The Galaxy S8 is evidence of Samsung's changing attitude to bloatware

Remember back when we all used to have a field day bashing Samsung bloatware? There was sooo much of it, you couldn’t disable or uninstall it, and most things duplicated stuff that Google already did perfectly well (and also pre-installed on Galaxy phones). But starting with the Galaxy S6, Samsung started to change its attitude toward bloatware, and the Galaxy S8 benefits greatly from the continuation of that tendency.

But more to the point, we benefit greatly. As much as we understand how lucrative these software deals can be to smartphone manufacturers, none of us really want bloatware clogging up our phones. In the past you could barely uninstall any, having to settle for disabling a few and making your peace with most, but times have changed.

The 32 GB Galaxy S7 had 8 GB of storage taken up by its ROM and pre-loaded apps. The 64 GB Galaxy S8 in my hands – even without any carrier bloat – admittedly had 12 GB used by the time I peeled the plastic off. But even though I’ve already lost a large chunk of my internal storage to the system it doesn’t feel so bad because the apps that are on the S8 are largely removable.

Pre-loaded apps may not ultimately take up much space, but to have the ability to get rid of most of them almost makes you forget about the rest of the space you’ll never get to reclaim. Of course, pre-installed apps you don’t want, can’t remove and can’t disable are also a drain on your system resources, so any time you can uninstall or disable them, the better.

The Galaxy S8 has 37 pre-installed apps (at least on my unlocked international variant). The Galaxy S6 had 50 apps, not including carrier bloat. By my count there’s only a dozen I can’t uninstall or disable on the S8, and some of those are rather useful like the dialer.

Even for those of you suffering from extensive carrier bloat in the US, there are still steps you can take to get rid of the few remaining apps Samsung won’t already let you disable. You simply have to decide if ridding yourself of them is worth $1.50. If it is, you’ll also be able to remove future bloat on your next Galaxy phone. Not uninstall, sadly, but disable any and all apps you want to. And it doesn’t even require root.

You won’t get the storage space back, but you will block them from chewing system resources and you’ll no longer see them in your app drawer. All you need to do is fork out for an app called BK Package Disabler, which you can do via the button below. Install it, grant it the necessary permissions and swipe to the ‘Bloatware’ tab in the app.

Tap the check mark next to the apps you want disabled and that’s it (don’t just go crazy, look for the specific apps in the app drawer you want removed). You’ll no longer see them in your app drawer and they won’t be able to run in the background. If something breaks or you want the app back for some reason, simply relaunch the BK Package Disabler app and uncheck the box next to the apps you want resurrected.

While it’s unfortunate we still have to resort to paid apps to remove everything we want to on a phone that cost us an arm and a leg, the base situation has at least improved from years past. On my S8 I can uninstall or disable 25 apps straight out of the box, and pay $1.50 to disable the rest. That may not quite be ideal, but it sure is better than it once was.