I recently moved to France and when signing my Orange contract discovered they had a great deal for a Fairphone 4.
I purchased the phone and was mostly delighted. However, it came packed with horrible bloatware: it dynamically installs new apps on the phone on reboot. Sometimes I can delete them, but usually they reappear on reboot because the core bloatware ‘app center’ is hidden so that I cannot remove it by normal means.
Needless to say, this feels very intrusive, disturbing and… Unfair.
Is there any way I can remove this bloatware without voiding my extended warranty?
Then using the Android Development Bridge (adb) by installing on a pc you can uninstall many app packages.
The above does not void the warranty but if you delete an essential package you will have all sorts of problems. So ensure you have searched the internet for any packages (apps) you want to uninstall.
For detail on how I implemented such using a Raspberry Pi see
I had the same experience when trying adb this morning.
Since the problem with rooting is an unknown ROM, is it possible for me to repair the issue without voiding the warranty by reinstalling my system using a stock Fairphone ROM?
Unfortunately the worst part in this, is the Orange App Center WILL INSTALL even if you use the stock FPOS provided by fairphone.
It seems like somehow the activation of this bloatware for Orange France user is somehow integrated in the default FPOS.
Last time I switched back from LOS to FPOS using official images (in August) the bloatware installed itselft right at first boot.
There really isn’t any other way than to root the device to get rid of those things.
Real dirty move from Orange, but I’m not surprised as bloating devices with crap is a second nature to this company.
I still get seizures remembering Galaxy S (first of name) Orange customized Touchwizz… Fully orange themed, laggy as hell and of course not modifiable…
So it seems they hooked their bloatware into the bootloader. Does anybody know if there is a way to flash the stock fairphone bootloader onto a FP4 without voiding the extended warranty?
It’s not hooked into the bootloader, the app gets shipped with stock FPOS and if you start using Orange it get’s activated.
There is similar functionality for Telekom and it could be used for other carriers Fairphone is partnering with (haven’t looked in a while).
If you want to get rid of it, you either have to root your phone, or have a look at the #oslist for alternative ROMs that won’t ship with that kind of bloatware.
Putting that aside - let’s say I do root the device and use an alternative OS. My warranty is the void? If I encounter some hardware issue, would reinstalling FPOS reinstate my warranty?
Well it fairphone does state that it voids but european law says otherwise.
The European Free Software Fundation concluded that rooting or flashing the device could not be considered as a valid reason for voiding the guarantee as long as they do not cause irreversible damage.
The problem is said law is blurry enough so that constructor can bend it and force you to prove that rooting the device was not the cause of the defect.
So technically you should be fine provided you’re ready to fight your case with Fairphone should anything happen after you rooted your device.
