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[Q] Cleaning up the bloatware - Kidzone?

I tried searching the forums and found nothing...
Like a lot of others, i dont like most of the applications that come bundled on my phone and like to get rid of most of them. I cant seem to figure out what .apk file to remove to get rid of the "Kidzone" application. Any ideas?

If any root-level file explorer works, download Absolute System from the Market. It's about two bucks but it's worth it. You can use it to remove any bloatware from your device.

blackknightavalon said:
If any root-level file explorer works, download Absolute System from the Market. It's about two bucks but it's worth it. You can use it to remove any bloatware from your device.
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Not in this case. We do not have S-OFF.

Freezing the apps with titanium backup lasts between reboots, luckily. Won't remove them completely but they will be prevented from running or showing in the app drawer.
Only problem is I'm having trouble finding the package names of a couple bloatware apps, namely kidzone, highlight, friend stream and t-mobile mall. If anyone could find the names of those packages it would be great. I'll look up the names of the apps I did find in a little while and post them for you.

vimk said:
Freezing the apps with titanium backup lasts between reboots, luckily. Won't remove them completely but they will be prevented from running or showing in the app drawer.
Only problem is I'm having trouble finding the package names of a couple bloatware apps, namely kidzone, highlight, friend stream and t-mobile mall. If anyone could find the names of those packages it would be great. I'll look up the names of the apps I did find in a little while and post them for you.
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Download Absolute System from the Market.
Sent from a Western Union telegram.

vimk said:
Freezing the apps with titanium backup lasts between reboots, luckily. Won't remove them completely but they will be prevented from running or showing in the app drawer.
Only problem is I'm having trouble finding the package names of a couple bloatware apps, namely kidzone, highlight, friend stream and t-mobile mall. If anyone could find the names of those packages it would be great. I'll look up the names of the apps I did find in a little while and post them for you.
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I cant figure out what process is Kidzone either, but i think the T-Mobile mall was called "AppPack" (MallLite-4.0.92.apk)

Gumpo10k said:
I cant figure out what process is Kidzone either, but i think the T-Mobile mall was called "AppPack" (MallLite-4.0.92.apk)
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also tried removing the app pack, and it does not remove "kidzone"

Kidzone appears to basically be a locked down version of the home screen that only lets you turn on Youtube, Internet, Bejeweled, and T-Mobile TV from that screen. It requires you to setup a password for the lock screen. It appears to be built into sense. It's not really an application. Mostly a replacement lock screen. There's nothing "kid" about it honestly.

Akujin said:
Kidzone appears to basically be a locked down version of the home screen that only lets you turn on Youtube, Internet, Bejeweled, and T-Mobile TV from that screen. It requires you to setup a password for the lock screen. It appears to be built into sense. It's not really an application. Mostly a replacement lock screen. There's nothing "kid" about it honestly.
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Is there a way to remove the shortcut from the app drawer?

electro_chef said:
Is there a way to remove the shortcut from the app drawer?
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I second that request!

I made a thread in "themes and apps" about cleaning up bloat - still no luck on kidzone though.
I am fiddling around with dumping sense now, that will probably do it. I'll post back here if I can figure out how to make kidzone go away.
Meantime - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=16739548#post16739548

okay - sorry to post after myself but I got rid of kidzone.
First, I restored a CWM backup I made right after root/busybox installation.
So, my phone state is fresh S-OFF/Root with SU & busybox installed.
It may be important to note that I did a factory reset to my phone just before S-OFF/Root & had a freshly formatted MicroSD card.
I then installed ADW Launcher from the Market, and hit my "home" key. Selected "Use Default" and chose ADW Launcher.
Now my phone defaults to ADW as it's launcher.
I then installed "Absolute System" from the Market, and used it to remove "HTC Sense"
Closed out Absolute System, then scrolled between all 5 ADW desktop screens, powered down the phone, then powered up again. (*NOTE fastboot = off)
Booted fine, was able to ditch sense without issue, and KIDZONE IS GONE!
As always, make sure to do a fresh system backup before messing with anything like this, but Kidzone is linked to sense, and replacing sense with another launcher will remove it.
HTC Sense was the only app removed from the phone, and I haven't checked everything to make sure it works yet, but no HTC crash report to send, and no force close issues. (yet - to be determined)
I've been itching to ditch sense since I got the phone, and this was my first quick test at it. Works good so far.
Edit to add:
Checked the "personalize" option at the top of the "settings" list. This just brings you back to the main desktop, doesn't throw an error.
I knew this one thing would be messed up somehow after ditching sense, but the fact that it doesn't make a problem and just closes the menu is fine by me.
I'll spend the rest of the day testing out my phone without sense to see how it runs. I'll post back how it went tomorrow.
Edit - 11/01/2011:
When I said "without sense" I meant without the sense launcher. I expanded on and clarified that in another thread (that app thread) but never cleared it up here.
To fully remove sense is one heck of a project, and will take much more then just switching your launcher.

This is great info - but with this last method - can you still use the stock/factory camera app? Is the camera fully functional, it might not be a big deal to some but would be cool to retain full factory camera functionality.

Wow, feels like going back in time -
Yep, stock camera app works fine.
It's tied to sense, and there is no true AOSP ROM out there yet, so pretty much no matter what you do you should keep stock camera functionality.
Actually, keeping the stock camera functionality/app is the main reason why there is no AOSP ROM yet, it's been generally decided that losing that would be...undesirable.
Kidzone is part of Rosie.apk, which is the Sense launcher. You lose it once you switch to another launcher (adw, go, etc...) and uninstall rosie.apk

Blue6IX said:
Wow, feels like going back in time -
Yep, stock camera app works fine.
It's tied to sense, and there is no true AOSP ROM out there yet, so pretty much no matter what you do you should keep stock camera functionality.
Actually, keeping the stock camera functionality/app is the main reason why there is no AOSP ROM yet, it's been generally decided that losing that would be...undesirable.
Kidzone is part of Rosie.apk, which is the Sense launcher. You lose it once you switch to another launcher (adw, go, etc...) and uninstall rosie.apk
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Exactly.. + 1 for blue.
Sent from my Senseless Doubleshot using xda premium

[Q]Launchers?

I was messing around with my phone and i found Go Launcher. I when messing around with that i like it so much and i want to know is it possible to replace htc sense with Go Launcher? To add more detail to my question is removing it off my phone through a root explore and replacing it with Go Launcher? Will that work? and how?

Yep.
Download whatever launcher you want to use ( I used ADW, you can use Go, or anything else that works).
Ensure that it works by playing with it for a little bit.
Once you are sure it's working correctly, hit your home button and select your new launcher as the default. (don't skip this step)
After you have your new launcher as the default, using Root Explorer (or File Expert, both of those i've tested - others may work) navigate to and delete:
/system/app/rosie.apk
/system/app/rosie.odex
/data/data/com.htc.launcher
Exit your file manager and reboot your system.
Done.
That's the quick and dirty method.
I'd recommend using something like "Absolute System" to first delete the data, then uninstall HTC Sense (make sure the file paths correspond to what I wrote above) and then going back to manually delete /system/app/rosie.odex
Absolute System won't get .odex files, so uninstalling system apps this way means you have to go back and clean it up yourself for the .odex files.
Also, you lose the HTC myTouch Power Control and a handful of other widgets in this process.
I am experimenting now with deleting/uninstalling other system packages (like fusion, open sense plugin manager and so forth) to see where it causes problems, but that's still preliminary at the moment.
I made a thread about this Here which i'll be updating in another few days once I get my new battery settled in and can continue.
Meantime, just uninstalling the HTC Sense launcher and replacing it with another one works well, and still allows full functionality of the stock camera app, as long as the rosie.apk -.odex and corresponding /data/data file is all you remove.

Blue6IX said:
Yep.
Download whatever launcher you want to use ( I used ADW, you can use Go, or anything else that works).
Ensure that it works by playing with it for a little bit.
Once you are sure it's working correctly, hit your home button and select your new launcher as the default. (don't skip this step)
After you have your new launcher as the default, using Root Explorer (or File Expert, both of those i've tested - others may work) navigate to and delete:
/system/app/rosie.apk
/system/app/rosie.odex
/data/data/com.htc.launcher
Exit your file manager and reboot your system.
Done.
That's the quick and dirty method.
I'd recommend using something like "Absolute System" to first delete the data, then uninstall HTC Sense (make sure the file paths correspond to what I wrote above) and then going back to manually delete /system/app/rosie.odex
Absolute System won't get .odex files, so uninstalling system apps this way means you have to go back and clean it up yourself for the .odex files.
Also, you lose the HTC myTouch Power Control and a handful of other widgets in this process.
I am experimenting now with deleting/uninstalling other system packages (like fusion, open sense plugin manager and so forth) to see where it causes problems, but that's still preliminary at the moment.
I made a thread about this Here which i'll be updating in another few days once I get my new battery settled in and can continue.
Meantime, just uninstalling the HTC Sense launcher and replacing it with another one works well, and still allows full functionality of the stock camera app, as long as the rosie.apk -.odex and corresponding /data/data file is all you remove.
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Nice thanks i'm trying adw.launcher the app-drawer seems slow?

Yea, switch it to vertical view in settings.
(on desktop, hit menu, then more, then ADW settings, you'll find it in there)
It helps - i'm trying to see if there's a conflict with ADW fighting against anything HTC has running on the device, i'm using ADW since i'm pretty familiar with it at this point from my Nook Color, it's the 'stock' launcer for CM7 there.
I noticed that after loading the app drawer the first time, it hasn't been an issue.
I'd love to hear more about your experiences with this, it's a learning experience for us all at this point.

Ok i was think renaming go launcher as rosie.apk so it can boot up on its on. Unless there is some xml or cfg file some where i can edit and rename it.
Update:
I completely replaced htc sense with go launcher everything seems to work perfectly fine. i like this launcher way better less ram and fast too.
Update 2:
I renamed it to rosie.apk after that I pressed the home button. It opened up go launcher and the camera is still working correctly.
Update 3:
Personalize doesn't work if you remove htc sense.

Question: does having another launcher without uninstalling sense significantly impact performance? I'd rather not have to root and delete sense at the moment.
On another note, is anyone slightly fed up by how lackluster the optimization of Sense was for this phone? Since I'm coming from the original MyTouch, I was used to non-smooth performance, but today I installed 7 launcher and I was amazed by how comparitively smooth it ran, despite "just" being a market app. I just installed golauncher after seeing this thread and am just as amazed. So smooth!

napilopez said:
Question: does having another launcher without uninstalling sense significantly impact performance? I'd rather not have to root and delete sense at the moment.
On another note, is anyone slightly fed up by how lackluster the optimization of Sense was for this phone? Since I'm coming from the original MyTouch, I was used to non-smooth performance, but today I installed 7 launcher and I was amazed by how comparitively smooth it ran, despite "just" being a market app. I just installed golauncher after seeing this thread and am just as amazed. So smooth!
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Before I removed sense. All you had to do really was set a default launcher then killing sense with a tasks/processes manager. But i went ahead and removed it because i really want one launcher and i don't want the phone booting up to sense then others.

As well as it works, bear in mind this is just a slap-it-together fix.
None of the underlying frameworks that actually power the launcher are gone with the removal of rosie.apk, simply the launcher itself. (well, on the surface at least)
Yes, there is a slight performance gain, but nothing like what it would be if you actually went in and pulled everything behind the launcher that powers it.
Doing that, of course, would compromise the camera.apk, and most likely the whole rest of the phone in the process. It's likely that a new/different phone.apk would be needed, as well as most of the apps on the device.
(I don't know for sure yet whether phone.apk is tied to the sense frameworks, but I have barely begun looking into the .apk's we get with the phone, so don't take that out of context.)
Replacing the launcher, no problem. Ripping out Sense itself...we're quite a bit away from that at the moment. You can pull the launcher on the surface and still have a stable, running system.
I'd venture to guess, though I haven't checked for sure, any performance gains from removing the sense launcher are nullified by whatever launcher you replace it with.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't experiment, and I personally don't like the Sense launcher too much. I like some stuff about it, but what I don't like about it makes it worth it to me to trade it out for something else now.
At the moment i'm running the stock launcher again while I build my battery stats file up again, but as soon as that's done i'm back to ADW and ripping out the guts of this stock rom to figure out what needs what.
Now, the cool thing about removing the Sense launcher is there are a slew of widgets that won't run without it, so you can dump them as well since they don't do anything anymore.
Combining dropping the Sense launcher with all the widgets it doesn't need anymore, and the lists we are making in a few places in this forum about what you can/can't delete/freeze you can see a significant performance gain.
I just want to dispell the illusion that removing the Sense launcher removes Sense itself, they are two different things. As we decompile and sift through the software on the phone we'll figure out what we can and can't get away with.
Don't forget there are other things to get rid of to truly remove the Sense launcher, such as /system/framework/com.htc.rosie.jar (and corresponding .odex file) .
What I posted in the second post of this thread is enough to get it out of the way so you can use something else, but a far cry from removing it entirely. The deeper you dig, the less stable it all becomes. Until someone releases a rom that starts from the ground up, there's only so much we can get away with starting from the top down.
Meantime, though, everything we're doing here and talking about is helping the people who will develop a rom get an idea of how the system works. Threads like this and the questions being asked and answered are a big help.
And of course, this is all good fun too. Android is like legos, you can basically just build what you want with whatever pieces you want to use. Android is pretty robust and self-correcting, you have to do something drastic (like delete phone.apk) to break it.

sonicjam - I was messing around with launchers again since I got my battery taken care of and i'd forgotten what GO was like.
I tried to use GO launcher a while ago, but on the Nook Color, which is really underpowered for such a thing. It didn't run so well and I put it out of my mind.
I downloaded it and started playing with it, and now that I have a piece of hardware that can run it well, it's a fantastic piece of software.
All the different fun options to have it change pages are pretty cool, and my lady was really getting a kick out of it all.
I think I found my new favorite launcher, I just wanted to say thanks for turning me on to it! It really makes the phone fun to play with.
I love the fact that I can have as many desktop screens as I want, and this device can handle quite a few...I now have enough space to never have to go in my app drawer again and not be all cluttered.
Once we get a custom rom, or figure out how to remove Sense itself, this is going to become my permanent launcher. In the meantime i'll keep using it.
I just can't get over how smooth it runs on this device, it really is amazing.
Just wanted to say thanks!
napilopez said:
Question: does having another launcher without uninstalling sense significantly impact performance? I'd rather not have to root and delete sense at the moment.
...
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I know you also said in your post that you like GO launcher, and i'm definitely a convert now, but if you want something that will give you a significant performance boost, Zeam launcher is the most lightweight launcher on the market.
(maybe MoDaCo's port of the gingerbread launcher is about as fast, it's hard to tell)

Titanium Backup Bloat Freeze

When trying to remove bloat from my phone with titanium backup I freeze the apps. After freezing them they still are in the app drawer and in the market. I can't open them up or anything anymore, but do anyone else know if there is a special setting or something I need to use to get it out of the app drawer?

daneren2005 said:
When trying to remove bloat from my phone with titanium backup I freeze the apps. After freezing them they still are in the app drawer and in the market. I can't open them up or anything anymore, but do anyone else know if there is a special setting or something I need to use to get it out of the app drawer?
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That's because freezing only prevents the app from running, it doesn't do what you're thinking it does. You can disable apps you don't want in Settings -> Apps -> All if you still want to keeps the apps around on your phone (but hidden from the app drawer) or you can uninstall them directly from Titanium Backup

On my previous phone freezing hid the apps from the drawer AND it explicitly says when you freeze them that they are now hidden from the app drawer. It is supposed to hide it like its uninstalled but be easy to unfreeze. That's the whole point of it...

daneren2005 said:
On my previous phone freezing hid the apps from the drawer AND it explicitly says when you freeze them that they are now hidden from the app drawer. It is supposed to hide it like its uninstalled but be easy to unfreeze. That's the whole point of it...
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Obviously I don't know as much as I think I do

Well if nothing else your post let's me know that others are experiencing the same problem even if they don't realize it is a problem?

Which apps? Everything I've frozen with Titanium gets removed just fine from the app drawer. This includes all the AT&T bloat: anything with "AT&T" in it, MOG, Top HD Games, Yellow Pages, and a couple others.

All of that crap. For example I have all the ATT stuff frozen but they still show up.
1 did you specify any different settings for titanium?
2 what launcher are you using? I'm looking in launcher pro

Nevermind updating appears to have fixed the problem.

Is it ok to remove system apps, AOSP?

I like to keep things as slim as possible and could do without the likes of gmail, Email, holo launcher, apollo, dsp manager and a few others but will removing these bring other bugs?

I have never had a problem removing some of the apps you listed. You can always install them if you change your mind

There's a thread around here in this section that has a list of apps that are OK to erase and the others you shouldn't. If you want to erase, grab Rom Cleaner, cleans out the bloatware and from there you can just freeze any app with Titanium Backup that you don't want. Still keeps it in memory so that it won't crash the phone, but removes it from sight. Seeing as you want to slim down, hopefully this helps.

OMG these icons...

Okay... Please forgive me folks, but this is driving me bat**** crazy. I've looked everywhere in the settings where it "made sense" to look for this setting, but nothing... How do I turn off these stupid number indicators?

You could change launchers, that's what I did on my wife's phone since she didn't like TouchWiz and the launcher controlled the badges. You could install Package Disabler Pro and disable the BadgeProvider App in system apps. I tried that from the app settings on the phone and it's grayed out on her phone.
Have you tried holding down on the app and clearing badges then turning off notifications for that app? Of course you'd get no notifications for that app at all. It was so easy on my S9 since it has a badge SETTING BTW, BadgeProvider is a system app and only shows up if you view system apps also.

Tel864 said:
You could change launchers, that's what I did on my wife's phone since she didn't like TouchWiz and the launcher controlled the badges. You could install Package Disabler Pro and disable the BadgeProvider App in system apps. I tried that from the app settings on the phone and it's grayed out on her phone.
Have you tried holding down on the app and clearing badges then turning off notifications for that app? Of course you'd get no notifications for that app at all. It was so easy on my S9 since it has a badge SETTING BTW, BadgeProvider is a system app and only shows up if you view system apps also.
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Lol good grief... I've never owned a Samsung phone (since the advent of Android, anyhow).. . This is part of the TouchWiz thing I hear bandied about in the forums? . I see. This explains why I see this term mentioned A LOT. I think I'll look in to custom roms now, because bump the hell out of this, lol! I've never liked methods, like freezing apps in Titanium Backup. I'd just as soon they not be around whatsoever! Thanks for the info.
Of course, I used to be quite fond of Nova Launcher, so maybe I'll try that first. Either way, big thanks. :good:

monogwai said:
Lol good grief... I've never owned a Samsung phone (since the advent of Android, anyhow).. . This is part of the TouchWiz thing I hear bandied about in the forums? . I see. This explains why I see this term mentioned A LOT. I think I'll look in to custom roms now, because bump the hell out of this, lol! I've never liked methods, like freezing apps in Titanium Backup. I'd just as soon they not be around whatsoever! Thanks for the info.
Of course, I used to be quite fond of Nova Launcher, so maybe I'll try that first. Either way, big thanks. :good:
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Yep, I've been a Nova user since the beginning but also take a look at Microsoft Launcher. I actually use that more now and it gives you many of the same options. LOL, the first thing I do on any of my Samsung tablets or phones is replace TouchWiz.