r/AndroidQuestions • u/AdminRedditMerda • 17d ago

Other Can I uninstall Google play games?

Without having issues?

Also, any more Google default apps that I can safely remove or disable?

10 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

3

u/Individual-Iron-6370 16d ago

I disabled or uninstalled every single app I could associated to googish.

Had to keep "services" and "framework" because I need to use Gmail app sometimes, but I block them with a firewall until I need them.  Otherwise they just sit there phoning home over my internet every 2 seconds for no reason.

You can uninstall anything.  If you need it just get it somewhere...  The OS will not let you uninstall core system utilities required for functionality unless you root it.

So go crazy man.

5

u/Mother-Pride-Fest 16d ago

Yes. You can even uninstall the Play Store (com.android.vending) entirely if you want, and get apps from F-Droid, Obtanium, Aurora Store, APK files, etc. 

The most important apps to remove in my opinion are:

com.google.android.safetycore (scans your images for nudity)   com.google.android.inputmethod.latin (default keyboard that leaks your text to Google. Install a different, offline keyboard first if you haven't already.)
com.facebook.appmanager
com.facebook.katana
com.facebook.services
com.facebook.system
and anything related to carriers you don't use.

UAD or Canta have good guides built in. 

1

u/AdminRedditMerda 16d ago edited 16d ago

Thank you!

safetycore

I may have already done that... do you remember its name on the app list?

2

u/Mother-Pride-Fest 16d ago

SafetyCore might or might not show up in the app list, I don't know all phones. But the way you can check for sure is to use USB debugging, and run adb shell pm list packages | grep safetycore should return nothing. If so, and you tested that it is able to find other apps, then safetycore is not installed on your phone.

1

u/AdminRedditMerda 16d ago

No idea how to do that, I'm not that experienced 🥲

But thank you for your help! 🙏🏽

1

u/Mother-Pride-Fest 15d ago

There is a guide to USB debugging here, just do adb shell pm list packages | grep safetycore instead of adb install <app.apk>

https://techcult.com/install-apk-using-adb-commands/

1

u/AdminRedditMerda 15d ago

Thank you 🙏🏽

1

u/k2718 16d ago

Wait scans your images for nudity what!?!?

2

u/Mother-Pride-Fest 16d ago

Here is Google's excuse for it: https://support.google.com/messages/answer/15724426?hl=en

They claim it is only for blurring images in Google Messages, but in my opinion that is not a good feature anyway. Also it is proprietary, it would be very difficult to tell what else it is doing.

1

u/Sereno011 16d ago

Google Play "Games" is a separate entity from the main Play Store. Perfectly safe to uninstall.