Remove games and game-related apps from my devices and from Galaxy Store

[FelimDoyle]

I use my Samsung smartphones and tablets for both personal and business purposes and I have absolutely no interest in games. 

How can I remove pre-installed games and game-related apps from my devices and prevent the Galaxy Store from bombarding me with game-related app promotions so that I can see the apps that might actually be of interest to me?

Félim Doyle

[Joeeye]

I'd suggest just pressing the Apps button at the bottom. This will filter out games and display apps only. Beyond that, if it is too inconvenient, you can simply not use the Galaxy Store and use Google Play Store instead, just be sure to choose Apps here too so as to not be bombarded with games.

[FelimDoyle]

Firstly, @Joeeye, there is no way to set Apps as the default, which would be my personal preference, so I get Games again each time I use the Galaxy Store app. Secondly, AFAIK, some apps are only available through the Galaxy Store and have to be updated through the Galaxy Store so using Google Play Store exclusively is not an option.

I have had to uninstall (restore to factory default version) several Samsung pre-installed apps, disable auto-update on them then disable the apps themselves but many unwanted pre-installed Samsung apps, even obsolete desupported ones, cannot be uninstalled. I have to do this for all of mine and my family's devices and any new devices that we acquire which is very frustrating for apps that shouldn't be factory installed in ROM in the first place.

I think that it is most unprofessional and biased of Samsung to assume that all of its smartphone and tablet customers are primarily interested in games, including their business customers, when I would imagine that this is far from being the case.

Félim Doyle

[Joeeye]

Fair enough. But I mean it is literally a one button press to apps, doesn't sound like a herculean task...

[FelimDoyle]

a) The Apps tab should be the default for all users, the gamers should have to choose Games.
b) It should at least be configurable in Settings and the default should still be Apps.
c) I find the game screen annoying to see every time I go in to update my regular apps. The game icons are childish to be appearing on my personal and professional devices.

Up until recently, there was a gaming promotion pop-up that had to be cancelled before you could proceed to the Apps tab. It had a "don't show this again" or, more recently, a "don't show this again today" option but I continued to get the promotional pop-ups every time I started Galaxy Store although perhaps for a different game each time. This was disruptive to my quite normal use of Galaxy Store and, I imagine, has now been removed following complaints from regular users like myself.

I realise that this is all about marketing but, as I said in a previous post, it's very unprofessional of Samsung to bias such an essential utility app to a niche set of customers.

[Joeeye]

I'd wholly disagree on your take. Android and iOS for that matter, both kicked off because of the strong popularity of gaming in mobile phones. The Play store is quite literally called that because it was based off a games catalogue. The Galaxy Store was Samsungs attempt to mimic Googles design. Now I realise gaming may not be your personal background, but ignoring the fact that these mobiles and Android specifically today have only grown in popularity in VERY large part to gaming, it's only expected they'll be presented as a higher priority. Small inconveniences maybe, but not unprofessional.

[FelimDoyle]

I take your point about the historical [re]naming of Play Store (iOS has the aptly named App Store) but I still think that the average person is not using their smartphone or tablet for gaming and that therefore it should not be the focus of attention for Samsung's software maintenance app. I think that Samsung are out of touch with their customer base which is unprofessional.

Another thing, which I'll raise separately, is how huge the Samsung apps are in comparison to their Google equivalents even though they typically have less functionality. Comparing apps such as Samsung Mail with Google Mail and Samsung Wallet with Google Wallet, the size difference is phenomenal. Given the difference in functionality between these apps, I have to wonder what the code taking up all of that space is doing or what development tools Samsung are using to create such bloatware.

[Joeeye]

My Gmail is nearly 200MB vs my Samsung Mail at 91MB... don't think either are particularly large, but Samsungs is definitely not bigger. Chrome 376MB vs Samsung 394MB, marginal difference. Samsung Wallet is under 7MB, seriously... Google Wallet is 28.7MB, not sure what is so phenomenal about that. Google Play Services is larger than all the apps you mention combined.

I just don't follow this anti Samsung in a Samsung product. Google didn't collaborate with other companies just so they could enforce them all to use whatever they provide ONLY. I mean Microsoft have been criticised for an age due to anti competitive practices in software, but it seems some people prefer the monopoly?

[FelimDoyle]

How are you measuring the size of the apps? I don't think that Settings -> Apps takes into account the space occupied by apps in ROM only in NVRAM.

In Google Play Store my app sizes are as follows ...

Samsung:-

Email 672MB
Wallet 449MB
Internet 343MB
Upday 710MB

Google:-

GMail 380MB
Wallet 37MB
Chrome 594MB
News 118MB

You can't make a direct comparison between Samsung Internet and Google Chrome as Chrome has far more functionality than Internet but Firefox is 326MB for reference.

Similarly, Samsung Email is a less fully-featured app than GMail but is almost twice the size.

Again, Samsung Wallet has similar but still less functionality than Google Wallet and is less widely supported by card companies but is almost seventeen times the size.

Samsung's Upday offering is a news aggregator and so I would imagine is really just a front-end for websites and should have very little built-in functionality but is six times the size of Google News. The BBC News app is 181MB for reference.

Perhaps I am using the wrong measuring technique so I'm open to correction but it looks to me that Samsung apps are excessively large for the functionality provided and are sub-standard duplicates of the Google or other third-party equivalents.

Your comment of "anti Samsung in a Samsung producr" also raises the question as to why the device manufacturers and the network operators feel the need to have their own branded versions of apps and system software pre-installed in ROM when Google provides a perfectly good or better version.

I agree with you about Microsoft and anti-competitive practices but it that case the Microsoft product is invariably much bigger with less functionality than the alternatives so much so that, in order to try to compete in the browser wars, Microsoft had to capitulate and rebuild the Edge browser with the Chromium engine.

Félim Doyle

[Joeeye]

The numbers of mine are all from my devices settings>Apps and ofcoure they are accurate. The size fluctuations are obviously down to other things like cache and data assets beyond the default installation. I use neither Google Wallet or Samsung Wallet, so that huge size difference is something accrued on your end over time. But as far as app sizes go, Samsungs aren't any worse than Googles. My point really is that you are making waves over trivial differences such as data storage usage when there really isn't any truth to it.

Besides all that, I could have 10k Samsung Wallets installed and still have 95% of my storage free. It's not a big deal. Most of these alleged bloatware apps aren't, at the very least in terms of storage. Only people who love to use so much hyperbole over the smallest of inconveniences.