yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fire General] gsbs1:
I bought 10 of them on Prime day expecting them to be rooted in the next month for classroom testing kiosks. Thankfully, this is almost everything I need!

My only issue now is removing the lock screen completely so I can just turn on straight to the kiosk software (Kiosk Browser Lockdown seems to be working perfectly for my needs). Turning on to a lockscreen allows students to get out of the kiosk software. Anyone have any luck removing the lock screen through a package?
[Fire General] Hallo32:
I don't really think so.

With the right FireOS version there is no problem to get root and with flashfire there should not be a problem to save root for the next version.

Also not all are beginners. ;)
[Fire General] DB126:
LOL - you missed the point.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Unfortunately the lock screen is likely to remain an issue until root, if we get root. It's tucked away in:

/system/framework/framework-res.apk

It's literally inside the APK along with A LOT of other stuff. On my rooted XT907, I was looking inside it's framework and I had a breakthrough. I found Wireless Display configuration aka screen mirroring :D I just happened to stumble across it while seeing if my suspicions were correct about lock screen: it's literally possibly hundreds of PNGs layered on top of one another and there are several 'dummy' ones in between the others and our real screens. This is what triggers the blackout effect for a few seconds and the jump to the lock screen regardless if you have a code or not. It's also what prevents most wallpapers on the desktop and the ability to change the lock screen screensavers. These dummy screens are triggered by such attempts at customization and black us out, and jumping us to lock screen.

The only way to stop it would be to sift through the PNGs and remove the dummy screens and the ones that create the passcodes and patterns. That would require either root, or a very talented individual to modify framework-res.apk to do just that, without killing the signature.

When I get home, I'll reply again with a link that should help with your issue though. You can actually achieve kiosk using ADB commands and without root surprisingly. I'll post it and then I advise to set your tablets to the max time limit before they go on standby. I believe that's 30 mins. Until root, or I find more goodies in my digging, this is the best we have and TBH, it's pretty ****ing amazing :D
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
I have just two issues as a result of all this: non working home button and the blackout effect from the launcher. I can live with not having a home button. But the blackouts really irritate me. I think we all knew it wouldn't be perfect, and the luxury of being able to fix it with a reset and do it again, is a blessing. We learned what we shouldn't do, and from that we could possibly learn how to fix it. I'm likely going to do a reset because I want to test some things. But honestly, these small inconveniences are worth it in my opinion. I now have a super fast device that is almost as customizable as a custom ROM.

I think being able to add widgets now as a result of that script, is pretty amazing too. Amazon was so bent on us customizing these things, yet they put the ability and instructions and the script itself in plain view. It's laughable actually. Someone made a boo boo. And this uninstalling apps is a big crushing blow to them being just a few days after prime day.
[Fire General] gsbs1:
For the sake of battery use, I still want the tablets to be able to go to standby (or at least, turn off the display). I just want to remove the lockscreen entirely so that they can't swipe on push notifications (which allows access out of the Kiosk Lockdown launcher) or swap accounts. It sounds like you've been digging, hopefully you stumble upon something awesome.
[Fire General] DB126:
If you have learned some things then there is certainly a personal benefit that might be shared by a handful of others of similar mindset. For most the loss of home button is a non-starter along with the overall effort involved to acheive marginal gains.

Arguably a used 3rd gen HDX is a far better bargain if partial to Amazon gizmos. Unlocked bootloader, a dozen custom ROMs representing Android 4.2-7.1, hardware specs that rival today's mid-range devices (but no SD card slot). Home button works too. :)
[Fire General] krsmit0:
so removing stock apps removes most of the extra categories on the fire launcher. Anyone figure out how to remove the last 3 "books" "audible" "newstand". not sure which package might be controlling those.
[Fire General] Adyatan:
com.amazon.webapp

com.audible.application.kindle

Try removing these!
[Fire General] krsmit0:
i believe i have already removed those, but ill check when i get home. i currently can hide them with parental controls. gives the fire launcher a cleaner look. makes it tolerable.
[Fire General] Adyatan:
I noticed that the other tabs on fire launcher won't dissapear even I delete the appstore, audible and kindle!!
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Likely just residual tabs that are built into fire launcher.
[Fire General] WXSky:
Why doesn't the original post match the title "Uninstall Amazon Apps"? Would like to know which amazon apps to uninstall that won't cause a problem. Haven't read through the thread - tired.
[Fire General] neelrocker:
Hello,

I'm using a 2017 kindle (7th gen, fireOS 5.4.0.0) with smart launcher and launcher hijack v2 to link the home button to smart launcher (amazon launcher not uninstalled).

The ad unlock screen is annoying of course. Also I cannot get rid of an annoying reminder from smart launcher to ask you to make it the default launcher (it links to the settings menu but of course you cannot make it the default launcher there, so the reminder pop up will come back at every restart of the tablet).

Now I noticed one thing: when you are at the ad unlock screen, if you slide the upper notification bar and go to wifi for example, from here the home button become available, and with hijack linking it to your custom launcher you can unlock the tablet without going through the ad process.

Could this be kind of a backdoor to get rid of the annoying ad unlock screen ? If you could script something to automatically go to wifi parameters then home (automatically when powering on).

Just wondering, I'm not very used to android stuff.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
I don't know enough about scripting to say so. There are several apps that link to the home button so I imagine that may need to be written for all of them.

#EDIT: the lock screen isn't an app or apk. It is several hundred (maybe more) PNG images piled in front of and behind each other to form the lock screen. It also has several dummy screens that pop up to block wallpapers and to stop you from going back to the home screen when you close out apps (if you uninstalled fire launcher and installed your own).

Lock screen id in /system/framework/framework-res.apk

Unzip it and look insaide. Or to see everything in it, decompile it with APK tool and see.

Unless someone can modify the framework apk to delete lock screen images, or replace them, then lock screen is here to stay for now.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
If you want to keep the home button functioning, don't uninstall fire launcher or anything to do with oobe settings. Same with the Whisper apps. There is no real list as what to uninstall. I haven't made one and some users have. One made a script to uninstall everything he did. For now this is uninstall at your own risk. So far the only major issues I have are the home button not working and I can't access my camera roll without parental controls, something I hope to fix by installing another camera and gallery.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Dont know about your camera roll issue, but I side loaded Google camera from apkmirror and quick pic from the app store.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Yeah tat was my plan, though I like Open Camera. I didn't know Google had one.

I had to do a reset. Voice View turned on and I couldn't turn it off. Back to square one. fml
[Fire General] krsmit0:
I have reset several times. But it's true with most my gadgets. I think I have it running the way I like it. I'm afraid to start over. So unless someone says "this awesome thing does this", I'm super satisfied with this find.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Your script looks like it butchers it. What actually works after running that?
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
I really am so sick of this home button BS. It really is ridiculous to have so many apps link to the home button. I am seriously over all this. I'm just about ready to throw in the towel. I am annoyed and frustrated. If we don't get root, I am nearly tempted to shut the thing off and forget about it. That's how much this has frustrated me the last few days.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Not anymore than Amazon butchered Android.
[Fire General] Technocian:
Gotta change your mindset. This device, at best, is a 25 dollar video screen for me. YouTube, Netflix, etc.

My original intention for buying a tablet was that I was getting ready to print a large study guide and make a binder, but the paper and ink would have cost me around 30-40 dollars. I looked online and found that PDF and figured I could use a cheap tablet as a dedicated ebook reader. Found this used for 25 bucks and it's certainly served its purpose there, even with just a 600p screen.

Funny story, my original Fire had 5.1.1 on it and I installed the Fire Nexus rom, but I returned it due to a annoying scratch on the screen that was deep enough to be constantly distracting. During the exchange, I received this tablet with 5.3.3. I was initially kinda bummed it didn't have root, but once I got Google Play Store installed I realized it wasn't that big of a deal. This is basically a book that can play videos.

Besides, short of there being a new rom built on Android 7.1.1, all you'll be doing is flashing a dam based on a nearly 3 year old release of Android anyways.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
I bought mine as a video screen. Worked ok. Ram seemed a little low. Felt like it was swapping a lot. With amazons apps disabled, runs much smoother for what I want. I am using the fire launcher but have made it more comfortable for me. I have tried to keep it mostly functioning otherwise. That's where the butchering comment came from. Most of my settings all still work. But nothing is in ram I don't expect to be there.
[Fire General] opasha:
If you don't mind, can you provide the exact apps you disabled/removed? I want to make my fire tablet 7 (2017) a bit faster as well. I have google play store and netguard with yandex browser installed. Thanks!
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
So far it seems the only major annoyance (One I thought I'd be able to deal with) anyone has had, is the home button becoming disabled. So Far I have experimented and found that Retail Demo, Fire Launcher and the oobe related apps, are tied into the home button. I think some of the Whisper apps are too, though I am not sure which ones yet. Uninstalling those will disable it and so far I've not been able to find a fix. The 'home' setting in the hidden settings seems to not do anything, which is weird because that should solve the problem. As much as I love Nova Launcher, I recommend sticking with fire Launcher until the home issues is resolved. I have noticed the tablet really struggles sometimes and does seem truly lost. I have had Amazon stock wallpapers reset to default because of this issue.

If you use your camera often, uninstalling anything related to parental controls, will disable the camera roll, but not the camera. If you want to uninstall those, you'll have to install a new camera and gallery. Some users have done that and there doesn't seem to be any issues.

I think that's it really. If I missed anything, others will chime in :)
[Fire General] Robius:
How about creating an overlay button that does the job instead?

Can be anywhere on screen or on top of the broken home.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
i cant give you an exact list but i can give you most of the notes i took in the process.

I had issues this time with enabling location services so enable that before you start if that is something that you want.

here is my rough notes:

enable adb

install es file explorer from app store

install play store, 4 apks and reboot

i then installed contact sync and google contact app from apk mirror for contacts.

disable alexa and uninstall 2 alexa entries

i removed all user apps showing in fire launcher except settings and photos.

installed google camera app from apk mirror.

install file manager from play store, uninstall es file from app store.

this will leave you with 3 extra catergoies in fire launcher, i hid those with parental controls.

install gboard and set as default, removed 3 fire keyboard entries.

uninstalled unified search, disables search on fire launcher but doesnt hide it.

removed 2 whisper sync entries to keep it out of memory. whisperplay daemon, whisperlink activity view

EDIT: also removed forced.ota and another ota one. keeps the update check from functioning.

if you want to remove something and arent sure, you can ask if i removed it and ill let you know.
[Fire General] jfulgen:
Thank you for your great work, where we can download your scrip??
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Let me straighten the home button out. It doesn't get disabled. It gets lost, literally. It's function and all. Whatever launcher and the various other apps do to link it, the button can't live without them. I recall an error I got during the various resets through this, "can't find home" when tapped.

Edit: when I get home I'll reply with a command that should enable the home button if it were disabled. A side note: its also somehow attached to device owner provisioning.
[Fire General] gsbs1:
Copy his script. Paste it in any text viewer (Notepad). Save it as "Amazon.bat", in the same directory as your adb.exe (C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\platform-tools is default install directory for ADB). Run it.

---------- Post added at 05:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:12 PM ----------

Just as a heads up, the script removed some pretty core functionality on some apps. After trying to make a new user, the tablet crashed and bootlooped. Webview without a replacement also breaks my kiosk software.

I'm going to make changes to the script and find out what is needed.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Making a new user will cause all these apps to reload. You are only removing them for the current user.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Indeed. Be advised, you can also remove them from the "other/guest" user.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
I may have figured out the home button issue.

/system/etc/permissions/com.amazon.device.home.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<permissions>
<library name="com.amazon.device.home"
file="/system/framework/com.amazon.device.home.jar"/>

<feature name="com.amazon.software.home"/>

</permissions>

Perhaps uninstalling any of the apps linked to it, also removes the button's permission. If that's the case, unfortunately I don't know of a way to fix that without root and without knowing where the home button files are.
[Fire General] Robius:
Create all your users first, then clean up each.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
My point is to get rid of any loopholes in the Guest account.
[Fire General] SetTheCat:
This is what I came to the thread looking for. I think you helped me in another thread regarding contacts. After I installed the contacts APKs, I've so far removed the following:

Amazon Shopping: com.amazon.windowshop

Silk Browser: com.amazon.cloud9

Amazon App Store: com.amazon.venezia

Prime Video: com.amazon.avod

Freetime: com.amazon.tahoe

Kindle Books: com.amazon.kindle

Prime Music: com.amazon.mp3

Audible: com.audible.application.kindle

Prime Photos: com.amazon.photos *

Amazon Games: com.amazon.ags.app

Amazon Alexa: com.amazon.dee.app

Goodreads: com.goodreads.kindle

Amazon Offers: com.amazon.kindle.kso

Amazon Email: com.android.email

Amazon Calendar: com.android.calendar

Amazon Camera: com.amazon.camera

Amazon Docs: com.amazon.zico

Amazon Contacts:	com.android.contacts

Amazon Maps: com.amazon.geo.client.maps

Amazon Calculator: com.amazon.calculator

Amazon Clock: com.android.deskclock

Amazon Weather: com.amazon.weather

Amazon Help: com.amazon.csapp

Amazon My Videos: com.amazon.kindle.personal_video

Amazon Photo Importer: com.amazon.photos.importer

Mopria: org.mopria.printplugin **

*Removing Prime Photos will keep you from changing the lockscreen wallpaper.

**Moprina disables printing. Google cloud print won't work after install.

If anyone has the fire keyboard and OTA package names I will add them to my list. If interested I can also make a batch similar to the one in a previous post.

Edit: Re-formatted the list based on the rows of 5 on a freshly restored tablet. All packages confirmed after restore.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Does anyone know the permissions the guest account has? Did anyone check to see if the same apps are installed there? Curious to know if there were more apps there than on our accounts.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Moprina disables printing. Google cloud print won't work after install.

Prime photos will keep you from changing the lockscreen wallpaper.

Help is csapp, video is avod. Disable Alexa somewhere in settings.
[Fire General] SetTheCat:
Updated my post, thanks again. You know of any other functions that will break if an app is removed?
[Fire General] gsbs1:
I tried to make a second account on the tablet, and only remove the packages on that user (default of user 10 after checking with "adb shell dumpsys user"). When I remove firelauncher on this secondary profile, it never finds the second launcher (Novalauncher in my case), so the profile just sits at a blank screen. Any tips?
[Fire General] krsmit0:
There has been a lot of discussion about removing the launcher. Removing certain apps breaks the home button.

Use fire launcher or Launcher hijack. No alternative.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
As I've said in the recent past, there HAS to be a way to uninstall system apps with no root and here we are lol. So I'll say this: There HAS to be a way to disable the Guest account then stop other accounts from being made, also with no root. OR if Guest has more permissions than we do, and more apps, There has to be a way to install kingroot or something and see if we can gain root through that account.
[Fire General] Robius:
You need to run Launcher Hijacker and set your launcher before you remove firelauncher. For all users.

You can reinstall it via adb shell from the /system/priv.. dir
[Fire General] krsmit0:
I have had ZERO luck reinstalling anything I have disabled. Have you actually done this or just repeating what has been said before? What is the command to reinstall something?

---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 PM ----------

Why do you think guest has more permissions then a regular user?
[Fire General] Robius:
Same as the uninstall command, you just have be in the same dir as the package file. Any attempt to use paths fails.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Didn't work for me.
[Fire General] savvytechwinner:
Download App Lister from play store

Under the name of the package shows the package name (com.amazon.blah/ org.blah.blah)

For example, to uninstall Amazon Shopping use this command

adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.amazon.windowshop
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Great, that works fine. How about reinstalling after removing something with undesirable consequences?
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Every attempt says INSTALL_FAILED_INVALID_URI, can you give me an example of a command that reinstalled a removed entry?
[Fire General] Robius:
The last one in my history is:

1|shell@austin:/ $ pm install /sdcard/Download/LauncherHijackV2.1.apk
[Fire General] krsmit0:
Have you actually tried it with an app from system/priv-app? Doesn't work for me.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
You can't reinstall the apps once you uninstall them, at least not without a factory reset.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Ok so I may have a solution to the home button, I may not. How about the possibility of replacing the home screen or at least placing another home screen over the top? I was looking through my XT907 last night and came across two APKs: Homescreen.apk and HomeConfig.apk. The settings have to be reconfigured though. Currently they are customized for Motorola, but I believe the APKs are universal. I have attached both of them. If anyone is willing to modify them, I'll test them. I'll work on them myself too, but this could be an undertaking.

Homescreen.apk: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYbBtv6Sq95UDZPSG9PazEwaTA/view?usp=sharing

HomeConfig.apk: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYbBtv6Sq95TjlfQ1B2MkRNalU/view?usp=sharing
[Fire General] gsbs1:
That wasn't the issue at all.

First off, removing Fire Launcher without Launcher Hijack works fine. It just defaults to any other Launchers that are available if they have been installed. This includes Nova and Kioskbrowser Lockdown.

My issue was running the launcher on a secondary account after uninstalling the com.amazon.firelauncher app on that user. When I launched that user, it didn't have a secondary launcher enabled because it wasn't installed on that account.

The problem is, I don't know how to install apps on the second account through ADB. "adb install nova.apk" doesn't work, because the app has already been installed on the tablet (and accessible for the primary account). When I try to use the adb shell, "adb shell pm enable --user 10 com.teslacoilsw.launcher" it gives me a permission denial.

I'm going to try manually installing the launcher (and Google Play as well) on the second account.
[Fire General] CaptainPatterson:
Hi I am a beginner at all of this stuff. Can these things be done without a PC? All I have is the Fire Tablet 7 (5th gen) and an LG smartphone that is rooted.
[Fire General] Hallo32:
Try to search for a terminal app on the amazon app shop. If they have one, it should also work directly on the tablet.
[Fire General] krsmit0:
ADB commands throw permission errors if you try them through a terminal app. So pc is required.
[Fire General] Hallo32:
You are right, the ADB commands are the problem.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
It's not a problem really. It's the permissions ADB has that are used for developing, which in some cases are higher than the tablet's permissions. Unfortunately those permissions can't be granted to a Terminal app. You would need to install BusyBox to solve that issue. Without root, that's not possible at least for now. But I am determined. If there is a way to uninstall system apps without root, there has to be a way to install to system without it.
[Fire General] DB126:
You are not uninstalling system apps; just making them 'unavailable'. There is a difference. Efforts to modify the system partition on unrooted, bootloader locked device works against the Android/Linux/Bootloader/hardware security framework that has withstood the test of time. Good luck with that.
[Fire General] Hallo32:
The apps are only blacklisted after the pm uninstall in data/system/users/<userid>/package-restrictions.xml.

The following line is an example for the firelauncher:

<pkg name="com.amazon.firelauncher" inst="false" stopped="true" nl="true" />

The inst="false" shows, that the package has been uninstalled for the user.

The /system has not been touched through the pm uninstall command. If the /system would have been touched, a factory reset would not recover the apps.
[Fire General] DragonFire1024:
Depends...what is the guest account? What permissions does it have? At the moment when I do 'adb shell pm list users' I am the only one listed. If you are only making these apps "unavailable" for the user, then clearly they should be available elsewhere aka guest or if possible, a hidden profile/account of a sort. My point is, why is the guest account needed so badly? You can't remove it...why?