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Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package

Cross-posted to 3 groups.

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On Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:49:48 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote :


>> Turns out my carrier sneaked it on there unbeknownst to me.
>> So I deleted the carrier's app (which deleted the activity).
> 
> I take it you bought your phone from your carrier? 

I can see where you're going with that, and it might be just T-Mobile, but
bear in mind Sliide has partnered with *four* USA cellular carriers.

There are only essentially three main carriers in the USA, where I have had
them all and I have found T-Mobile to be the best, for me for a variety of
reasons, not the least of which is they give me everything for free.

I got a free cellular repeater. A free femtocell. Free in-store warranty
replacements. Free SIM cards, and a half dozen free cellphones in 2021.

I initially got 3 (actually 5) free Samsung Galaxy A32-5G phones from the
carrier (T-Mobile USA) and 1 half-price iPhone 12 in April of 2021.
 <https://i.postimg.cc/YC1B906F/tmopromo01.jpg>

The only cost was 10% California sales tax on the imputed MSRP.
There is no contract with T-Mobile USA so I can drop it any time.
  <https://i.postimg.cc/Xq5SpS4D/tmopromo02.jpg>

But if I had dropped in the first two years, I'd own the remaining amount
of money for the phone, but I didn't change carriers so it never happened.

> And that it is also locked to your carrier?

In the USA, it's my understanding if you own the phone, they 
can't lock it, and when I check, it shows it's carrier unlocked.
 <https://i.postimg.cc/502mtgQB/networkunlock02.jpg>

However, it was carrier-locked (aka network locked) for two years because 
the carrier owns the "free" phone until two years have expired.

They "give you" that "free" phone in monthly increments for 2 years.
That is, you get credited 1/24th the MSRP every month 'till its zeroed.
 <https://i.postimg.cc/nhpbcP50/tmopromo04.jpg>

After two years, T-Mobile unilaterally unlocked every single phone.
 <https://xdaforums.com/t/did-t-mobile-usa-unilaterally-unlock-your-free-samsung-galaxy-a32-5g-sm-a326u-when-the-2-year-24-months-1-24th-credits-finally-paid-for-the-phone.4589195/>

> In much of the world, we are able to buy a phone, and then decide which 
> carrier to use it with. Switching carriers is as easy as switching a SIM.

In the USA, switching carriers is as easy as popping in a new SIM also.

Since there are no contracts with T-Mobile USA, you can switch carriers on
a whim, but the reality is that there are practically only 3 carriers here.

I've had all three over time, where I had Verizon until they pissed me off
so I switched to AT&T until they pissed me off and then I switched to T-mo.

What Verizon did was replace a phone under warranty, but they restarted the
contract (this was years ago when contracts were a thing). The fact they
restarted the contract pissed me off since all they did was replace a
broken phone - so on principle alone, I switched from Verizon to AT&T.

Then, AT&T wouldn't let me have a "smart" phone without data (this was
years ago when paying for data was a thing) which, after I complained to
the FCC and received a bullshit letter from AT&T VP's, I dropped AT&T.

When I moved to T-Mobile I was happy, where I visit Europe a lot so it's
nice to have free roaming and unlimited data for free and texts for free.

Calls cost 25 cents a minute though, when I'm in Europe, but for most of
the USA, T-Mobile gives everyone unlimited data & unlimited text/mms and
unlimited USA calls for "free" when they merged with Sprint around 2020.

>> I just wrote this off the cuff, so if you have improvements, let us
>> know.
> 
> It's a testament to Android, isn't it, that you have this much control 
> over what your phone does. Imagine trying to do that on any other 
> platform.

I agree. With adb, you can pretty much do almost anything you need to do!

Rest assured, I have plenty of devices on that other platform, so I am
quite well aware that it's a dumb terminal that can't do much at all.

What I love about Android is what happened in this case, which was:
a. When I got the phone, I used adb to remove all the bloatware
b. But T-Mobile added one bloatware package on June 4th, 2025
c. Which popped up news articles out of nowhere with clickable links
d. The news article was extremely easy to kill by tapping the [x]
e. And it had a "Settings" gear icon but there was no "About" 
f. So I had no idea at first what program was popping it up
g. The next time it happened, I used adb to find the named Activity
h. Once I had the Activity name, I could find the offending program
i. I was shocked that it was T-Mobile who was the offending party!
j. But remember, Sliide has partnered with *four* USA carriers
k. So I suspect it's on Verizon and AT&T phones but I don't know
l. Anyway, with adb, I was easily able to delete the t-mobile app
m. And I can search the entire phone for the offending Activity
n. Which I have determined does not exist in any app on the phone

Try to do *that* with the other platform, which, I might let folks know,
that other platform has an ad-serving engine built into the operating
system which counts your clicks and feeds custom OEM ads back to you.

Even Android doesn't invade your privacy like that other platform does.

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Thread

Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-06-19 22:23 +0000
  Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-06-20 00:49 +0000
    Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-06-20 06:49 +0000
      Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2025-06-20 10:39 +0100
        Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-06-20 18:57 +0000
    Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-06-20 11:34 +0200
      Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2025-06-20 11:06 +0000
        Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-06-20 18:58 +0200
      Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2025-06-20 11:09 +0000
        Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Ivano Rossi <Ivano.Rossi@nospam.tin.it> - 2025-06-20 20:53 +0200
          Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Jan K." <janicekoziol@nie.ma.spamu.prosze.com> - 2025-06-20 19:00 +0000
            Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-06-20 21:39 +0200
              Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Jan K." <janicekoziol@nie.ma.spamu.prosze.com> - 2025-06-20 20:34 +0000
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-06-21 00:43 +0200
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Jan K." <janicekoziol@nie.ma.spamu.prosze.com> - 2025-06-21 02:20 +0000
            Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2025-06-21 14:23 +0100
              Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Jan K." <janicekoziol@nie.ma.spamu.prosze.com> - 2025-06-22 14:00 +0000
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Victor <victorheyne@notreal.org> - 2025-06-22 09:07 -0500
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2025-06-22 20:50 +0100
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Victor <victorheyne@notreal.org> - 2025-06-23 10:39 -0500
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2025-06-23 23:26 +0100
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Victor <victorheyne@notreal.org> - 2025-06-23 21:50 -0500
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-06-22 19:41 +0200
                Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package "Jan K." <janicekoziol@nie.ma.spamu.prosze.com> - 2025-06-23 16:08 +0000
  Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-06-20 23:46 +0000
    Re: Tutorial: How to use a PC to find (& kill!) a rogue Android activity & its offending package Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> - 2025-06-21 10:49 +0100

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