It looks like we don't have full control over what we can do with the smartphones we buy. Manufacturers often sign contracts over consumers' heads for software pre-installation - applications that are on the phone at the moment of taking it out of the box have a better chance of attracting and retaining users.
Some of these deals seem to benefit smartphone owners, who can log on to Facebook and start communicating with friends the first time they turn on their device. Worse, if for some reason they want to free themselves from the portal - in many cases it will be simply impossible.
A user of the Samsung Galaxy S8 found out about this, who decided to delete the Facebook application from her phone. It turned out that this is impossible - the program can only be deactivated, but physically it will still be stored in memory.
I was very surprised that despite my attempts to completely remove Facebook from my phone, it still stays on it, which raises interesting questions. Can the service continue to track my information, location, and anything else they save? As consumers, we should be able to decide what we want and don't want on our products.
Facebook apps cannot be removed from Samsung smartphones
Facebook and Samsung ensure that deactivating an application makes it not run and behave as if it was not on the phone at all, i.e. it was deleted. It does not access any user data or consume power in the background (according to research, the Facebook app reduces battery life by up to 30%).
No party has officially admitted that Facebook paid Samsung to make itsapplicationsunable to uninstall.
Facebook is not the only application that manufacturers preinstall on smartphones - Google forces them to provide a set of software related to services belonging to the search engine, for example YouTub. This situation was recognized by the EU as taking advantage of its monopolistic market position - the Community ordered the preparation of a "bare" Android, without a crown of Google applications.
Earlier, the European Union had similar objections to Microsoft, which had to prepare Windows without a pre-installed web browser especially for the Old Continent.
Update: In response to Antyradio.pl's questions, Samsung sent the following statement:
We pre-install the Facebook application on selected smartphone models. However, there is an option to turn it off. The application stops working when turned off.
