My dad's tablet broke last Christmas, so to save myself some time, I decided to buy him a new one instead of spending time debugging and repairing it. This worked out, but now I'm left with a few-year-old Samsung S5e tablet that works fine after a factory reset.
I had an iPad before, maybe two, but I never used them. They were more desk decorations than actual devices that I interacted with. This was my first Android table, and I was curious to see if I would use it more. So, I bought a case with a keyboard and a touchpad for it. It was my browsing tablet, sitting on my balcony sofa or in the kitchen. I even installed an SSH client on it and used it to upgrade my server OS packages whenever I remembered.
It worked well most of the time, but sometimes it felt sluggish. So I started looking for options. I looked into installing Lineage OS. I also remembered all the evenings spent installing and debugging Android ROMs in the days of the first One Plus phone or HTC M8. I was afraid I would end up in the same endless loop of trying, not liking it, and flashing again. So, I hesitated for a week or so.
Last night, I found the alternative: debloating. This means uninstalling all the apps and packages that come pre-installed that you don't need. My habit is to always uninstall or disable (if uninstall is not possible) everything on a phone or tablet before setting it up and installing my chosen apps. With this tablet, most of the stuff could not be disabled.
I did not know previously that you can do much more with the adb developer tool. You can uninstall and disable system packages you can not change via the device's UI. This means you can break stuff, so you must be careful. This is how I did it.
- I started with this thread on XDA: [Guide] Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Debloat Without Root-Info. Feel free to skip to page 3, where adb examples start
- Then, I created a new text file on my notes to keep track of everything I do. This way, I can revert my changes if I notice something breaks and don't like it.
- I checked everything on the list suggested on that forum, but I was more conservative with the apps I decided to uninstall. I kept Knox packages but removed Bixby (the first thing I wanted to do).
- I search the web for every package name from that list to see what they do before deciding if I want it running or not
In the process, I learned that you could find apps that do the same thing, but the license they get from Samsung to allow them to do that expires every few months. Most of them are due to be removed from the Play Store after the license expires because the term of the license is that they should be used by companies to provision company phones and not for individuals.
Luckily, some alternatives use the adb method but offer a UI. Here's one example: Universal Android Debloater GUI.
You can find my notes here: Debloating Samsung S5e. For me the improvement in noticable. It's makes a big difference when I multi-task or on wake-up from sleep.
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