Mobile manufacturers show ads in ui- realme,xiaomi,samsung.

[parthm]

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One of the most contested aspects of the MIUI software experience on Xiaomi and Redmi phones in places such as India has been the extensive use of ads all over. But it looks like the appeal of introducing ads into your software UI is just too high, because now Realme is doing it too.

 

I know most of you guys outside Asia don't have a lot of Xiaomi or Realme products but even low end Samsung phones have ads in their ui.

Still these are huge companies selling a lot of phones and what worries me is that they could so easily harvest the data to serve users personalized ads!

I don't know if they already do it but just imagine instead of your online activities being tracked now manufacturers track our daily usage to serve us ads. How long until that happens?

 

Realme (spawn of oppo-bbk electronics so vivo,one plus sister company) has now started the ads in ui thing but at least from news sources it seems you can disable them. samsung had also followed xiaomis model of showing ads in the ui. This is a really irritating direction these companies are headed in.

At least in India many people dislike Xiaomi for their ads and they still sell a lot of phones!  If this continues soon consumers wont have a choice of having ad free phones in the low end market. Now, realme also has offerings which compete in the value flagship category along with one plus and xiaomi which aren't exactly cheap so just how much must they earn through ads if they're ready to take all the damage to their brand and reputation from showing ads to consumers? Realme has already called shots on xiaomi for serving ads and now theyre going back on their words.

 

Another aspect to consider is that a person has already paid for the hardware and software that was installed. Can companies now generate revenue after they have sold you the product through software updates like this? It is similar to what linus was talking about in a wan show about tesla cars increasing their speed through a paid software update but at least that has an additional benefit on top of what you have already paid for. I know it allows them to produce phones with extremely thin margins and compete but at what privacy cost to the consumer?
 

Edited January 7, 2020 by SansVarnic
added quote

[yian88]

Xiaomi added option to disable them, altough its off by default, not sure if you have an account if the option is saved and preserved when you move to other phone or reset.

This is all the fault of the industry and Google mainly, they are the #1 ads whore they promote the entire PlayStore apps with garbage ads monetization, most apps are complete trash ads+in app purchase, if Google doesnt sets a standards to not allow ads in UI due to spyware, security issues, data consumption and privacy invasion others will start doing this more and more, they will steal your location, what you type, what you do and make a full profile of you for ads and data selling just like Cambridge Analitica all over again, its a gold mine.

The only way to stop it is for people to be informed and buy phones without ads its the best way to say no, but we know the majority doesnt care, they dont care about privacy,  -10 IQ is the majority of people, they love to be ignorant otherwise they have to think and worry, that hurts brainz...

 

Best solution for now is to use system wide ad block but most of those solutions require root sadly.

Blokada would be the best non root solution.

 

[xtroria]

Look if they sell ads WITH selling their phone at discounted rate, that’s fair as long as customers know what they are going into

 

Amazon did similar thing where they can sell you the phone without the ads if you’re willing to pay the extra money which is fair enough as amazon was originally not making money with the device

[justpoet]

MS is doing similar with WIndows, and even bragged about how they could leverage windows users into payments in their earnings report.

[williamcll]

That is why you get ad blockers for your phone and browser. There are actually applications out there that won't run if it cannot load ads. 

[paddy-stone]

Never have had ads on my Xiaomi Pocofone F1. The only ads I have seen in the UI or anywhere else is on the notifications, and that's usually from ebay or other apps, and they can be turned off easily.

[WkdPaul]

18 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Never have had ads on my Xiaomi Pocofone F1. The only ads I have seen in the UI or anywhere else is on the notifications, and that's usually from ebay or other apps, and they can be turned off easily.

Xiaomi Mi8 Lite here ... and same. Only ads I got in the UI was when I had tried a recommended (but free) launcher (Apex I think?) to replace MIUI. I have since bought Nova launcher prime.

 

 

9 hours ago, williamcll said:

That is why you get ad blockers for your phone and browser. There are actually applications out there that won't run if it cannot load ads. 

We're talking about ads in the phone's UI, like in the settings, or in the apps drawers, not sure there are apps to block that, short of changing the OS itself.

Edited January 3, 2020 by wkdpaul

[IdlePX]

So it's like the Kindle Fire tablets? As long as there's an option to buy them without ads, I'm sort of OK with it.

[WereCatf]

I would be royally pissed if my phone started to show me ads, I'd return the damn thing instantly and ban the manufacturer.

[paddy-stone]

19 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Xiaomi Mi8 Lite here ... and same. Only ads I got in the UI was when I had tried a recommended (but free) launcher (Apex I think?) to replace MIUI. I have since bought Nova launcher prime.

 

 

We're talking about ads in the phone's UI, like in the settings, or in the apps drawers, not sure there are apps to block that, short of changing the OS itself.

Yeah, i am using Evie launcher at the moment as my default... I used to use Nova Prime, but since trying Evie I prefer that now.

 

[Mihle]

55 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Never have had ads on my Xiaomi Pocofone F1. The only ads I have seen in the UI or anywhere else is on the notifications, and that's usually from ebay or other apps, and they can be turned off easily.

EDIT: I did read that wrong

[paddy-stone]

Just now, Mihle said:

Another reason for me to not get Xiaomi on top of all the other reasons I have.

What? the reason being that they DON'T show you ads?

[Mihle]

57 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

What? the reason being that they DON'T show you ads?

I misread, sorry. I did read it like you got ad from Xiaomi about eBay in the notification drawer....

[Emberstone]

My Galaxy S9 is showing ads in the built-in Samsung Weather app. It isn't just the cheap phones.

 

This right here is reason enough for me to deal with not having a headphone jack and switch back to an iPhone. Fuck getting ads on a flagship device.

[paddy-stone]

31 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I misread, sorry. I did read it like you got add from Xiaomi about eBay in the notification drawer....

No worries.

 

What other reasons do you have for not liking Xiaomi BTW?  Just curious.

[parthm]

16 hours ago, xtroria said:

Look if they sell ads WITH selling their phone at discounted rate, that’s fair as long as customers know what they are going into

 

Amazon did similar thing where they can sell you the phone without the ads if you’re willing to pay the extra money which is fair enough as amazon was originally not making money with the device

as i said its fine if i know what im getting into but this is a software update which introduces ads and the problem with them in the system ui is that you cant change its permissions like any app so and for a normal user it would be difficult to detect if they're harvesting personal data.

[parthm]

11 hours ago, williamcll said:

That is why you get ad blockers for your phone and browser. There are actually applications out there that won't run if it cannot load ads. 

most probably wont work in settings page ads or lockscreen ads as they must be baked in the os but still harvesting personal data is a concern.

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, paddy-stone said:

No worries.

 

What other reasons do you have for not liking Xiaomi BTW?  Just curious.

Mostly lots of stuff with their software, I know you can get around a lot of it on different ways, bit I don't want to bother with that when I can get a phone that I don't need to do it with...

[jagdtigger]

19 hours ago, justpoet said:

MS is doing similar with WIndows,

Not really, they still ask the same price for both box and OEM and harvest your data as a bonus.....  (Even if it was free the privacy invasion is just way too big to be acceptable.)

[Guest]

Reading this from my iPhone with no ads

[Mark Kaine]

21 minutes ago, floofer said:

Reading this from my iPhone with no ads

Reading this from my Xperia with no ads.  (and I'm able to copy and receive things without having to isign into my iapple iaccount and without having to use icloud or other inonsense, iimagine that!) 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

31 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

harvest your data

You do know *all* phone / OS providers do that though,  right?  Usually with your consent if you use any of their services btw.

 

 

[jagdtigger]

53 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

You do know *all* phone / OS providers do that though,  right?  Usually with your consent if you use any of their services btw.

Not all of them, AFAIK on desktop only windows is doing it. As for phone it isnt the OS that does it but apps(including play services), use AOSP based stuff and dont install play services to get off the hook.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Not all of them, AFAIK on desktop only windows is doing it. As for phone it isnt the OS that does it but apps(including play services), use AOSP based stuff and dont install play services to get off the hook.

Yeah sure, you can get around it,  I was just saying generally this is concern if you're on stock Android etc. 

[suicidalfranco]

On 1/3/2020 at 8:12 PM, RorzNZ said:

Reading this from my iPhone with no ads

Reading this from my LG with no ads