[Droid Incredible Android Development] stlandroidfan:
Getting rid of Bloatware

Even though I love this ROM, I need some help getting rid of crap that I don't need and never use.

1) VZW Backup Assistant. On pages #44 and #45 of this thread, people suggested using Titanium. Well, guess what? You CANNOT use Titanium Backup to remove a system app. I can use Titanium to remove individual user apps. So someone else suggested to buy Root Explorer. So I plunked down the $3.90 and got Root Explorer. I finally found the VzWBAClient.apk and other similarly named .apks in one of the folders (I forget where), but I googled it before I decided to get rid of it. I found multiple threads online that advised AGAINST removing this .apk if Backup Client shows up under Accounts Sync. In my case, with this ROM, it does. I have Backup Assistant disabled in there, but I'd like to get rid of it altogether. Is this possible?

2) Peep. I never use it. Can we get rid of it?

Finally, I need some advice. I currently have:

1) Titanium Backup

2) MyBackup Pro

3) Root Explorer

4) ROM Manager

These are different programs that can accomplish some of the same things.

Titanium Backup and MyBackup Pro have the largest functional overlap. I hate to have redundancy on my phone. So which one of these should I get rid of? I find that MyBackup Pro is finnicky, but unlike Titanium, it actually backs up all the things on my phone (SMS, call logs etc.etc.etc.). Titanium doesn't do that. Which is why someone advised I buy MyBackup Pro. Which I did.

Question:

Is there anything that Titanium can uniquely do that would warrant keeping it?

Since I use MyBackup Pro to restore now, I don't use Titanium because that would be overkill. What I am not sure about is whether or not their app+data restores are comparable. I assume they are, which is why I don't run Titanium after I run MyBackup Pro restore.

Since I already bought MyBackup Pro, I don't feel like paying for Titanium in order to be able to use its Market Link Fixer function.

3) Root Explorer. I'm not familiar with it, but apparently it can do more than ASTRO. I hope the $4 is worth it. I can still cancel the purchase since I just bought it. Any thoughts?

4) I try to run the Fix Permissions function in ROM Manager and it doesn't work. Is this normal?

Finally, I just want to make sure that other people are also having problems installing the Adobe Flash update currently in market. I've tried it many times because I was worried that the current Flash might be the version that can be exploited by vicious programs. But I ended up giving up because it simply doesn't work.

I DID update my GMail using the ZIP file that SkyRaider's author ihftp69 provided. I had to go into recovery and apply that ZIP individually, after which my GMail upgraded to 2.3. It has been running flawlessly since. I tried installin GMail from market before that and it didn't work.

So just to confirm: don't bother with Adobe Flash from the Market? The current Flash version that comes with RC3 Vanilla is safe from malware?

How can we get rid of VZW Backup Assistant, Peep, HTC Flashlight (never use it. I prefer the Market app instead since it just has an on/off switch as opposed to 3 different light intensities) as well as some other non-app system programs that come bundles by HTC? I'm thinking that perhaps these things cannot be removed without causing the system to crash, otherwise ihftp69 would have removed them in this ROM.

Finally, I really like this ROM but it lacks a timer and a countdown timer that HTC has. The Google Weather app also leaves much to be desired.

I would say that RC3's biggest flaw is swiping between screens AND scrolling through apps.

- SWIPING BETWEEN SCREENS isn't as easy as in stock or RC2 / previous SkyRaider editions. It's hard to get it to work initially if one is used to the previous ROMs. After I got used to it, I switched to swiping by pressing the little dots in the lower right and left corners of the screen as opposed to swiping to move between screens.

- SCROLLING THROUGH APPS once in that window - this was always the low point of this ROM. I would say that it improved this time around, but it's still not that smooth, at least not in the 3D Version.

ONE LAST ADDENDUM: is there any reason to run the latest version of Unrevoked? I used the previous version so I ran both the regular and also Unrevoked Forever to root my phone. Should I run this latest one for some reason?