Samsung Removes Ads From Its One UI Android Apps (9to5google.com) 16
After years of Samsung filling up its stock apps with ads, the company is finally stopping that practice. As of today, Samsung Pay, Weather, and Health have officially stopped serving ads. 9to5Google reports: Users in the Samsung Community Forums found that ads had suddenly disappeared from the Samsung Pay app, and an investigation from the folks over at TizenHelp unearthed a comment from a Samsung employee that confirms some good news. As of today, October 1, Samsung has stopped serving ads to Samsung Pay and Samsung Health. Samsung has technically only confirmed this change in its home country, but we're seeing the changes in the United States as well. Notably, force stopping these apps seems to force the ads to be removed, just in case they're still live for you.
Overloaded. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nice. Now stop crowding up our phone with unsolicited apps.
Re: (Score:2)
Soon, soon. After all, Google was found guilty of being a monopoly in forcing their apps to be installed if you wanted apps like the Play store and such.
So Samsung will soon be able to ditch all the apps other than Play Store since they won't need to include the redundant Google apps anymore. Samsung always wanted you to use their apps, but the Google agreement prevented that, so soon they'll be able to unbundle the rest of the Google apps an
Re: (Score:3)
Samsung stopped pre-loading shovelware years ago. Now you just get the Samsung app store where you can install all their special apps. By default you get the Google stuff and a few apps that are specific to Samsung hardware like their camera app and note taking stuff for devices that come with a pen. These days they even let you remap the Bixby button.
Thats nice (Score:2)
Maybe they heard the email complaints that I sent, or saw that I stopped using as many samsung apps as possible. Now I don't use those apps, or incorporate them in my workflow. A better thing would be to avoid all this and stop making extra revenue by angering your user base.
had to do something (Score:2)
Samsung Pay was losing users who were going to GPay when they dropped mst. imo, As long as SP had mst, it was worth putting up with the ads. They needed some goodwill.
Re: had to do something (Score:2)
Samsung Pay still supports MST on my Note 20 Ultra. I used it recently. Samsung appears to have dropped MST in some handsets like the S21, though. They can go back on that decision if users don't upgrade. I won't.
Samsung also dropped the microSD slot which was one of my top reasons for using their phone.
Televisions next? (Score:1)
Too little, too late (Score:3)
I was lured into buying a Samsung by a really good sale and a free Samsung Gear activity tracker. It was fundamentally a good phone, but the ads were so obnoxious that I traded it in the first moment I could.
As long as they have a suite of apps that you can't uninstall and can't control pre-installed on the phone, I will never buy another.
Re:Too little, too late - can remove (Score:2)
https://r1.community.samsung.c... [samsung.com]
*App (Score:2)
Should be "App". One is singular, therefore you don't use the plural.
All the big hardware vendors are doing it (Score:2)
Thanks to pihole, I can see how every Samsung device in my home is constantly phoning home and in some cases serve me unwanted content. TV's, tablets, phones, etc. No thanks.
Sadly, all of the major companies appear to do this now so I've got to go the extra mile to blackhole it all at my perimeter. Top of the leader board for me is:
Samsung
Roku
Amazon
Google
They account for about 95% of the poo that winds up getting blackholed.
Best,
Ads (Score:2)
I have several Samsung products. I've used their laptops, I've just seen a Samsung Galaxy Book (very snazzy, so it's tempting, but I have a serious gaming laptop). I have used their phones almost exclusively after the early Nokia days. I've used their tablets. I had a Samsung non-smart TV for years (but I don't watch TV any more).
But their apps suck shit. I uninstall them. The Samsung account bollocks is shit. I refuse to accept the terms and it prompts me every month or so.
Their bundled software cra
Maybe something just broke? (Score:2)
Perhaps the ads disappearing was not planned, but instead caused by some technical glitch. Maybe some certificate expired and the software cannot fetch the ads? Maybe some ad network revenue sharing negotiation broke down and Samsung needed to show they are willing to pull them? Maybe a bug on the server side is preventing the ads from being delivered? I say sait and see if this holds.