How badly Vodafone UK delays Galaxy security updates?

[the_bart123]

Hallo there.

I am new in Android world - I've read Samsung let Network Providers (Carriers) for branding which are nasty spyware apps installation (in my case Vodafone UK - I had to scroll through 4 pages unticking some dodgy apps installations durning my new S23 Ultra setup).

And I've read Carriers do other nasty things with delaying important Security Updates - my question is - how bad is it and why is this happening on MY £1250 smartphone?

[carguy143]

Phone networks branding their phones and adding their own features is nothing new. I've had old Nokia and Samsung D600 that came with an Orange "sidebar", a hideous Orange coloured bar that you couldn't remove or disable and had Orange equivalents of various apps. With Android and modern smartphones there is less need for them to do this as various features such as WiFi calling are now pretty much universal across networks. Now they just brand things for marketing purposes or sponsorship arrangements.

My S22 Ultra was from EE and was pretty much unbranded, except it came with the EE and Weare8 apps installed and they couldn't be removed. It also had the network selection menu adapted so you could only turn 5g on or off and had no other control over which mobile network bands the phone used.

My S23 Ultra is from Samsung and doesn't have such branding and the apps were not pre-installed. The network menu gives me full control over the mobile network frequencies. I did choose to download the EE app though as it is useful for billing and is now the only way to echat the customer service team. I still choose to just DM them via X instead though...

As for software updates. Both my S22 Ultra and S23 Ultra have received the monthly updates on time so I guess some networks are better than others in that regard.

[the_bart123]

So why we need those Android Security Updates anyway? Are they for fun?

[the_bart123]

Well my S23U stuck on Dec 2023 Security update and we have MID Jan 2024 - you call it "on time"? My Galaxy Watch 6 stuck even worse on November 2023 but who cares 😞