Epic: “Steam has an unfair monopoly!”
epic gets pre installed as bloat ware on a bunch of phones
Epic: “What? We never said we didn’t like monopolies, we just don’t like Steam being the ones with the monopoly!”
Serious question though, why? It’s not like they offer a ton of apps. It’s not a real app store, it’s effectively just a launcher for the 3-4 apps they have.
Because Google is a monopoly and epic sued in the right places.
Never buy a phone through a service provider.
My parents ask me for help with their carrier-provided Android phone and I’m just like “Wow, you live like this?”
Complete insanity how much garbage bloat they cram on those things.
How do you go about doing otherwise?
Directly through the manufacturer. Most offer trade-in promotions on par with, if not better than, any service provider deal, with the added bonus that you’re not locked into a 3 year installment plan with said provider.
Alternatively, eBay.
Manufactuer website
Example: iPhones - apple.com; Samsung Galaxy - samsung.com; Motorola Phones - motorola.com; Google Pixels - store.google.com
Or go to your local BestBuy
Or Amazon (although, I personally would avoid Amazon for expensive electronics)
You just buy them
ADB Debloater can help: https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater
It’ll still be about whether Epic gets mobile ports or if Valve or another service streamlines and integrates a Proton/Winlator solution. Not the worst bloatware but I’m still holding out for something Steam based. It’s mid-December and still waiting for the games EGS they said would start dropping before the end of the year
They can go fuck themselves if it’s installed as a system app
It probably will have to to satisfy anti-monopoly rulings: allow app installation to be as seamless as Play Store (which has root access or similar).
No, that would just require the permisson for the Epic Store to install APKs to be granted out of the box, no need for it to be a system app for that
If the permission is granted, the native/session APK installer still handles every install and update, including its “Do you want to install/update this app?” popup. Only root and system apps can do installs and updates silently.
Huh? I’m pretty sure fdroid did a silent update without asking me. I think Aurora store also did silent updates. I mean, I still have to allow it once, then afterwards it didn’t need my permission.
What android version are you on? I’m on the latest Android 14.
I’m on Android 13. The following installation methods are available in Aurora Store, and all except Root produce confirmation popups.
Session installer ⚫
Session based installer for bundled/split APKs
Recommended, in-built and supports all Android versionsNative installer (Deprecated) ⚫
Intent based installer, available on all devices
Best suited for devices running below Android 4.4Root installer 🔘
Shell based installer using root permissions
Requires root/superuser privileges, supports all Android versions.Ah so its has to be a new Android 14 feature.
So basically: If you’ve done at least 1 update using a third-party appstore for an app, it automatically give permission for third-party appstores to update that particular app for future updates, without prompting the user.
Edit: wait, I just googled it and apparantly, you could already allow third party app stores do silents updates since android 12. The android 14 update is basically just allowing the third party app store that first installs the app to become the “Update Owner” to block other app stores (including Google Play) from updating the owns under the third-party store’s “ownership”.
So I think you could already do that on any device Android 12 or later. Just try to do an update using the app, then wait for the next update to see if the update prompt goes away, which it should go away.
Makes sense, as the ruling is fairly recent. What do Aurora Store’s options look like to you?
yay! more bloatware!
Who asked? If they cared about users they would install F-droid not Epic store.
Easy: no one. It’s not about who asked, it’s about who paid.
Perhaps with this extra bloatware it’ll weaken Google’s hold, here’s hoping that that will drive us to get full control of our digital lives
