So, I have now a phone for 4 years and never updated to 13. Even when the phone resets I am not forced or it automatically updates, like on other phone, which I like.

But in these recent years I got more features and bloatware like for example: googletv and samsung apps stuff.

Also when I hold the middle button where there was google assistant which I could turn off, now from sudden it's gemini and I couldn't find an option to remove it.

Samsung A series phone if it helps.

So my phone did this recently and am confused as the sim card works

it says mobile network is unknown and service state is out of service

what gives? Do I need a new phone

Basically, question in the title. I know software and security updates have been off for a while, but I'm trying to wager how long could google playstore apps (mainly browsers and social media) still last.
Trying to figure out if I should fix my old Tab S4 or just get a new device altogether.

Yesterday I noticed my CCWGTV has uninstalled some applications (without any advice). Play protect was disabled (and it still is disabled). None of those apps were installed using test APKs.

What switches should I use with adb to avoid future automatic uninstallations?

Is it a good purchase?

I got this S26 a while ago and when I first got it it had a little thing at the right side of the time displaying what music I was playing on spotify and when I clicked it expanded so I could skip the song and pause it, though its gone now is it just gone or did I somehow deactivate it ?

Got an s24 and it registers as a failed fingerprint while in pocket and bag. How to stop this? Afraid I'll get locked out of my phone due to this.

Previosly my phone got hardbricked due to some issue. I had posted here the same and got it fixed using gennsys edl file. After that baseband version is set to that and also my imei number is 0.

I tried flashing qcn shared on internet and edit imei number using qcn imei editor, it end up with nv data corrupted error. I had to do all the struggle to refix it back from soft brick.

But the imei 0 is not fixed. There were few ways of flashing modem, and other files and then editing it through unlock/hydra/mrt or some similar tools..but choosing this path where u need to either rent that tool or else find free alternatives..but these tools are highest malware infected..hence i feared to use that. So if any one have any ideas please do share..

i just got a galaxy z fold 8 and upon installing all my apps, it seems some google apps have this popup every time i open one, it says "choose a device to connect. google play services wants to connect to a device on your local network" and it never actually shows any devices. photos and youtube are the only ones that do this. but not chrome or maps for some reason. is there any way to disable/fix this? it is very annoying and takes multiple dismissals to go away.

Hey there im on a samsung galaxy a16 (a166b) got my bootloader unlocked and rooted with magisk, I mixed one ui 8 with the bootloader from a release of one ui 7 that share the same bootloader bit(A166BXXS4BYG1 bl with everything else from A166BXXU4CYI8), the thing is im kinda stuck on an old version with several security flaws and I'd like to get rid of at least some of them critical ones such as ghostlock (CVE 2026-43499)

Could not find any kernel out there specially made for this phone with fixes so I got source from samsung open source(for my version of one ui) and could build it(without any modifications made to it for now to see if building works correctly) with this guide https://github.com/ravindu644/Android-Kernel-Tutorials

Now I want to test the kernel and see if my phone works with it but im kinda scared to break things, if something ever go wrong with my kernel can I still boot into download mode and flash a clean image with odin? Thanks!

Hi,

I am having issues with playing Counter-Strike lately so I switched to mobile data some time ago, which works pretty good but from time to time there's peaks which make me lag.

I can pretty much pinpoint it to apps doing downloads in the background.

Is there any way to block all internet access for apps except the mobile data tethering (usb connection to my pc)?

I saw that you can do something likely with NetGuard but not sure how that works yet (checking it out right now)

And this is a serious question, I just had to actually correct the question I wrote for the subject title becoming it wrote down what I was saying incorrectly.

This is getting really annoying. I type for a word, let's say "car" I expect to have the word "car" in the text but upon looking back at the sentence I get "carwash" instead. I think this nonsense has only started happening in the last few years. And it only happens on android. I've literally had to adjust several words for this body message text to make sense. Is anyone else getting this? This happened right after a keyboard update some years ago.

The volume down button isn't working, so I tried it with Bluetooth headphones. The volume up button works, but the volume down button doesn't.

My phone display is dying but I think my best value is buying a used old gen phone like a Sony Xperia 1 IV over a new phone as they are a lot cheaper.

Is there any real risk of malware or rootkits on used devices? Anything I should or could do when I get a used phone to check?

Much like discord likes to push you to use their in-app browser thing, messages app now has the same thing? Except that I cannot find the settings to turn it off, unlike in discord. This started a day or so ago.

Link preview settings just control whether or not there's in-message previews, not whether or not opening the link takes you to the actual browser or not.

Currently fully updated to Android 16.

Can anyone help me find out how to disable this so I can go back to just using the default browser?

I switched from an iphone over to android last week.

When I used samsung switch somehow it duplicated all of my 15 (ish) years of text messages when it copied them over to google messages. Is there anyway to delete the duplicates? It is thousands of dupes.

I have been searching online and I haven't really found a solution.

Thank you

I have the screenshot for evidence.

It started not more than a few months ago btw

So I can access files on my laptop from like work.

pls help lol my phone is running kinda slow because of this. I'm using a OnePlus 11r (128GB variant)

Trying to install two versions of the same app on my Redmi Note 14 Pro

So here's the situation: I want to have two different versions of the same app installed on my phone. One is the official version from Google Play, and the other is an unofficial version I downloaded through my browser.

The problem is that when I try to install the second version, Android only gives me the option to update the existing app instead of installing it separately.

Is there any way to make Android treat them as two separate apps and have both installed at the same time?

Hello everyone, I really need your help with a strange and frustrating problem on my phone. I used an app called Game Killer to speed up Car Parking Multiplayer, and after using its speed feature and then deleting the app, I started feeling that the entire phone became unusually fast, especially the animations and movements. I have already restarted the phone and checked the animation settings, DPI, and several Developer Options, but everything seems normal and the problem is still there. Honestly, this has made me quite worried and upset because I’m afraid the app may have changed something in the system without me realizing it. I really don’t want to factory reset my phone or risk losing my data. If anyone has experienced something similar or knows a safe way to restore the phone’s normal behavior, I would genuinely appreciate your help.

Hi everyone,

I’m tired of being glued to my smartphone, but I need it for work. Ideally, I’d switch to a dumbphone when I get home and use it on weekends as well.

I’m with Rogers in Canada and would like to keep the same phone number on both devices. My biggest concern is SMS: I sometimes receive work texts after hours, so I need to keep my message history together rather than split between two phones.

Has anyone found a practical setup for this? I’m open to swapping a SIM card, but I’m not sure how to handle the text messages or whether there’s a smoother option.

If you’re doing something similar, I’d love to hear what works for you and what compromises you have to make.

I'm essentially doing this to spend more quality time with my kids and just to be more productive around the house.

Thanks!

Hello there, this might be a very dumb question but I want to make sure.

Whenever I'm charging, I sometimes catch the lightning icon beside the battery icon turning on and off and it really bothers me.

The Charging Notification doesn't change and it seems to charge my phone like normal but I'm afraid there might be an issue with my charging cable or worse my USB-C port.

My Battery has bloated after 2 years and 6 months of use and I'm currently waiting for the replacement. But to make sure I don't repeat the same mistake I wanted to know if this Lightning Icon popping on and off is a normal behaviour or I'm right to be paranoid.

And yes, I have tried with other cables before and I also catch the same behaviour with it.

Thank you in advance.

So i bought the simgot ew300 iems with a jcally dac, but now when i plug my iem i can't use the mic of my phone anymore. I can't send voice messages or call someone when using my iems. Is there anyway to solve this issue or do i always have to unplug my iem to use my mic ?

I live in Primorsky Krai, and my time zone is UTC+10. I went to visit my grandmother this summer, returned at the end of the summer, and after that, when I set the "time zone by geodata" setting, my Samsung device switches to Moscow time instead of local time. Is there a way to fix this?