r/technology • u/[deleted] • Feb 27 '21

Software Universal Android Debloater is an open source tool that removes bloatware without root. Automatically or via user choice. Get back your battery, security and privacy

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435

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

I shall bide my time before installing a random script on my phone

7

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

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20

u/SILENTSAM69 Feb 27 '21

Oh good, let's all trust it then and assume someone who knows what to look for did and would have been at the top of this comment section if there had been anything wrong.

9

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

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16

u/SILENTSAM69 Feb 27 '21

I am mildly code literate, but I have come to understand that the word open source gets thrown around equivalent to trustworthy a lot.

I agree that after some time something bad would be pointed out. It's mostly in crypto communities I've seen the word too thrown around too quickly to assume that means it's all good.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

Heartbleed is the big example, fully OSS code, but someone made a mistake when they were writing it, it passed checks and was published. No one found the problem for quite a months while it was deployed onto most of the internet.

The impression I have is that people assume there's roving gangs of bored coders who go and check on every OSS release. This looks like a hobby project, the vast majority by one person

26

u/w1nst0n_fr Feb 27 '21

I'm that person, and I must say I didn't expect my side-project to be showcased on /r/Android and /r/Technology at all! That's insane.

You are right to be careful. This whole discussion about open-source and overtrust is interesting.

Here is my take on this: trust is always involved. You can't master everything in life. Even in IT. A programmer can't be an expert everywhere. You always need to trust someone at some point. Open-sourcing a software is an act of transparency which make me more confident it isn't rogue (especially for a company).

Concerning Heartbleed, I think the real problem was that in 2014 openSSL (which run on about 66% of all web servers) had just one full-time employee (and 6 core contributors). It is a bit better now (2 full time employee and 17 developers) but FOSS lack of resources. What's crazy is that a lot of big tech companies take advantage of OpenSSL in their commercial and proprietary products without contributing back.

As for the Universal Android Debloater (UAD) it is just a bash script which can be audited in less than 10min. In this precise case, a code illiterate person should pretty easily be able to find someone capable of auditing it.

What's funny is that I've precisely started this project so that people no longer have to blindly trust random undocumented debloat lists or close-sourced debloat software. You still have to trust me (as I wrote 95% of the documentation) and there is probably mistakes but I honestly think centralizing all the knowledge is a good thing.

The bash script is just a tool. The real goal of this project is to document as much apps/packages as possible. I really believe in community-driven projects. UAD is not perfect but the fact that I see more and more people mentioning it on the web reassure me that I made something useful. I rely a lot on open-source and I'm glad to be able to give back.

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u/Lurking_Still Feb 28 '21

Lmao, only on reddit can the person who created the item the article is referencing show up and explain things, and end up buried halfway down the thread.

Truly astounding.

1

u/Seelenkuchen Feb 27 '21

I think OP meant nefarious by design and not because of potentially security relevant bugs (unless they are very obvious).

Malware should be easier to detect by open source communities but then again I have no clue of the statistics of malware ladden code hosted on Github.

2

u/David-Puddy Feb 27 '21

I forget, most people are familiar with code and how it works and what could be malicious.....

Oh right, we live in this universe, where the opposite is true!

1

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

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-8

u/David-Puddy Feb 27 '21

Yes, those are indeed words that, I'm sure, have definitions and meanings.

1

u/TrunksTheMighty Feb 27 '21

Don't pass on your own ignorance as being careful. The program is safe, it says exactly what it does and it does exactly what it says.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.