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Ads Are Taking Over Samsung's Galaxy Smartphones (androidpolice.com) 137

Posted by msmash from the not-a-good-look dept.
Max Weinbach, writing for Android Police: I have been using Samsung phones every day for almost 4 years. It was because Samsung had fantastic hardware paired with --depending on the year -- good software. 2020 is the first year in a while I'm not using a Samsung phone as my daily driver. The reason? Ads. Ads in Samsung phones never really bothered me, at least not until the past few months. It started with the Galaxy Z Flip. A tweet from Todd Haselton of CNBC is what really caught my eye. Samsung had put an ad from DirectTV in the stock dialer app. This is really something I never would have expected from any smartphone company, let alone Samsung. It showed up in the "Places" tab in the dialer app, which is in partnership with Yelp and lets you search for different businesses directly from the dialer app so you don't need to Google somewhere to find the address or phone number. I looked into it, to see if this was maybe a mistake on Yelp's part, accidentally displaying an ad where it shouldn't have, but nope. The ad was placed by Samsung, in an area where it could blend in so they could make money.

Similar ads exist throughout a bunch of Samsung apps. Samsung Music has ads that look like another track in your library. Samsung Health and Samsung Pay have banners for promotional ads. The stock weather app has ads that look like they could be news. There is also more often very blatant advertising in most of these apps as well. Samsung Music will give you a popup ad for Sirius XM, even though Spotify is built into the Samsung Music app. You can hide the SiriusXM popup, but only for 7 days at a time. A week later, it will be right back there waiting for you. Samsung will also give you push notification ads for new products from Bixby, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Push Service.
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Ads Are Taking Over Samsung's Galaxy Smartphones More

Ads Are Taking Over Samsung's Galaxy Smartphones

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  • Done with Samsung (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ssyladin ( 458003 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:13PM (#60251630)

    I have a Galaxy 8 and the persistence of a hardware button dedicated to yet another useless digital assistant - Bixby - has pissed me off. I had it disabled via a 3rd party hack, but when Android Pie hit, they force-enabled it. Now half the time I hit that instead of the volume rocker and just get annoyed at my phone.

    Done with Samsung. Trust comes in small steps, and leaves in large bounds. I love the hardware, but shoving Bixby at me lost a lot of trust. If this ad thing is legit, that's two big steps away. There are plenty of other smartphone brands to try.

    • Come over to Motorola, like Dairy Queen we treat you right.

      • Re: Done with Samsung (Score:4, Funny)

        by NoMoreACs ( 6161580 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @04:26PM (#60251902)

        Come over to iOS. We donâ(TM)t do any of that shit!

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          True, you just can't uninstall or disable the built in apps, or replace them with other apps, and you browser has to be Safari (skins allowed).

          • True, you just can't uninstall or disable the built in apps.

            That hasn't been true for some time.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              How do you delete Safari on an iPhone?

              • Are you suggesting Safari is the only built in app? You said "you just can't uninstall or disable the built in apps."

                If you meant to say "Safari" rather than "the built in apps," you would be correct. However, what you said is not true, and hasn't been for some time.

                • Re: (Score:3)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  So which ones can be removed and which ones cannot be removed?

                  And which ones are you allowed to replace? I read that the latest version of iOS will let you replace more default apps but it's limited, e.g. Apple Maps is a forced default you can't change.

        • Yeah but you can't even get single quote marks working.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      I found that you can disable the Bixby app (and others) using the ADB command line. The trick is that while they're set up so that you can't disable them globally, you can use disable-user to disable them for a particular user, and for almost everyone, that's essentially the same thing (disable them for user 0).

      Once I did that, Bixby never found a workaround to mess with my phone again. Same with all the other bloatware that I never wanted.

      Of course, you shouldn't have to jump through crazy technical hack

    • Yep. I used to have a Samsung TV. It updated its firmware and suddenly started inserting ads into the input select screen, so that you'd go to switch to your Switch or something and the ad would pop up there and you'd click on it by accident. It infuriated me so much (I didn't *buy* a TV with ads) that I returned it, and got another one. This time, I disabled the firmware updates. Samsung very helpfully ignored the fact I'd disabled updating the firmware, updated the firmware, and started showing ads. So I

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      I got out before the ads, purely because of unremovable Samsung bloatware.

      • The last Samsung device I had was a tablet from number of years ago. They were already well down the road of trying to turn Android into a Shittier Apple, complete with useless apps, unneeded visual design, and associated expense for little benefit. Also complete with unreliable hardware, the battery stopped charging after a couple of years.

  • Does this make the phone MSRP less? (Score:3)

    by klipclop ( 6724090 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:16PM (#60251640)
    With all these ads, do they lower the cost of the phone hardware? Or do they keep it high and pocket all that sweet, sweet ads revenue?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Just one more reason not use buy Samsung phones at all. The main one being they are full of lots of bloatware and crapware you can simply not remove, yet they make your phone run slow. Switching to Google Pixel's line was the best thing I could do. Not as "flashy", but they are solid performers even as time passes.

  • Screw that. (Score:3)

    by Mister Transistor ( 259842 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:26PM (#60251678) Journal

    I have a Galaxy Edge 7 - I know it's ancient but it still works and the battery on replacement unit #2 hasn't swelled and cracked itself open yet, but hey, it'll be dead in a year or two and I'll have to root it or buy another.

    With all the 3rd party aps out there like dialers, calendars, etc. why even bother using the ad-laden stock apps? These are already mostly stupidly duplicated already, almost every stock Google app has a sucky Samsung app that does exactly the same thing. Duplicate UI to learn - great move, Samsung! No one uses their lame shit anyhow, and even the more usable Google versions of the stock apps have better versions out there you can find that do the same thing but better, faster, prettier, and free.

  • Ads on a product I paid for ?!? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@nOSpaM.gdargaud.net> on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:34PM (#60251702) Homepage
    How dare you ? What kind of fucked up state of marketing mind is that ? I absolutely hate adds. On my PC I combine custom hosts files, with Linux, with custom DNS ban, with adblock, with javascript block in order not to see ads. And it works so well that I'm astounded when I see the horror that is a 'standard' Windows PC.

    But on a smartphone I own I can hardly do any of it. Firefox + adblock, check. DNS redirection to 23.253.163.53/198.101.242.72, check. But then the very android launcher decides to show me ads. Fuck that. I own the phone. I paid for it. Why the fuck do you want to show me additional ads ?!? Some apps also install by themselves. If you are really starved for money, just charge me an extra 10$ for the phone, I'll gladly pay for it. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ANY ADS. NONE. ZILCH. Is that fucking clear ?

    • But then the very android launcher decides to show me ads. Fuck that. I own the phone. I paid for it.

      These days, the fact that you paid for something with a microprocessor in it doesn't mean that you own it. You bought the right to use the phone, not to control it, whether or not you realized it at the time. I don't even trust that I own my Motorola phone - and it's rooted, has a firewall, and runs Cyanogenmod.

      • You bought the right to use the phone, not to control it, whether or not you realized it at the time.

        Just wait till you all start getting ads for Jiffy Lube on your condoms. You'll be asking for your right to not be annoyed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The good news is that on Android if you don't like the launcher you can just replace it with one of your choosing. There are some open source ones that respect your privacy. Same with almost every part of the OS.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Blymie ( 231220 )

      It's worse than all that.

      To sell ads, you need to sell personalized ads.. otherwise, your revenue from per ad sales is abysmal.

      FYI, I've seen Samsung keyboard phoning home. The camera app. Literally, everything. And you can bet it's doing more than just improving customer service.

      It's *profiling* you. So not only do you have Google to contend with, you now also have Samsung. Yet, Google isn't forcing ads down your throat. And Google is "being watched" enough, that they tend to have some opt-out for tr

  • Ads? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Necron69 ( 35644 ) <jscott DOT farrow AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:37PM (#60251714)

    I don't see these at all on my Note10+. I've been a Samsung user since my Windows powered Blackjack II, and I remain pretty happy. Besides, who the hell actually uses any of the Samsung apps, let alone Bixby? :)

    - Necron69

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      Yeah me either, not on my note10+ nor on my S9+ or S8+ or S7 Edge or 5 before it.

      I use the stock dialer. I use the stock email app with office 365 and imap accounts without any issue, and the stock contacts app.

      I never had an issue with the stock sms and calender apps, but now have paid copies of digical and textra so i use those.

      On the note10+ I was able to configure the side button not to call bixby from the stock settings app. no 3rd party required. Although that wasn't the case with one of the previous

  • I haven't seen the ads yet, but they shouldn't be on the dialer, and you should be able to hide from ads. If I did see ads in the dialer, I would throw my phone through a well and promptly get an iphone.

    Bixby sucks, it's like no one at samsung has actually used the assistant. It can only get 50% of what I say right. The other problem is the UI for bixby. It's like the bixby designers don't even know what the button is for. When I pick up my phone it should just answer the command, but if your in an app (lik

  • What..? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:51PM (#60251778)

    Samsung had put an ad from DirectTV in the stock dialer app. This is really something I never would have expected from any smartphone company, let alone Samsung.

    Really Max, you did not expect to see intrusive ads from a Samsung device on a Google Platform? Are you sure you should be blogging for Android Police? Seriously, type "Samsung ads" into Google. Feel free to try "Samsung ads TV", as well.

    Seriously, this is up there with someone saying something like: "I wouldn't have expected Apple to raise their prices!"

    • Really Max, you did not expect to see intrusive ads from a Samsung device on a Google Platform?

      Err Yes. The answer is yes really. Why would you expect the Google platform to be at all relevant to Samsung *newly* introducing advertising into its own apps is beyond me. Why you expect the apps that come with something you paid for to show ads is also beyond me.

      Now I don't have a latest model Samsung device, but I can say now with certainty I have *NEVER* seen an advert on any Samsung app or core OS app that has been shipped with my phone, and I absolutely do not expect to.

      Now as to the rest of the shits

      • Why would you expect the Google platform to be at all relevant to Samsung *newly* introducing advertising into its own apps is beyond me. Why you expect the apps that come with something you paid for to show ads is also beyond me.

        On a Google device I absolutely expect advertising to be the model on it because I know what Google's business is. The reason I expected Samsung to do this also because I know what their business is. That suggestion I made about typing a phrase or two into a search engine will further clarify what I mean.

  • Android's birth defect is that it's not an OS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Generic User Account ( 6782004 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:53PM (#60251782)
    Android is a firmware construction kit, not an OS*. That's why you can't replace the installed firmware with a clean install. That's why you don't get timely updates. On top of that, it doesn't help that Google/Alphabet is an advertising company.

    *) Yes, I am aware that Android, as it is installed on a phone, is technically an OS. That's not how it is distributed though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      By that logic Linux isn't an OS, it's just a construction kit and you have to rely on distros to package it into something you can use. Updates lag behind the kernel as each distro has to manage its own. On top of that it doesn't help that most of the contributions these days are from businesses, many of the advertisers.

      Of course this is all nonsense.

      • The difference is that Linux distributions are generic. There is no Ubuntu image for Leniva Smartthinkerbook X and a different one for Asoar E-Squire 2000. If you are not satisfied with the bloatware infested OS that shipped with your new Someson Universe Book, you can download Debian and install that, and the updates will not stop when Someson decides your laptop is old enough to be replaced. You cannot do that with your phone and Android, because constructing an Android firmware is a challenging technical

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          There are machine specific distros. Some of the manufacturers who sell machines that ship with Linux have them. They were particularly popular back in the Netbook days.

          Anyway you can replace Android with a generic version like Lineage. It's not that difficult to do either.

          • Of course you can make a Linux installation image which only works on one type of computer, but most Linux distros aren't machine specific. There are no Android firmwares that aren't machine specific. No, I cannot install a Lineage firmware on my phone. It's not one of the very few devices for which Lineage has constructed a firmware.

    • That's why you don't get timely updates.

      That's not why you don't get timely updates. You don't get timely updates because your device manufacturer is a shit. Security updates and are effectively trivial button presses these days for developers to create and send your way. Don't make excuses for them.

      And OS updates, well that also has nothing to do with "firmware construction kit" and everything to do with vendors timing their updates with updates to their own unfinished software to create a "new look and feel" and an "enhanced customer experience

  • Cable (Score:3)

    by kackle ( 910159 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @03:55PM (#60251794)
    This is no surprise to anyone old enough to have lived through the beginnings of cable ("pay") TV: "Ooo, no commercials..." Eventually commercials.

    Web? No ads; now ubiquitous ads. I don't stream TV, but I suspect it'll happen there, too, if it hasn't already. And Microsoft was experimenting with putting ads within Windows 10's Wordpad, I believe. I once bought a DVD for someone and it wouldn't let you skip through the opening ads of the DVD movie itself.

    I'd like to see a computer printer that prints an ad every 10 pages, lol.

    • Re:Cable (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @04:03PM (#60251828)

      This is no surprise to anyone old enough to have lived through the beginnings of cable ("pay") TV: "Ooo, no commercials..." Eventually commercials.

      I used to love American Movie Classics back in those days. They showed lots of old movies, uninterrupted by commercials. The host, Bob Dorian, would tell viewers briefly about the movie, then the movie would run without interruption - that was it. Afterwards he might also talk about some interesting behind-the-scenes story about the filming, or other stuff like that. You'd see some ads regarding other movies they'd be showing soon... but only in between the actual movies.

      Those days were wonderful...

      • I used to love American Movie Classics back in those days. They showed lots of old movies, uninterrupted by commercials. The host, Bob Dorian, would tell viewers briefly about the movie, then the movie would run without interruption - that was it. Afterwards he might also talk about some interesting behind-the-scenes story about the filming, or other stuff like that. You'd see some ads regarding other movies they'd be showing soon... but only in between the actual movies.

        Turner Classic Movies is still that way.

        No commercials, and no fucking censoring, especially at night!

        Say what you want; but itâ(TM)s pretty damn refreshing...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bws111 ( 1216812 )

      Why do people keep posting this same bullshit? It never happened. The beginnings of cable were late 50s through early 70s. It was just retransmission of OTA broadcasts, commercials included. The mid 70s saw the introduction of pay services like HBO. They didn't have ads then, they don't have ads now. The late 70s saw the introduction of 'cable only' channels. They had ads then, they have ads now. About the only channel I can think of that went from no ads to ads is AMC, which was never a pay channel

      • Why do you keep posting this bullshit? Most people had never heard of cable till the 1980's and there was indeed promises of "no ads" when the municipalities and states were deciding to allow the franchise. Either that or I hallucinated the entire 1980's.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bws111 ( 1216812 )

          The original claim was that there were originally no commercials. But there always were commercials. Now you're claiming that there were promises of no commercials to get franchises. So, since those promises were never delivered, there must be hundreds of lawsuits against the cable companies for breaking the franchise agreements. Where are they? This leaves us with two possibilities: every state and municipality that was promised no commercials didn't take action when the promises were broken, or no suc

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Probably depends on where you lived and how good of reception you had. We had cable from the mid-60's on, it was the difference between having 2 channels (plus 2 that were not really watchable) to having 11 channels plus a community channel that wasn't worth watching besides for weather. Sometime in the late 70's or so, more channels started being added if you had an external tuner, mostly channels that were not available any other way.

  • Samsung pay, which comes pre load, has permanent access to all contacts and GPS location. No option to change that. Samsung Galaxy app store needs access to contact and phone to work.
  • Gosh, their entire software ecosystem is ads after ads after ads. I have moved away from any Samsung computing device about 6 years ago and I ain't coming back.

  • If Samsung is going this way, what about the rest of the cell phone makers? Samsung as far as I know, dramatically leads in profits over any of them... Samsung should be the last company to need the revenue from ads that harms customers.

    People always say Apple's "Walled Garden" is there to keep people in. But those who use Apple products regularly know it is the other way around... it's to keep the bad aspects of the outside world, like adds in default apps from coming in...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      I've been buying cheap Motorola phones, no ads, the latest did have facebook which I removed. The other no-stock is stuff like device help which is likely removable, the FM radio app and a gesture program, both of which are also likely removable. And of course the stock Android programs, of which I've removed a couple, and even they don't really have much in the way of ads.
      The drawback is updates are late and few, fine if not doing anything serious like banking on the phone.

  • I guess after my Note 8 dies I'll get a Linux phone. Its cheaper and has NO adverts.

  • It showed up in the "Places" tab in the dialer app, which is in partnership with Yelp..."

    You already had a giant advert for Yelp on your phone and you're surprised you got another ad on your phone (who's software was provided free by Google so they could sell you more ads)?

  • I almost always use 3rd party apps for media, email, etc. They're usually more full featured, but more importantly don't require me to have a Samsung account.

    • Agreed. I have an S10, but use no Samsung apps, and do not have a Samsung account.

      For the most part, I love the phone.

      I do strongly dislike one other "feature" though. The S10 is extremely aggressive at shutting down apps to extend battery life, and it takes a lot of work to ensure the apps I want to always stay running.

  • I have a galaxy note 4 and it's awesome. Replaceable battery, SD Card, Headphone Jack, and rugged and built to last. I've had this phone since it came out and am never upgrading. I just get a new battery every year for $20. I'm super happy with it.

  • they started putting ads in the task bar on the smart tvs which can't be removed. They also seem to have some kind of back channel for ads that doesn't get blocked when watching, say Youtube, like it does by my pfsense firewall when watching on a desktop/laptop. That they would sabotage their phones like this (note, I said THEIR phone not YOUR phone) is not surprising.

    I love Samsung's picture and think they have the best blacks of any displays, I have a 32" 2K gaming monitor and 2 different TVs of theirs

  • Samsung phones have been generally considered a semi-elite brand. If they become a wild-west dumping ground for spam and riff-raff, then people will move to Apple etc.

    I can see a lower-rung brand using that approach: poorer people in general will put up with riff-raff phones to save a buck out of desperation. (I'm not saying it's "right", only that it happens.) If you want to remain semi-elite, don't damage your brand's reputation with trash-ware.

    I also wonder how much of the trash-ware is from the carriers

  • Why I switched from Galaxy S5 to iPhone this year:
    1. Intrusive ads displaying before app launch and under most apps
    2. Malware easily takes over phone. Apple seemed to have much better security and code vetting.
    3. Walked in to Samsung Galaxy HQ with phone refusing to boot or recover. They refused to support me in getting data off of it or even touch it because S5 is out of product support lifetime. They were nice but infuriating and directed me to look for unofficial repair shops (couldnâ(TM)t repair).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      1. Intrusive ads displaying before app launch and under most apps

      You must make shitty app choices. I rarely see ads on my phone.

      2. Malware easily takes over phone.

      Phones I've owned that have had malware: 0

      How are you managing this? Whatever makes you think Apple will be any better?
      https://blog.malwarebytes.com/... [malwarebytes.com]

      They refused to support me in getting data off of it or even touch it because S5 is out of product support lifetime.

      So a product that you don't have an extended warranty on, that's beyond its support life, that will cost $1000 to recover the data from, isn't getting free support?

      How fucking entitled are you?

      3. Rest of family has iPhones so could not see shared photos or chat easily
      4. I have a Mac
      5. I helped by an iPhone for my Mom in December

      At last, sensible reasons.

      cost me 400 bucks in a month

      I don't know you and this is cruel, but I find that amusing.

      The only, growing negative on the iPhone is the growing amount of ads and the very strong push away from usability (just let me play/view my own music and books!) toward pushing me toward signing up for additional services. I feel like Apple is over-monetizing what I feel should be obvious functionality given that it cost so much to buy. All the apps so far make it hard to do things that were simple and push you to subscribe to some crap.

      So basically you'

  • Samsung makes great hardware and terrible software. It's been that way for a decade. My last Samsung phone had apps that were inferior to the free apps on the Android market. How did they manage to do that? They should just eliminate every programmer who works there and release stock Android phones. They would be faster, better quality, and they would save themselves development costs.

  • It sucks that the software services were shut down. But for the moment it does what I need it to do (email, text, calls). And using this device, you become highly cognizant about just how intrusive these devices are out of the box. The default settings for notifications are just obnoxious. Every app that is downloaded just adds to the notification gangbang.

    And now Samsung is finding ways to sneak more ads into their apps. It's an irresistible revenue stream. How long before all other phone vendors do

  • I had a Samsung phone around 6 years ago, I forget which one. It came with lots of unremovable crapware, and it was hellishly annoying how they tried to force their own inferior versions of apps onto the user, plus pushing you onto their own app store and ecosystem - where of course you could not use your regular Google user to log in, but needed some special "Samsung user". Also, after a year or so the phone had gotten really sluggish for no obvious reasons.

    So it took about 20 years for me to see Samsung r

  • Also .. never use Samsung apps.

    Problem solved ...

    Move along ... nothing to see. Just another case of Slashdot getting all caught up in first world problems with simple solutions that the perpetually offended fixate on.
  • Nice hardware, terrible software, abusive management. May Samsung burn in hell, or in one of their exploding phones. A huge middle finger to you, Samsung.

  • Maybe they will show you ads for fire extinguishers.

  • I had the same problem with my Note 4 years ago. Suddenly the TV remote app was full of annoying ads, and there was nothing you could do about it. Not cool, Samsung. (But at least I have learned my lesson, and I love my Pixel 3.)

  • It would seem that the big-tech folks have finally identified how to make money in the digital age. It's not in the hardware or the software, it's in the advertising.

    Or, alternatively pr0n, but even that has its challenges.

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