best not to go tinkering with corporate property- no sense in losing your job over a phone.
The speakerphone volume should be adjustable via the volume rocker on the side while activated.
Yes, there is a lot of knowledge available here, lol. Just remember, everybody here started somewhere.
Funny nick btw...
artvandelay440 said:
Best not to go tinkering with corporate property- no sense in losing your job over a phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not worried about that - they wouldn't fire me over a phone, I'm the guy that keeps their accounting system up at five nines. I just don't want to have to schmooze the office manager to get me a replacement if I brick it after less than a week. I'll let the new wear off a little first.
artvandelay440 said:
The speakerphone volume should be adjustable via the volume rocker on the side while activated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but at it's lowest setting it's still loud enough to be heard 30 ft away. Not a huge issue.
Ok, last question and I'll start spending a little more time searching, I promise. What's the deal with wifi on these things? Can / will they go through the wifi to get to the cloud? It doesn't appear that mine is doing this when I'm at home where 3g is very hit-and-miss. Are there any settings to tweak? Or is wifi just there for the DLNA server and tethering? I guess i was a bit spoiled by my blackberry in that this functionality (wifi handover) worked very well on the curve.
I haven't noticed any issues with wifi and cloud applications (dropbox, evernote, etc)
If you just mean internet connectivity in general sucks on wifi, perhaps it is more a router/ISP issue and less of the phone. Might do you some good to download a wifi analyzer to your phone (market) and make sure your dB strength is adequate, as well as make sure your router is broadcasting on the least congested channel. Have you tried connecting on a different wifi network? (work, restaurant)
Already have my AP set to the channel with the best noise floor. So I don't think it's an RF issue - all my other wifi devices (two laptops, two Nook tablets, and formerly my blackberry 8320) all work as well as could be expected with the same AP configuration.
I guess what I'm wanting to know is if there's a way to setup the IP/PPP stack on the phone to default to wifi for data. I guess I need to delve into the innards of their network config to find this out. Just thought there might be a GUI config menu somewhere that I was missing.
I'm not worried about that - they wouldn't fire me over a phone, I'm the guy that keeps their accounting system up at five nines. I just don't want to have to schmooze the office manager to get me a replacement if I brick it after less than a week. I'll let the new wear off a little first.
Brick a Fascinate? Don't think its Possible, I have done just about every stupid thing you can think of to mine, including flashing Darky's 9.3 rom for the I9000 on it by accident. As long as I can get it into DL mode, odin or heimdall can fix my stupidity.
Hey. Just got into the world of smartphones with a Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100P), running Samsung's stock ICS (XXLPH). After a fairly smooth rooting of the phone, I did something stupid - I tried to use CWM to install this mod - an NFC enabler. Stupid, because the mod wasn't designed for ICS.
I was fortunate enough to have the enabler 'only' freeze the phone every 5 seconds instead of bricking it. Then I went in through the adb shell and deleted the appropriate apk.
My question is - is the apk the whole of the app? It looks like it, certainly - the phone works like before, no problem. I'm just worried about leaving 'garbage' around it.
I don't expect everyone here to be an expert on this particular mod - but in general, if I am manually uninstalling an app, do I need to worry about anything besides the apk?
If so, where else should I look (again, generally, where do apps tend to change or dump things)? I'd ask the developer, but it seems rude to privately message him, and I can't exactly post in the relevant thread.
No you should be ok. Nothing more needs to be done. Some apps also install data on the sd card which show up in 'My files'. It doesn't affect the phone in any way but if you find anything just delete it. I have mine sort by date so changes show at the top of the list.
Sent from my GT-I9100T
Hi guys..
Sorry for wasting your time again..
Got a few question, jsut flashed my phone to gingerbread stock verizon..
I would actually want to ask what can i do to my phone after i root it?. i mean what will be the changes, cause i really can't understand the advantages of being rooted. they said there will be more options.
but what are those option?.. you mean i can download more apps in android market?.. am i right?..
also i have a question about the place where can we download full version apps games, i was informed about blackmart.. is that safe?..
also about the droidwall, someone told me if i rooted my phone, i can get that, and it seems to be very usefull to what she said..
Thankyou for responding to my question.
appreciate it so much..
also wants to confirm if verizon fascinate really doesn't have front camera cause im having hard time using the yahoo messenger video call only black screen
More Power Guys!!!
Rooting gives you the ability to modify your file systems, install custom roms, as well as apps that could not normally be installed on your phone. There is no front facing camera on your phone. You really need to ditch the gingerbread you ate using noe and follow the guide to get any of the android 4.0 roms that are on the site. You will understand why rooting is so nice when you are able to use one of those roms. You can install droidwall once you are rooted. If you are looking for free apps on the internet other than the play market, try using Google, it really works.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
Rooting will allow you to do more to and with your phone than was intended. First and foremost for me it was being able to remove Verizon bloatware. You can install Custom Roms either Gingerbread or ICS, make tweaks to the phone that will make it run more effective and efficient. Either way, if you are going to root, the next thing you should learn about is making a Nandroid backup. This way you can always go back to where you were when you first started and then do it all over again to your liking. Have fun.
I too wanted to get rid of the bloatware. By putting on a ROM like Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) on my phone I don't feel the need to upgrade. The developer activity is very good on this phone so the performance of the roms is great.
noob here, I did my first root today, and have only been an android user for 2 weeks after defecting from apple since the first iphone. I was a jailbreak veteran of idevices, but I got bored with the stale bread, so I spent my taxmas on a Samsung galaxy s4. Specifically wanting the i9500 version so it would be unlocked to use on net10. I followed the steps from website, and video on Odin. And it looked like it worked perfectly. It wasn't until I tried to my photo gallery app to look at some pictures, and it crashed and wouldn't load. I had the same issue with a business calendar issue app that wouldn't open. I tried clearing system cache on gallery app but no luck. I'm afraid I'm in over my own head now, and might want to restore and start from scratch. The first thing I did after rooting was a full Titanium backup. only things that I installed after root was xposed installer and an app within the installer called swipeback.
I would like to know if there is a fix for this, without having to break away from root? Or if I must,how do I know which stock file I need. I know it's i9500ubueMk1 but there's many different regions.. I bought from a best buy in Charlotte . If there isn't a simple fix to fix why my apps aren't working,then the root does more harm than good, and I wanna go back to normal.
Someone please walk me through this!!
thanks
//Sorry for double posting. This same text is in the S7 section aswell, but i think it will get more attention here
Hey Guys
Im in a bit of a situation here
It sounds a bit odd, but when making up my electronic stuff, i dug out my old Galaxy S7 and several other phones and i got a bit nostalgic about those times and what i did back then.
So i started charging them up and scrolling to the photos and messages of that time. (im not the type of guy who has everything synced, i mostly start from scratch on a new phone).
However on this device, i was not able to figure out the PIN Code nor the Google Account i was using back then.
So i am now trying to get access to this data by working around the pin code or something like that.
I thought that with the ADB shell i could do this and i found some hints on google about it. However as it looks, you need to have USB debugging enabled to get the shell access. Which of course i haven't and i cannot set as i am not able to get into the system the usual way.
There is no custom recovery or similar flashed on the device. Stock. I might even have wiped it back then but just curious And searching solutions for problems like that is in my nature.
So does anyone know a way how to get there?
I am not interested about the os or something, just my old personal data.
Is unlocking through odin still a thing? and can i get a custom recovery on the device that way WITHOUT loosing the data on the phone? so through that recovery i cloud get a shell to bypass the lockscreen?
Or is there just no solution to that?
I found that there is some SD Card installable flashes to bypass the lockscreen, but here i would first have to buy an SD Card. Since this is just a project i dont want to waste money. Do you guys know if this works for sure? I mean, can i even install this tool without a custom recovery? I have the menu option to apply updates from sd card in the standard recovery, just not sure if this does the trick.
Any other approach?
And yeah, i would probably find it out one day by just trying the codes, but it locks you for 60 minutes after every try now, so this would take ages ^^
no clues?
Thread closed as duplicate of https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s7/help/regain-access-to-data-t3925940