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Just looking for some information & help here guys. I might seem like a really basic & simple question but I'm a newbie to Android. Got my Galaxy Nexus (which is my 1st Android) after having moved over from the iPhone.
Anyway, I have noticed that some apps I have installed auto start as soon as I stop them. My mate advised me to install the Android Booster app which closes apps, but a few minutes later some of them just auto restart like Facebook & Sky News. They also auto restart if I stop them through apps on the settings menu.
Is there a way of stopping these apps from running when I'm not using them to save on battery and data usage?
Thanks
Apps that restart automatically have a background service running and will keep restarting. They might need that service for background updates or other tasks.
Uninstall the booster app and any other task manager you might have installed and let Android manage the resources. Apps running in the background normally have no measurable impact on battery life. You should never have to worry about that. Only really crappy apps (or wrong user settings like update every 2min) make problems and you should uninstall them anyway and not try to "fix" what they do wrong.
If you are worried about them eating your data, use the new data usage feature in the settings and restrict background data for the apps individually.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah it was more the data usage than battery I am worried about. I hav now gone into setting and restricted background data. How do I restrict individual apps?
You can't do Facebook yet as its not working with ics yet and can't access the menu. Most other apps have a setting option about auto updating.
Does anybody know a list of pre-installed apps that can be safely "turned off" in our device? This is of course referring to pre-installed apps that can't be uninstalled.
I've read that sometimes turning off certain apparently inoffensive apps may bring instability to the device.
For example, I was just checking my location settings and I saw that AT&T Navigator had been requesting location (with high battery usage), but I don't use that app at all, so I'm plan on turning it off, but I wonder in what other apps that can be done safely.
lebertian said:
Does anybody know a list of pre-installed apps that can be safely "turned off" in our device? This is of course referring to pre-installed apps that can't be uninstalled.
I've read that sometimes turning off certain apparently inoffensive apps may bring instability to the device.
For example, I was just checking my location settings and I saw that AT&T Navigator had been requesting location (with high battery usage), but I don't use that app at all, so I'm plan on turning it off, but I wonder in what other apps that can be done safely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally the asps that allow you to "disable" them are all okay to turn off.
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app
I disabled anything that had to do with att.
Sent from the TermiNOTEr 4!
The only thing I've found that I had to enable was S Voice, I kept getting a pop up on the camera because it uses it for the selfie camera trigger.
Same here. Disabled everything AT&T and left S Voice active.
Everything ATT except MyAtt and s voice
I've disabled all att stuff and a few other things like s health, s voice, galaxy apps, Samsung account, Samsung billing, Samsung link, remote, print services, ANT services, milk, yahoo weather
I left S Voice alone (other things make use of it), and also Galaxy Apps (allows you to update S Health)
NYYFan02 said:
I've disabled all att stuff and a few other things like s health, s voice, galaxy apps, Samsung account, Samsung billing, Samsung link, remote, print services, ANT services, milk, yahoo weather
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do disable the Samsung stuff? I can see how to stop it but I don't see an option to disable or turn off.
Also, anyone knows how to disable Lockout? All the options in app info ate greyed out, even force stop
lebertian said:
How do disable the Samsung stuff? I can see how to stop it but I don't see an option to disable or turn off.
Also, anyone knows how to disable Lockout? All the options in app info ate greyed out, even force stop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update the app then go to application manager and turn it off.
Sent from the TermiNOTEr 4!
borijess said:
Update the app then go to application manager and turn it off.
Sent from the TermiNOTEr 4!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, that worked! Weird that you have to update it to disable it
I realize this is an older thread, but for others that stumble upon it via search, here's a discussion that includes an extensive list of apps to safely be disabled.
(same link as above) http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-att/general/apps-to-disable-removed-att-note-4-t2943779
lebertian said:
Does anybody know a list of pre-installed apps that can be safely "turned off" in our device? This is of course referring to pre-installed apps that can't be uninstalled.
I've read that sometimes turning off certain apparently inoffensive apps may bring instability to the device.
For example, I was just checking my location settings and I saw that AT&T Navigator had been requesting location (with high battery usage), but I don't use that app at all, so I'm plan on turning it off, but I wonder in what other apps that can be done safely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can install package disabler pro for a small fee.. great app but be careful when u use their auto bloatware disable feature because it can disable some stuff that your phone needs to function.. but this app let's you disable stuff that is greyed out in your app manager like music player for example.
Here is another list which I have followed. Not all of them, but quite a few. It definitely made a difference.
Now, I think many of those you would need to be rooted to do. And of course we know that's not much good now for AT&T phones.
I'm on a T-Mobile Note 4, rooted, so I was OK to try. I did the TIBU/Freeze method.
Is there a list of App permissions that we can set to allow/ignore that improve battery without breaking or messing up our devices?
I've been trying different permission settings for various apps and I keep ending up breaking my phone - such as screen won't wake up, constant crashes etc
Using ResurrectionRemix Marshmallow for my n7105 and want to get the most out of my battery
jambo2013 said:
Is there a list of App permissions that we can set to allow/ignore that improve battery without breaking or messing up our devices?
I've been trying different permission settings for various apps and I keep ending up breaking my phone - such as screen won't wake up, constant crashes etc
Using ResurrectionRemix Marshmallow for my n7105 and want to get the most out of my battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont mess with permissions... I either remove them so they dont waste space or launch.
For the ones I keep, I run minmin and check which apps have adware installed and disable the adware. Then I run disable service, and disable background services that I dont use or are not required by the app to function. Such as analytics on some apps, campaign tracking, widgets I dont use, billing services, app measurement, location for apps that I dont care to have track, wearable, ppl services on selected apps, ads services, notifier service on selected apps, file sender services for selected apps and so on.
Then I use prevent running to stop various user apps and a few system apps from waking up or run in background after 40 seconds or so.
Stopped using greenify and amplify as they used too much CPU cycles.
Not sure what has happened (there haven't been any OTA updates), but my device crashes anytime I open things like Phone, Messenger, Contacts, and a few apps that integrate with those services and some that do not. I am on official with no root and changed nothing since my last time using it. Is anyone else having these random issues? Really not wanting to factory reset this thing.
My Fire Phone has the same issue. It start doing it a few weeks ago. It seemed like it was only apps that have some relationship to Contact data. WhatsApp, all contact apps, all phone apps, dialer apps, etc.
I ended up reseting the phone and starting from scratch. The issue seemed to be fixed. Today I use the phone in the morning, and it was fine. I pick it up to use some hours later, and the default launcher (Arrow Launcher) would crash every two seconds. I had to uninstall it from the OS Settings, and then pick another launcher. The other launchers are fine, but it was back to the same old story... opening any app that has a relationship to contacts data crashes.
Did you ever find a solution or a cause?
I never found a solution. My phone is sitting on my desk waiting to be used again. I thought that I would for sure be able to reinstall a non-damaged APK for the contacts application on the fire phone, but I haven't found a way. There has to be a way of fixing this issue without doing a clean install.
How to fix Crashing System Apps on your Amazon Fire Phone
I figured out how to fix this issue with the help of the amazon customer support team. I created a short video on youtube which should be able to help. Video can be found by googling "How to fix Crashing System Apps on your Amazon Fire Phone" or by copying and pasting the following link without quotes "bit.ly/2vSKcYn"
AndroidWelcome said:
My Fire Phone has the same issue. It start doing it a few weeks ago. It seemed like it was only apps that have some relationship to Contact data. WhatsApp, all contact apps, all phone apps, dialer apps, etc.
I ended up reseting the phone and starting from scratch. The issue seemed to be fixed. Today I use the phone in the morning, and it was fine. I pick it up to use some hours later, and the default launcher (Arrow Launcher) would crash every two seconds. I had to uninstall it from the OS Settings, and then pick another launcher. The other launchers are fine, but it was back to the same old story... opening any app that has a relationship to contacts data crashes.
Did you ever find a solution or a cause?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I figured out how to fix this issue with the help of the amazon customer support team. I created a short video on youtube which should be able to help. Video can be found by googling "How to fix Crashing System Apps on your Amazon Fire Phone" or by copying and pasting the following link without quotes "bit.ly/2vSKcYn"
In the settings menu in manage applications switch to all applications and look for content management services application. Open ot and clear the cache and the data. I think the problem will be solved.
Found a solution ??
Ztcc said:
Not sure what has happened (there haven't been any OTA updates), but my device crashes anytime I open things like Phone, Messenger, Contacts, and a few apps that integrate with those services and some that do not. I am on official with no root and changed nothing since my last time using it. Is anyone else having these random issues? Really not wanting to factory reset this thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear... I had same issue....
But finally I have found a crazy solution.... that is "uninstall all Fire Phone Updates" and at the end clear and clear data and force stop " content management services"
Hold power button for at least 40 sec.... after rebooting you phone gonna be fixed...
Sorry for bad English....?
100% smoothly working... let's kick the problems???
Doesn't work. I'm having the exact same issue. Tried all solutions here but they did not work. On the last solution though, how do you uninstall all fire phone updates?? Thanks!
Anyhuman86 said:
Doesn't work. I'm having the exact same issue. Tried all solutions here but they did not work. On the last solution though, how do you uninstall all fire phone updates?? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude.. Simply go the settings . Click on application then manage applications, select filter "downloaded".. then you will see system downloaded applications... click on every single system app nd uninstall updates... After all, being system uninstalled updates, again chose filter to "All" then search for "content management services" click on it... do clear cache, clear data, and force stop... now hold power+vol down button for at least 40 seconds... problem fixed
That fix didn't work for me. Anyone else have any ideas?
Maybe it is DIGITS? or iCloud sync?
I had the same problem, and the instructions above did not fix the situation for me, either, at least after just a couple of tries. However, I have 2 Fire Phones, and the other one was fine when I booted it from a month-long (or more) slumber. Then I did a few things to update it a bit and then it was also not fine, so something recent is causing the problem. But I do not know which of the "few things" messed up the 2nd phone. Maybe just being connected to the internet for a few minutes after a new boot from having been off for a while. I did not try to fix Phone 2 because clearing the data for Content Management Service will mess up all my app organization, removing them from folders, which is a huge pain to reorganize (well over 100 apps).
UPDATE: I shortened my long post. I had suspected either T-Mobile DIGITS or iCloud CardDav sync issue, or some other process that writes to the content management cache/data with each boot (since those processes launch with each boot), which I thought was why the fix did not immediately work on my phone. But now I think I figured it out. I made a new post since I can't edit the title of this one. But neither DIGITS nor iCloud was causing the issue. Sorry for so many "trouble-shooting" posts. I was thinking maybe others with crashes are using the same apps I suspected.
Android bug is the issue; need to delete a few apps
I think I figured out one issue which can cause this problem, which is not really a Fire Phone problem but an Android problem, at least with older version of Android and its Fire OS derivative. If you google the issue without restricting to Fire Phone, you'll see this is a common problem.
The issue is having too many apps installed -- even if you have plenty of space for them. I'm going from memory (too lazy to search again) but it seems android has a numbering system for the services within apps, but the numbering system has finite available numbers, so if you have too many apps (say, over 100 like I did), especially ones that use numerous services (and therefore numerous spots within the numbering system), then the OS can't handle that. So the solution is to delete some of your apps. Some apps will have a bigger impact than others.
So, this was the reason why one of the earlier posters said it fixed the issue when deleting "updates" to system apps. These updates are usually new installs that are used instead of the app that came with the phone which is "inactivated," so they take up spots within the numbering system just like any new install. But it actually does not matter which particular app you delete, so just delete ones you don't use.
Also, this was the reason why my Fire Phone 2, like my Fire Phone 1, went bad shortly after I booted it and did some stuff to it. That stuff was to "sync" my setup with Fire Phone 1, since I keep the two almost the same. I install almost the same apps and organize them the same way, so if a phone breaks or I don't have time to charge the battery, I can just swap in my SIM to a working phone and it is up-to-date and ready to go. Perfect backup system. But this means they were both similarly maxed out with apps, and when I added a few more to Phone 2, it developed the same issue. I believe I updated Outlook from Amazon App Store, and OneDrive from Google Play Store (I think I had installed OneDrive from Amazon store but it is no longer available there). And I added a couple of other apps in addition, like Microsoft Translator; nothing with contact links. So, not major changes.
Problem is, even if you uninstall a bunch of software, you'll still need to clear the data from Content Management Services, following the instructions in the YouTube vid posted earlier. Which is a pain if you have a lot of apps, because you have to organize them fresh.
UPDATE: My issue was not yet really fixed. While trouble shooting, I disabled Contacts Storage, and that actually prevents crashes even before deleting the excess apps. (It then seems to disappear from the list of apps but actually it is there: Need to scroll to the very bottom of the long applications list.) Re-enabling Contacts Storage brings back the crashes. But then I cleared its cash/data and force quit, and cleared just the cache (not data) in Content Management Services, and did the long press on the power button. Now it seems to be fixed.
So, it seems Contacts Storage was an important culprit.
I still love the Fire Phone but I'm stunned at how buggy Android is (or was, back in 4.4).
Maybe a Telegram or Vonage update initiated the problem
I was able to fix my 2nd Fire Phone without clearing data from Content Management Services (I did clear cache and force quit, then long press power). And before that I also cleared Contacts Storage and force quit. This was super nice because I did not have to organize all my apps from scratch.
However, my first try of the above did not fix. I then deleted Telegram and Vonage, and then repeated the above procedures, and now my 2nd phone is fixed too.
I had also deleted Telegram and Vonage from Fire 1 when I was culling apps, so now I'm wondering if one of those was the issue that messed things up. I've had them on my phones for a long time but did recent updates on Google Play Store. I do not use these apps but have them just in case an acquaintance prefers them for messaging, but maybe an initial launch and setup has some associated process launch on each boot.
So now I'm not sure what caused my problem; an app update or too many apps or a combination of the two??
I'm thinking it is not a good idea to install calling apps on the Fire. It had its own version of Skype and so maybe calling apps need to be somehow adjusted for Fire OS. (And Skype on Fire Phone is no longer officially supported, even though Android 4.4 is.)
UPDATE: Reinstalling Telegram does not reproduce the issue. And in addition to Telegram and Vonage, I had removed some other apps. I did not retest with Vonage but Telegram is definitely NOT the issue. At least the version that's in Play Store as of this Edit, which is July 8 2018.
It is Microsoft OneDrive that's causing the issue
I figured out the issue, at least in my case. The newest version of Microsoft OneDrive from Google Play Store is causing the problem. It is version 4.15, from Sept 2017, but I take a while to update apps from Play Store sometimes, and so it wasn't causing an issue until I recently updated it. I can reproduce the issue. The app has other weird problems like its icon disappearing. Also, the version from Amazon App Store no longer shows up (but it tries to "update" my Google Play version since the version numbers don't match). That version now fails to install, so it is probably missing from Amazon servers. Anyway, if I download latest from Google Play, it does not cause the issue until I launch and sign in. Then Contacts and Phone will crash. Then when I first clear all its data and then uninstall, the Phone and Contacts no longer crash. OneDrive permissions includes contacts, so it does something to contacts data that causes Contacts and stuff using it to crash. I hope Microsoft will fix this and put OneDrive back in Amazon Store, because OneNote needs it. I had both OneNote and OneDrive from Play Store because the Amazon App Store versions were both older. But both are now missing when I search the Amazon App Store with my phone. So these Microsoft apps are no good on Fire Phone (and maybe other Fire OS?) for the time being.
It' enough to disable Contact Storage app to stop Dialer from crashing. So now we have dialer with no contacts and history I Hope someone will resolve this issue.
Luca7007 said:
It' enough to disable Contact Storage app to stop Dialer from crashing. So now we have dialer with no contacts and history I Hope someone will resolve this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the issue is in part too many apps for this version of Android, especially bigger ones with numerous processes. AND communication apps from Google Play Store that launch automatically upon reboot and write to contacts.
I finally have both phones working nicely. I just backed up and then deleted a bunch of apps that I was not using. But that alone may not have been my biggest issue. It seems that at least the newest versions of communication apps from Google Play Store cause this problem, even after I had culled my apps. For example Signal seems to have caused the problem, but for some reason only if I was using the CardDav-sync app (to sync my iCloud contacts). Once I uninstalled Signal, all is working fine. I have my contacts synced from iCloud now, and nothing is crashing. So it is not simply a high app count issue, though maybe it is a combination of problems.
Anyway, you do not have to disable Contacts Storage to use your phone. I did not even need to long-press (soft reset) or clear cache for Content Management Services. I just uninstalled Signal, then cleared cache and data for Contacts Storage and then did a regular restart, and the Phone app and Contacts are no longer crashing.
Like the title says, I've noticed since updating to 7.1.2 at least 2-3 times a day I am thrown a notification for "updating Instant Apps" but it never tells me if it was updated or installed. I tried going to Settings -> Google -> Instant Apps and it is disabled yet these apps are auto-downloading and installing in the background. I have auto-updates off on the play store but this still occurs.
Is there anything I can do to disable or at least cripple the instant apps? I'm reading the purpose of instant apps is so you can try an application without installing it, I do not want to test drive apps like Buzzfeed so however I can disable it would be great
fatapia said:
Like the title says, I've noticed since updating to 7.1.2 at least 2-3 times a day I am thrown a notification for "updating Instant Apps" but it never tells me if it was updated or installed. I tried going to Settings -> Google -> Instant Apps and it is disabled yet these apps are auto-downloading and installing in the background. I have auto-updates off on the play store but this still occurs.
Is there anything I can do to disable or at least cripple the instant apps? I'm reading the purpose of instant apps is so you can try an application without installing it, I do not want to test drive apps like Buzzfeed so however I can disable it would be great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, using Titanium Backup I couldn't find the package com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor but using a root explorer I found the application in /data/app/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor-2
I also found saved data in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor
I have no idea if this will prevent the service from auto-updating as it has been without permission but I know where it is now...
Update: Deleting both folders causing settings to crash when you go to Settings -> Google -> Instant apps, so it might be deleted off my phone entirely. I will update if I see the application re-install itself
Instant apps are temporary apps. So you can't uninstall them or disable it. It's a feature built into Android that is not going away. Your only option is to install a rom without Gapps. Otherwise deal with it.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
superchilpil said:
Instant apps are temporary apps. So you can't uninstall them or disable it. It's a feature built into Android that is not going away. Your only option is to install a rom without Gapps. Otherwise deal with it.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
deleting those two files seemed to have broken that feature.
My issue was that I disabled that service through settings as suggested by one of the google support pages but it would still download and install "Instant Apps" the service throughout the day, not the actual temporary apps themselves. So it's been dealt with lol
oh man, when i saw this i thought i had a virus on my phone.
especially when i couldn't find anything named "instant apps" in the app drawer
I am hoping that this will work for me as well. The first time I saw the instant apps pop up I just connected to a free wifi in Mexico and freaked out. This seriously bothers me. I uninstalled it and it came back update after update. I also will not be using any instant apps, so this is something I want to break.
speedee12 said:
I am hoping that this will work for me as well. The first time I saw the instant apps pop up I just connected to a free wifi in Mexico and freaked out. This seriously bothers me. I uninstalled it and it came back update after update. I also will not be using any instant apps, so this is something I want to break.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some how it was pushed back on to my phone. this is not a permanent solution...
so I'm trying to disable this through other means now and I found something interesting? I need someone with more experience to chime in as far as what these* lines* do*.. and where I found it...
so in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor/shared_prefs/phenotypeConfigurations.xml there are these three lines:
<boolean name="Supervisor__enable_instant_apps" value="true" />
<boolean name="Supervisor__disable_url_resolution" value="false" />
<boolean name="TestFeature__enable_test" value="true" />
I flipped the value of these three entries to see if this will disable it. I find it odd that for the first line it was set for "true" when the settings say it's off. I will update again if I see this come back. My coworker had suggested that this may be built in to the Google app itself? Let's see...
so I had to unroot my phone because I forgot to log into snapchat, then re-root after, and Instant Apps was back yet again. The changes I made to the XML file persisted but the app was back.
I think I found a way to remove it entirely. I used Root Explorer, idk what other applications would work for this. So I navigated back to /data/app/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor-1 and I clicked the base.apk and I had an option to uninstall, I did this then rebooted my phone to see if reboots are why it fixes itself except the entry for Instant Apps has been removed from settings. This appears to permanently remove this feature.
every time I think I fix this it keeps coming back lol, I finally called Google Support and this is the first they are hearing of it. The application re-installed itself at 430-some Mountain Time on it's own, other times it re-installs upon reboot. I'm going to find a way to cripple it if google cant
I recommend calling support to let them know that Instant Apps is enabled even though the switch says it is disabled.
fatapia said:
every time I think I fix this it keeps coming back lol, I finally called Google Support and this is the first they are hearing of it. The application re-installed itself at 430-some Mountain Time on it's own, other times it re-installs upon reboot. I'm going to find a way to cripple it if google cant
I recommend calling support to let them know that Instant Apps is enabled even though the switch says it is disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same annoyances, "Installig Instant apps" notification appears randomly during the last month, and reading in the logcat they are updates/patches to the new feature, managed by finsky app (Play Store). The most scaring thing is that one time it appeared also during mobile data connection, which is not acceptable (and 800kb background data from Play Store). Google is being too aggressive with it. Why not simply integrate it and update it along with Play Services like the other 1000 google APIs ? !on WIFI!
Thank you for your tests, unfortunately the update process seems to be triggered by Google Play services itself or by Google play store.
I searched for related alarms/wakelocks in Amplify and could only found one wakelock coming from com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor itself: .ExperimentUpdateService. I decided to keep it as this probably isn't the trigger.
ninestarkoko said:
I have the same annoyances, "Installig Instant apps" notification appears randomly during the last month, and reading in the logcat they are updates/patches to the new feature, managed by finsky app (Play Store). The most scaring thing is that one time it appeared also during mobile data connection, which is not acceptable (and 800kb background data from Play Store). Google is being too aggressive with it. Why not simply integrate it and update it along with Play Services like the other 1000 google APIs ? !on WIFI!
Thank you for your tests, unfortunately the update process seems to be triggered by Google Play services itself or by Google play store.
I searched for related alarms/wakelocks in Amplify and could only found one wakelock coming from com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor itself: .ExperimentUpdateService. I decided to keep it as this probably isn't the trigger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah that's now my only worrisome complaint is that it ignores the play store settings and will download over any network connection. You can try submitting feedback through settings and suggest they fix this part so that it updates as you said. Thanks for the additional info, I'll try disabling that and report back if it makes any difference. I doubt that's the source of the problem though so I uninstall the apk so something else must be initiating it.
Thank you guys for this thread! I have the regular Pixel and have been seeing this happen... "Instant Apps" was disabled but somehow still updating either itself or something else, and I wondered if there was an additional switch somewhere to disable it. Looks like the answer is no. ?
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
So I noticed every time the play store found an update, magically Instant Apps was back. I began to notice that this may be a service built into Play Store and not the Google app itself. So I had an idea, I went into Settings for Android and turned off background data for Play services. Obviously this will affect quite a bit, but honestly I am at that point from fighting this feature that I'd gladly give that up. So far after 2 days I have not seen the application re-install itself. It has been more permanent that the other solutions I've had so far.
There's an article from XDA in Analysis and Opinion talking about Instant Apps and Play Store 7.8.15, apparently this issue is affecting people all the way down to the Samsung S5... although people are hesistant to believe this issue exists for whatever reason.
You can cripple it by restricting its access to internet via firewall. Unfortunately this method also drives up battery consumption as the firewall does jujitsu with "Google Play services for Instant Apps" - I am actively fantasizing about taking my baby sledge to this thing and going back to a "dumb"-phone that doesn't have all this drama constantly! I'm using an S5 right now. This is definitely a google thing. They have a similar self-install-without-asking "feature" on windows via their chrome browser. Just look up "SwReporter" in that program's directory. It self-populates with an executable as you use chrome normally and there is no option in the program for it to not do that. You can safely make a shortcut to that directory and empty it out regularly to restrict its functionality which is presumably for keeping an eye on you. I am also trying an alternate method of changing security to prevent write access to that directory. I have no idea how to do that on an unrooted android. Any ideas? And does anybody know how to cripple "instant apps" malware/spyware backdoor "feature" on an unrooted device without eating battery like crazy?
Today I noticed that Instant Apps was installing without my permission. When I clicked on that notification, it brought me to the Google Play Store. (In Google Play Store, I have auto updates disabled.) I have an unrooted Galaxy Note 4 and I can't even find the settings for Instant Apps under the Google settings. Why aren't the settings there? I found the app in the Apps settings called "Google Play services for Instant Apps" (thank you G1A). I cleared it's the cache and data and then uninstalled it. So I'm assuming it will not come back but you never know.
EDIT: Well the "Google Play services for Instant Apps" reinstalled itself AGAIN WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Getting sick of tired of Google's POMPOUS business ethics.
If it reinstalled itself.... then his would require root privileges in order to disable.
yeah this issue is annoying, it seems to initiate the download upon every reboot and each time it checks the play store for updates for any of your apps.
I found a way to disable it but it required freezing the app through Titanium Backup. I have NO CLUE why I couldn't see Instant Apps before in this list but it is listed as "Google Play Services for Instant Apps." It does not re-install or try to even download, does not show in Settings under Google, but if you look at the app itself in settings you will see it does still run. I am not sure to what extent but yeeeaahhh at least it doesnt seem like it can run anything
No problem As an update, changing security permissions (specifically for writing) for chrome's target folder Definitely (in windows 10) serves as an effective measure to blockade its ability to regenerate itself. This same method also works for microsoft edge located in the C-Windows-SystemApps folder. I presume that the programming methods would be analogous with android on google's end. Anybody know how to restrict write access to a folder on android? So long as it checks for a folder existing and it does exist (multi-decade programming approach) then it attempts to write to that folder. However, because it's already running in stealth mode (aka background) then it will never show an error message when it fails to execute, and it won't report back either, as that functionality depends on the contents of the targeted folder it is denied access to. It should be effectively crippled without excessive CPU consumption if you can just restrict its ability to write to the default folder that it installs itself in. Any ideas how to execute this kind of blockade?
UPDATE: As a way to cripple not Instant Apps specifically, but an entire host of functionality on the android platform, something called "Power Saving Mode" seems to knock out a key background runtime required for this pest to run. Unfortunately it doesn't let you pick and choose what it shuts off, so other useful apps may lose their functionality too. Post if anybody finds a more app-specific method!
Does this crap have its own separate package? If so, you could uninstall it and make a dummy APK having the same package name. This could prevent "updates" due to signing key conflicts, but might also break things...