Samsung Confirms It's Removing Ads From its Stock Apps Later this Year

Samsung has confirmed that it will stop showing ads in default apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme. From a report: It follows comments made by its mobile chief TM Roh in an internal town hall meeting reported by Yonhap. "Samsung has made a decision to cease the advertisement on proprietary apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme," the company said in a statement given to The Verge. "The update will be ready by later this year."

"Our priority is to deliver innovative mobile experiences for our consumers based on their needs and wants," the company said. "We value feedback from our users and continue our commitment to provide them with the best possible experience from our Galaxy products and services."

"We continue to value our customers..."

[Dster76]

"...unless, and except in such cases as it is more profitable to value them less. It turns out that the cash money we took for all those ads eroded our customer base more than we expected. Once we have built back trust (approximately after one quarter) we have already negotiated significant new advertising revenue for the lock screen."

"We value feedback from our users..."

[backbyter]

"unless they are asking to remove Bixby or any of our other apps."

Re:

[JackieBrown]

Do you complain about google assistant being on your android phone? Or Siri on the iPhone?

Re:

[backbyter]

I don't complain about google assistant as it's actually useful, especially when paired with android auto.

Re:

[Bodie1]

As a matter of fact, yes. Well ok, "complain" is an overstatement, but it annoys me so I disable them.

Re:

[dohzer]

Nope, because I want that on my phone. I don't want Samsung bloat, and I definitely don't want it to automatically reinstall after I manually uninstall it.
It's literally the reason I switched to the Pixel and never went back.

Can we just skip to the end?

[Joreallean]

How about we just skip to the end and remove the Samsung apps altogether. Starting with Bixby, the literal waste of a button and storage space since I've gotten the phone.

Re:

[brunes69]

Bixby is entitrely optional now, and has not had its own button in years and years.

It also has some nice automation features that are not present at all in Google Home/Google Assistant. I use it for those, I do not use the voice assistant though

Re:

[bugmenot151]

This is incorrect, I have a Samsung S10 that was issued to me just a few months ago by my company, and it still has a useless dedicated bixby button and I do not have the ability to remove or disable bixby on the phone.

Re:

[brunes69]

The S10 is almost 3 years old now. Hence 'years and years'.

Re:

[trmj]

If it's not yet 3 years old, the proper way to say that is "year and year"

Re:

[Aighearach]

The S10 is almost 3 years old now. Hence 'years and years'.

Wow, you could be wrong and have a small language error, or defend it like this and be a complete fucking moron.

Not really surprised you chose to be a complete moron. This is slashdot, after all.

Re:

[ZX-3]

Under Settings --> Advanced Features --> Bixby Key, there's an option to make it open a different app (double-press will still open Bixby).

Re:

[JackieBrown]

Why would you expect that? Are you going to ask Apple to remove Siri and Google to remove Assistant?

Re:

[Bodie1]

Yes, and Microsoft to remove Cortana.

Re:

[teg]

Why would you expect that? Are you going to ask Apple to remove Siri and Google to remove Assistant?

DIsabling Siri is easy [thecomputerwarriors.com]... just disable listening for "Hey, Siri" and disable the side button press. These are the top two preferences under "Siri".

That said, I find Siri rather useful when driving - for finding directions, for reading and sending short messages, and for starting playlists or artists/bands. Not close to the demos where assistants seem nearly intelligent and do complex operations, but these ones work well.

Re:

[SleepingEye]

People will note Disabling is not the same as Deleting.

Re:

[dohzer]

Too late. I've already switched to Pixel and will not be going back for the foreseeable future.

You better.

[LenKagetsu]

If I pay for something, and you show me an ad, you go on my shitlist. That is my condition for giving you money: You keep your fucking ads for the non-paying users. The entire ad industry is corrupt from top the bottom, and anyone who impedes or lashes out when faced with an adblocker is complicit in malware distribution. A site telling me to turn off my adblocker is like a nasty hooker telling me to not use a condom.

Install uBlock Origin on desktop, install Blockada on mobile, run Pi-Hole, and if you have spare shitcoins you don't want pay someone to DDOS ad servers.

Re:You better.

[J. T. MacLeod]

Worse than just having ads in on a paid product, Samsung updated ad-free apps used by paying customers to include ads.

Re:

[bugmenot151]

still pissed about the putting ads on my TV, it didn't have ads when I bought it 5 years ago. When I replace it I 100% will not buy another Samsung TV.

Re: You better.

[Corbets]

Yeah. I was incredibly pissed to discover ads on my high end Samsung TV. Turned me off ever buying another product from them.

Re:

[teg]

Yeah. I was incredibly pissed to discover ads on my high end Samsung TV. Turned me off ever buying another product from them.

Just get an Apple TV, and don't use the smart bits on your TV - that should fix it, and improve your "smart" TV experience. While I'm not familiar with them, maybe you get the same improvements with Nvidia Shield (unsure, there is Google on it) or Roku (doesn't exist here in Norway, so I know of it, nothing about it).

Bonus for these options: replacing these when they get obsolete is cheap, so you can keep your TV much longer

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I haven't seen any ads on shield yet. I've heard something about them but haven't experienced them. Except, of course, in the youtube app. But I prefer to use Newpipe, which is great if you are willing to update it constantly. Then again, I'm fond of y-dl too

Re:

[SleepingEye]

The funny part is that you don't know you're getting advertised to. You think all the suggestions and such aren't tailored to you and prioritized based on how much they make Apl?

Maybe Samsung finally ready to become a premium br

[Pinky's Brain]

Now they just need their own mapping solution, email solution, stop trying to sell their customers to Microsoft for Drive etc.

How did you decide what to capitalize in the title

[koavf]

I can't understand the mindset of capitalizing "Its" but not "it's" in the same headline. This is mind-boggling.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's to add emphasis that its editors knew when to use the apostrophe.

Too late

[kalpol]

first thing I did on my new Samsung tablet was wipe it to install LineageOS.

Re:

[xalqor]

Yeah. Even if they don't have ads, it's really annoying when the bloatware apps are marked as critical so they can't be uninstalled.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[ChatHuant]

how if we could just get Google TV to od the same. The TV is covered in ads everytime I turn it on.

That does suck, but honestly, what did you expect when using products made by a giant ad conglomerate?

Too late, Samsung

[btgarner]

Too little, too late. I stopped using/updating Samsung apps a long time ago due to the bloat/ads/etc. Since that time I have learned to live without that feature, or found other ways to get it. I won't be updating/activating any Samsung ads anytime soon. Did I say ads? I mean apps. Any Samsung Apps.

Re:

[GreenBernard]

I ran into this myself when I was trying to find a normal dating app. However, mobile options left no chance with their ads and requests to buy something. I preferred to use the classic site Maturetenders [maturetenders.com]. It is the site, not the application, that has the function of blocking unwanted ads. I just communicate with other people like in any social network.

Needs and wants?

[smooth wombat]

"Our priority is to deliver innovative mobile experiences for our consumers based on their needs and wants,"

I want and need a flip phone which is only that. A phone. Throw in a calculator and calendar and I'll be happy to buy a Samsung phone. Until then . . .

TV

[bhcompy]

Now do your TVs as well

What Samsung didn't say...

[LordHighExecutioner]

...is that advertisings will be removed in hardware [nbcnews.com], not in software.

Last Samsung device I will buy

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite them removing adds, they have also removed features. Specifically regarding the health app and devices which it supports (which are almost 100% samsung watch devices). They removed the built in heart rate monitor and O2 sensor. Oh but now I've got 5 camera lenses, yawn!

What about phoning home and stuff?

[antdude]

Telemetries, etc. :(