Speed up your hudl - which APKs to remove?

October 6, 2013

Hi there. This is kinda rhetorical, kinda not. I am experimenting with disabling apps, and have narrowed the Tesco installed apps to a few, and I wonder if someone else could confirm this.

Got some guidance here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/optimus-v-rooting-roms-hacks/156703-guide-apks-their-purpose-safe-not-remove-big.html

What I did was:

Rooted hudl, then...

Got a shell

adb shell

Got root access to shell

su

Remounted /system as r/w

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock7 /system

Got to /system/app dir and did

ls

The apps I seem to identify as not needed, are marked in red

matt@i3-550 ~/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20130219/sdk/platform-tools/dump $ for i in *apk; do printf "%-30s%s\n" $i "$(./aapt dump badging $i|grep label:|cut -d: -f2)"; done

adobereader.apk 'Adobe Reader'

W/ResourceType( 6062): No known package when getting value for resource number 0x01080093

ERROR getting 'android:icon' attribute: attribute is not a string value

ApplicationsProvider.apk 'Search Applications Provider'

appupdater.apk 'App updater'

BackupRestoreConfirmation.apk

BasicDreams.apk 'Basic Daydreams'

blinkboxmovies.apk 'blinkbox'

blinkboxmusic.apk 'blinkbox music'

blinkboxwidget.apk 'blinkbox'

Bluetooth.apk 'Bluetooth Share'

Books.apk 'Google Play Books'

BrowserProviderProxy.apk

Calculator.apk 'Calculator'

CalendarGoogle.apk 'Calendar'

CalendarProvider.apk 'Calendar Storage'

CertInstaller.apk 'Certificate Installer'

Chrome.apk 'Chrome'

clubcardtv.apk 'Clubcard TV'

clubcardwidget.apk 'Tesco Clubcard'

ConfigUpdater.apk

Contacts.apk 'Contacts'

ContactsProvider.apk 'Contacts Storage'

DefaultContainerService.apk 'Package Access Helper'

DeskClockGoogle.apk 'Clock'

DownloadProvider.apk 'Download Manager'

DownloadProviderUi.apk 'Downloads'

DrmProvider.apk 'DRM Protected Content Storage'

Email.apk 'Email'

Exchange2.apk 'Exchange Services'

FaceLock.apk 'Face Unlock'

FusedLocation.apk 'Fused Location'

Galaxy4.apk 'Black Hole'

GalleryGoogle.apk 'Gallery'

getstarted.apk 'Getting started'

Gmail2.apk 'Gmail'

GmsCore.apk 'Google Play services'

GMS_Maps.apk 'Maps'

GoogleBackupTransport.apk 'Google Backup Transport'

GoogleContactsSyncAdapter.apk 'Google Contacts Sync'

GoogleCurrents.apk 'Currents'

GoogleDrive.apk 'Drive'

GoogleFeedback.apk 'Market Feedback Agent'

GoogleKeep.apk 'Keep'

GoogleLoginService.apk 'Google Account Manager'

GooglePartnerSetup.apk 'Google Partner Setup'

GoogleServicesFramework.apk 'Google Services Framework'

GoogleTTS.apk 'Google Text-to-speech Engine'

grocery.apk 'Groceries'

grocerywidget.apk 'Groceries widget'

Hangouts.apk 'Hangouts'

HoloSpiralWallpaper.apk

HTMLViewer.apk 'HTML Viewer'

Hudl_production.apk 'Hudl Production' <---------------------------------------------------------------- Hmmm.... looks interesting!

hudlsetup.apk 'Hudl setup' <---------------------------------------------- ???

InputDevices.apk 'Input Devices'

KeyChain.apk 'Key Chain'

LatinImeGoogle.apk 'Google Keyboard'

Launcher2.apk 'Launcher'

LiveWallpapers.apk 'Android Live Wallpapers'

LiveWallpapersPicker.apk 'Live Wallpaper Picker'

Magazines.apk 'Google Play Magazines'

MagicSmokeWallpapers.apk 'Magic Smoke Wallpapers'

MediaFloat.apk 'MediaFloat'

MediaProvider.apk 'Media Storage'

MediaUploader.apk 'Picasa Uploader'

Music2.apk 'Google Play Music'

MusicFX.apk 'MusicFX'

NetworkLocation.apk 'Network Location'

NoiseField.apk 'Bubbles'

OneTimeInitializer.apk 'Google One Time Init'

OpenWnn.apk 'OpenWnn' <----------------------------------- Apparently an Asian keyboard; safe to remove.

otaclient.apk 'Hudl updates'

PackageInstaller.apk 'Package installer'

PartnerBookmarksProvider.apk

PhaseBeam.apk 'Phase Beam'

ERROR getting 'android:label' attribute: attribute is not a string value

Phone.apk 'Mobile Data'

Phonesky.apk 'Google Play Store'

PlayGames.apk 'Google Play Games'

PlusOne.apk 'Google+'

production_test.apk 'KH-Production' <----------------------------- "Keen High" production tests (test speakers, lcd etc - accessible from settings)

Provision.apk

Settings.apk 'Settings'

SettingsProvider.apk 'Settings Storage'

SharedStorageBackup.apk

SoundRecorder.apk 'Sound Recorder'

storelocator.apk 'Store Locator' <----------------------------- Remove?

Street.apk 'Street View'

systemcrashesmonitor.apk 'System crashes monitor'

W/ResourceType( 6406): No known package when getting value for resource number 0x0108045e

ERROR getting 'android:icon' attribute: attribute is not a string value

SystemUI.apk 'System UI'

SystemUpdate.apk 'Update'

TagGoogle.apk 'Tags'

talkback.apk 'TalkBack'

TelephonyProvider.apk 'Mobile Network Configuration'

tescoaccountapp.apk 'Tesco account manager'

tescodirectwidget.apk 'Tesco direct'

tescolauncher.apk 'Tesco launcher'

trackingservice.apk 'Diagnostics and usage monitor'

UserDictionaryProvider.apk 'User Dictionary'

Velvet.apk 'Google Search'

Videos.apk 'Google Play Movies'

VisualizationWallpapers.apk 'Music Visualization Wallpapers'

VoiceSearchStub.apk

VpnDialogs.apk 'VpnDialogs'

WAPPushManager.apk

YouTube.apk 'YouTube'

It's good to clean up wasted space, because "Every little helps" :P

Edited October 6, 2013 by glossywhite

October 6, 2013

You can test launch APKs on the hudl, by copying "aapt" executable from your SDK "platform-tools" directory to your current directory, and then make a shell script to do this:

1/

nano launch-apk.sh

PASTE THE CODE BELOW INTO THE SCRIPT (script assumes "adb" is in your PATH)

#!/bin/bash
pkg=$(./aapt dump badging $1|awk -F" " '/package/ {print $2}'|awk -F"'" '/name=/ {print $2}')
act=$(./aapt dump badging $1|awk -F" " '/launchable-activity/ {print $2}'|awk -F"'" '/name=/ {print $2}')
adb shell am start -n $pkg/$act

2/ Save and exit nano.

3/

chmod +x launch-apk.sh

4/ Test launch APKs as shown (again, make sure "aapt" executable is in the dir you are running this from, and that "adb" executable is there too, OR in your "PATH":

./launch-apk.sh <nameOfApkToTest.apk>

October 6, 2013

Hi GlossyWhite,

I think you can get rid of "storelocator.apk" App too, as I think this is Tesco's Store Locator App

Lister

October 6, 2013

Hi GlossyWhite,
I think you can get rid of "storelocator.apk" App too, as I think this is Tesco's Store Locator App
Lister

Yes - I meant to add that one; thank you :)

October 6, 2013

I would strongly advise not to delete applications from the system folder unless you don't want to receive any future OTA updates. Just disable the apps you don't want to use from the Apps option inside Settings then reboot your tablet. The apps will be prevented from launching, won't take up any RAM or other system resources and it still allows you to receive OTA updates as nothing has changed on the system.

October 6, 2013

I would strongly advise not to delete applications from the system folder unless you don't want to receive any future OTA updates. Just disable the apps you don't want to use from the Apps option inside Settings then reboot your tablet. The apps will be prevented from launching, won't take up any RAM or other system resources and it still allows you to receive OTA updates as nothing has changed on the system.

For the "average" user with very little/no tech knowledge, I'd agree - leave things alone

However, if people don't know what they're doing, I'd be very surprised if they would pursue any of the hacks given on the forums. Even if they chose to, it's not such a disaster as people always make out that it is - this is a consumer computing device, not a life support machine, after all - what it THE absolute worst that could happen - a dead tab?

Learning to get yourself out of trouble by fixing errors and un-doing things you didn't mean to do, is the best means of technical education one can ask for. People are far too hand-held and mollycoddled nowadays - TRUE hackers aren't scared of taking things apart, voiding warranties, flashing bootloaders and soldering in mod resistors etc - that is how one learns to become proficient at such tasks - everything is dumbed-down by several layers of abstraction these days, all the way up to a pretty interface, so people become scared of experimenting.

Breaking things is good for your education - the BEST lessons are learnt hard.

October 6, 2013

I cant see tesco pushing out kitkat :p

the only updates you will see is more bloat from tesco

I would strongly advise not to delete applications from the system folder unless you don't want to receive any future OTA updates. Just disable the apps you don't want to use from the Apps option inside Settings then reboot your tablet. The apps will be prevented from launching, won't take up any RAM or other system resources and it still allows you to receive OTA updates as nothing has changed on the system.

October 6, 2013

I cant see tesco pushing out kitkat :P

the only updates you will see is more bloat from tesco

I can see my hudl pushing out Tesco! ^__^

Edited October 6, 2013 by glossywhite

October 11, 2013

I found a load of Tesco junk apps in

/data/app

...too, so remounted as rw, created a folder there and moved them into it - seems to have sped things up somewhat.

Edited October 11, 2013 by glossywhite

October 12, 2013

I cant see tesco pushing out kitkat :P

the only updates you will see is more bloat from tesco

... I can

October 12, 2013

... I can

Its a possibility we get it a few weeks/months after announcement and the AOSP release. We don't just have to rely on tesco for system updates, we rely on Archos/Rockchip too. So if both of them are willing to push the device up to 4.4 then we might just see KitKat on our Hudls.

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