Motorola phones have started hijacking the Amazon app to insert affiliate codes

5/26/2026 at 9:22:55 AM

Think how bad the market got. Today we have preinstalled garbage apps like LinkedIn, garbage apps mandated to be preinstalled by the government, ads, cloud accounts, notifications spam, telemetry. This is not only Chinese smartphones, for example Samsung also plays this game. I assume there are Chinese backdoors, American backdoors and national government backdoors on almost every phone.

And there seems to be no way to buy a "free" smartphone without Google Services and telemetry below $250. Why 250? Because free OS have multiple bugs and issues and it is not rational to pay more than that.

I am considering two options, one, try to clean up and patch the firmware for a cheap smartphone (remove almost everything proprietary including Google Services, Unrusted Execution Environment, except for basic GUI and launcher), or two, port something like Lineage OS to my phone. Also I need to examine the network traffic and scan for potential weak points like SUID binaries. It is scary to think how much time I will have to waste for this.

Also, it is pretty stupid, in my opinion, to make an OS not based on Android, for example, use Qt for GUI, because there will be no apps for it.

by codedokode

5/26/2026 at 10:06:02 AM

Not sure what timescale you're referring to when you're talking about "how bad the market got" and "today", but back around 2012 I got my first and last Samsung smartphone, must have been a Galaxy 3 or something, that had all of those problematic things too.

It seems like this starting to happen as soon as apps were installable on phones, even iPhones came (and still comes) with a ton of apps you cannot remove regardless of how little you use them. Android, because of the whole OEM story, of course is much worse, but I don't feel like any of what you share is new, been going on for decades at this point.

by embedding-shape

5/26/2026 at 12:00:32 PM

And operators preloading questionable stuff is a much older practice than post-iPhone smartphones. If you had a feature phone in the 2000's, the operator would have customised it one way or another. The iPhone was revolutionary in how much Apple forced the network operators to relinquish control.

by TazeTSchnitzel

5/26/2026 at 4:56:38 PM

> The iPhone was revolutionary in how much Apple forced the network operators to relinquish control

And if AT&T wasn't as desperate to gain market share, we could have had a different story. Both Verizon and Sprint refused the iPhone because they didn't want to give up control. The bloatware was an important piece, but Apple also mandated control over OTA updates which the carriers did not want to relinquish either. The carriers were also opposed to the phone being sold in Apple stores.

by thewebguyd

5/26/2026 at 3:56:58 PM

I can remember Verizon being sued for forcing device makers to disable the ability to transfer files from feature phones to computers over Bluetooth, because they charged a per file fee to transfer files with their own proprietary software.

by GeekyBear

5/27/2026 at 2:33:51 PM

The funniest thing Verizon did was start their own bank. They wanted to create a new payment option on everyone's phone using NFC. Then bill and process payments via your existing telephone bill. Front runner app before Apple/Samsung/Google Pay services and potentially Visa/MC market disruption for insane profits.

Verizon called it ISIS

by hero4hire

5/26/2026 at 4:52:33 PM

My OG moto droid was pretty clean back in ~2009 or so, but even then there was plenty of sketchy carrier installed bloatware. Even my blackberry before that, feature phones even before that, had the carrier crap on it.

Part of why iPhone was such a breath of fresh air at the time it released. There was no carrier bloatware. Apple didn't allow it. Verizon turned down the iPhone because they would not agree to the no carrier branding and did not want to give Apple control over updates.

It's only gotten worse since then, but yeah its always been a thing.

At least with iPhone, there's still no carrier bloat, no facebook/meta, no linkedin, etc.

I'm not sure why Samsung continues to allow it either, they are also big enough to bully the carriers they could just as easily pull an Apple and kick all the spam off their phones, at least for the flagship models.

by thewebguyd

5/26/2026 at 11:06:22 AM

You can delete almost all apps on iOS except the obviously core apps that are necessary for it to function.

by mitchell209

5/26/2026 at 12:58:07 PM

Thanks to the EU! They really fixed a lot of things about the iPhone, a shame not every fix went everywhere like core app removals did though.

by zamadatix

5/26/2026 at 11:22:55 AM

You can now. You couldn't do this in the early versions of iOS.

by dannyw

5/26/2026 at 3:43:54 PM

On early versions of Android, you had to give an application every permission it wanted, or you couldn't install it at all.

by GeekyBear

5/26/2026 at 3:54:02 PM

You can. I’ve removed Apple Music and Apple Maps (seriously, who uses that?) but apple makes extra sure most things are more annoying to use without maps. Calendar app with an address? Default to opening in Apple Maps which is missing so error message (twice). Find my? Also open in apple maps with missing app error message. Even with Google Maps set as default systemwide.

by ornornor

5/29/2026 at 11:47:38 PM

Yup. Even though it requires an explicit user action to make Chrome your default browser, don't worry, next time you click on a link, Apple will pop up a dialog saying that your default has changed, and your options are "Use Safari", or "Keep using Chrome", and guess what the default option is?

by FireBeyond

5/26/2026 at 12:16:19 PM

> even iPhones came (and still comes) with a ton of apps you cannot remove regardless of how little you use them

You see, the user you replied to spoke in the present tense, and is addressing the “(and still comes with)” portion of the original comment.

by u_fucking_dork

5/26/2026 at 2:43:34 PM

And they added this ability a DECADE ago.

by basisword

5/27/2026 at 11:57:59 AM

Some people want so badly for the iPhone to be bad and only bought by sheep as a fashion accessory to signal to their wealth to their peers.

by u_fucking_dork

5/27/2026 at 2:47:40 AM

I wish that was the same for MacOS as well. I don't need the TV app...

by sperr11

5/26/2026 at 10:04:40 PM

> even iPhones came (and still comes) with a ton of apps you cannot remove regardless of how little you use them.

While a lot of the code that apps rely on is part of the OS frameworks, these days you can 'remove' most of the apps on an iPhone if you want.

That said, I would also argue that there's a difference between not being able to remove "Calendar" on iOS and not being able to remove "LinkedIn" on Android.

by danudey

5/26/2026 at 1:51:48 PM

I can't remember if it was Samsung or something, but one of the providers shipped Android tablets with a custom-but-default keyboard which sent ALL your keystrokes back to the provider. That was a big nail in the Android coffin for me.

by everdrive

5/26/2026 at 3:42:15 PM

Remember the days of Facebook being preinstalled on Android devices with root permissions and being non removable?

You couldn't even revoke permission to access the camera and Mic. It had permission to do literally anything, and you couldn't change it or remove it.

by GeekyBear

5/26/2026 at 10:38:01 PM

Guess what?

https://x.com/mysk_co/status/1747604112231776364?s=20

by esseph

5/26/2026 at 7:58:32 PM

And before it was (smart)phones, it was PCs. The New York Times was running items on spyware and nagware on PCs in the early aughts.

by dredmorbius

5/26/2026 at 9:09:53 PM

PC is easier to fix.

by codedokode

5/28/2026 at 8:14:01 PM

True, however:

1. The game's been played for a long time. Which was my principle point.

2. PCs were then, Smartphones are now. The story's getting worse, not better. As you note, in the case of a PC the problem is easier fix, e.g., now is worse.

3. Unless there is direct and violent pushback, expect to see this shit forever.

4. The best solution during aughts for PC crapware was to wipe and install Linux. Now it's to wipe and install a free mobile OS such as Graphene. In both cases, this is beyond the ken or capabilities of 95%+ of the population.

by dredmorbius

5/26/2026 at 2:37:51 PM

Apple changed that years ago, what apps can’t you remove from an iPhone?

by givinguflac

5/26/2026 at 3:02:48 PM

You can't remove the Phone app from an iPad in iPadOS 26. Even when the iPad in question has no cellular functionality. The best you can do is remove the icon, but you get a dialog telling you it won't be removed.

Which is stupid as I don't want my iPad to be getting every voice mail and imessage and so on that my phone does. They are different devices and serve different purposes. My iPad is totally a media consumption device and I have no interest in it being integrated into my phone's communication functions.

by wang_li

5/26/2026 at 3:20:45 PM

I own both devices, and I turn phone call and text forwarding off in settings on my phone, and shut down iMessage on the iPad. Pretty easy.

by givinguflac

5/26/2026 at 4:08:16 PM

You're not my tech support person so I'm not going to get into it deeply, but I don't mean the phone option of "Calls on Other Devices" (which is off on my phone) or the Messages option of "Text Message Forwarding" (which only has my Macs listed.) I mean that whenever I get a voice mail on a call it shows up as an alert on my iPad and Messages receives copies of various text messages, I think via iCloud as this happens when my iPad is at home and I am miles away with my phone at the office.

by wang_li

5/26/2026 at 2:46:58 PM

You should all be aware that Lenovo (the owner of Motorola Mobility) has some dark moments in its past.

https://www.theregister.com/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nasty...

by chasil

5/26/2026 at 2:55:36 PM

Asus does this on many of their consumer motherboards now, too.

by ryukoposting

5/26/2026 at 9:53:17 PM

Asus has been doing it since before that article was written. It's amazing that a "put rootkit here" Windows feature has been around for so long.

by wtallis

5/27/2026 at 1:28:00 PM

The Gigabyte motherboard on my system does this as well. I turned it off immediately, of course.

by Sophira

5/26/2026 at 10:16:29 AM

Although you will have to buy a used phone in order to pay less than 250$, it seems like GrapheneOS is the best solution for that problem. Not optimal, but the best among what we have.

by VortexLain

5/26/2026 at 3:25:29 PM

I was thinking the same. But it worries me that these news about Motorola in particular doing shady shit. I was looking forward to the upcoming GrapheneOS/Motorola partnership :(

by futune

5/26/2026 at 11:35:24 PM

How about the FairPhone running /e/os (which is de-googled)? You can buy it preinstalled directly from Murena.

Although this is not at your target price point. But /e/os can be used on hundreds of android phones (as opposed to GrapheneOS). So you can probably install it on your current phone

https://doc.e.foundation/devices

by cyberclimb

5/28/2026 at 4:18:16 PM

Having no GMS implementation at all or using microG introduces compatibility issues for a lot of proprietary software. GrapheneOS is the only ROM which supports running GMS in an isolated manner, without giving it direct access to privileged system APIs such as geolocation (which is sent to Google just because they can).

by VortexLain

5/26/2026 at 7:54:50 PM

graphene will still be a separate OS outside of Motorola's control.

GrapheneOS team is helping Motorola build secure phones to spec. but Motorola won't have some special bloated flavor of GrapheneOS installed

by y0eswddl

5/27/2026 at 4:01:17 AM

Yes but just barely.

The pixel 9a was on offer recently here in Spain for 319€ and that includes 21% tax. At major chain called media markt. That phone is one of the few supported by grapheneos.

by wolvoleo

5/26/2026 at 3:07:13 PM

Cheap smartphone path is harder and harder. Unfortunately the pixel series is easiest but comes in double they number for unlocking the bootloader and flashing lineage, etc.

Xiaomi has been ironically the pioneer in this field, but their phones are inaccessible in the USA assuming you’re USA based. The mediatek chipset also is more fun for this over Qualcomm.

Besides suid binaries, the radio firmware and subsequent radios for WiFi and Bluetooth do give out a lot of information and are open to exploitation.

The most opaque and privileged attack surface is often the modem/baseband and vendor diagnostic stack and allow carriers to process local side AT commands.

Qualcomm is more documented, though there are fun discoveries on mediatek I’ve made just using binwalk.

by rootsudo

5/26/2026 at 9:24:22 PM

> Xiaomi has been ironically the pioneer in this field, but their phones are inaccessible in the USA assuming you’re USA based

Xiaomi has virtually stopped allowing users to unlock their bootloaders. They only allow 2000 device unlocks per day, which resets every day at 00:00 Beijing time. You can set an alarm and press the unlock button exactly at 00:00 Beijing time, only to get frozen out due to the thundering herd effect and fail to secure an unlock quota. Then, when you try again at 00:01, you just get the dreaded "quota limit reached, try again tomorrow" message.

by neurostimulant

5/27/2026 at 2:42:37 AM

That sucks, before it was a one week countdown timer.

by rootsudo

5/26/2026 at 9:18:19 PM

If the modem cannot access main memory and CPU then it's ok.

by codedokode

5/26/2026 at 10:05:33 AM

The paranoia is completely warranted, but there is a solution.

Just root your Android phone and put a custom ROM like LineageOS etc

If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself, I have tried but failed twice now.

by tomaytotomato

5/26/2026 at 12:46:33 PM

I recently spent twenty minutes sitting outside of an MLB stadium because MLB decided they needed the same level of play protection as a foreign banking app and it refused to work on my friend's LineageOS phone.

We only got in by installing the app on my Sony and him signing into his account. They charge a fee now to get paper tickets from the box office.

by Larrikin

5/26/2026 at 1:09:09 PM

Brutal. I had a similarly annoying experience recently, where in order to enter my local big arena for a concert, the TicketMaster app was not enough. I had to step out of the entrance line to download the _arena-specific_ TicketMaster app to access my tickets. I hate the ticket systems that dominate the market, we deserve better.

by beepboopboop

5/26/2026 at 1:09:22 PM

... and you continue to let them abuse you.

by Hizonner

5/26/2026 at 1:11:29 PM

Give a solution

by Larrikin

5/26/2026 at 1:28:12 PM

Don't give your money to these places? HSBC won't let me use my rooted phone either, so guess who lost my business?

by skinfaxi

5/26/2026 at 2:51:26 PM

Next time we will go to the professional baseball stadium across the street instead.

by Larrikin

5/26/2026 at 4:46:56 PM

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want this stop, you gotta stop using these services, even if it means sacrificing a hobby.

If, on the other hand, you care more about your hobby than these quirks annoy you, than by all means, go right ahead.

by ofieiehdiehe

5/26/2026 at 5:01:14 PM

I'd rather try and get the executives, product managers, and engineers who implemented it fired and elect politicians that will make policies like that illegal.

I could go to a baseball game last year and have been able to for decades. The march to enshittification isn't inevitable. Otherwise there will be no hobbies in the future, and I'll be hoarding my money to just sit in my house doing nothing.

by Larrikin

5/26/2026 at 6:48:43 PM

> I'd rather try and get the executives, product managers, and engineers who implemented it fired

How has that been working out for you? Apparently you have some avenue to apply pressure for that, other than the obvious one of not buying the tickets.

Why should anybody fire them, given that their actions have caused no actual harm to the bottom line? Obviously the ticket buyers don't care, so why should management or owners care?

> and elect politicians that will make policies like that illegal.

Sounds great. Who do I vote for?

by Hizonner

5/26/2026 at 9:53:47 PM

I agree with you in principle, but reality is far and away from this, unfortunately. These types of companies need an incentive to change their ways, and money is the only language they know how to speak—and in “they” I’m including all the executives, product managers, engineers and, ESPECIALLY, the politicians you spoke about. Money will always trump morals when it comes to companies that voluntarily elect to put such shady deals in practice.

by ofieiehdiehe

5/26/2026 at 10:40:50 PM

People would quit the sport before to stop. They won't.

by esseph

5/26/2026 at 8:08:13 PM

Lobby the government for providing basic guarantees for ease of access in digital environment. Some political factions like the Pirate Party in EU is already working on acts like Digital Fairness Act to prevent such monopolies.

You can have (or provide) a phone that's specifically for those use cases and you can turn it off for actual communication.

by okanat

5/26/2026 at 8:02:34 PM

Boycott.

Lawsuit.

Organise.

Publicise.

Shame.

by dredmorbius

5/26/2026 at 3:14:36 PM

Stop buying their tickets.

by pwg

5/26/2026 at 4:18:14 PM

The solution is to not buy the tickets

by plagiarist

5/26/2026 at 2:34:40 PM

The solution is to quit frequenting places that abuse you like this.

But it seems you LIKE being abused.

by lightedman

5/26/2026 at 3:33:01 PM

It's not necessarily enjoying it. OP evidently just thinks the trade-off is worth it. Some people like baseball more than researching which phone they can buy, which one has an unlockable bootloader, and which is supported (even unofficially) by LineageOS.

That's fine. They don't have to. Their solution can be calling their local representative and complaining that the stadium their city is paying for, is locking them out.

by xethos

5/26/2026 at 6:20:18 PM

I had forgotten that we are paying billionaires to own stadia. Cannot find funding for schools or libraries but we can sure pay someone who doesn't need the money so they can build a monument to their own ego.

by plagiarist

5/26/2026 at 11:31:38 AM

1) My phone is not officially supported by LineageOS so I will have to port it first.

2) I did not analyze LineageOS yet and how it is different from stock Android, so I need to go through complete diff.

> If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself

My goal is to have an open source system that is under my full control and doesn't play tricks on my by sending telemetry or collecting forensic databases. Because now I cannot even connect the phone to Internet and it is not as useful as it could be.

by codedokode

5/26/2026 at 12:27:00 PM

I’d assume that with such a level of required inspection, you also have quite some security requirements. I’d say at that level nothing works as well as GrapheneOS (though you have to either delay security updates or accept temporarily closed source (they get access to the code only in exchange for not publishing it until X days or something) updates, thanks Google). As that currently requires a Google phone, the only way to get close to your price target would be buying it used.

by Semaphor

5/26/2026 at 9:32:39 PM

I wonder if you could ask Opus 4.7 to port LineageOS for your phone. The LLM must’ve had plenty of training data from the gazillion LineageOS ports for other devices, so perhaps it might actually work (or brick your device).

by neurostimulant

5/26/2026 at 11:29:54 AM

Easier said than done in the US. Even of the phones that allow for rooting (which is few and far between these days) you're at the complete mercy of the carrier for whether or not that ability is actually available to you. Even if the gracious lords may allow it, you have to engage in a long and drawn out Byzantine rite just for the privilege. Currently sitting on a Pixel 10 that will not let me have root.

Give me a Linux phone with halfway decent modem drivers, or give me death.

by ux266478

5/26/2026 at 11:34:35 AM

If you do not update the phone, chances are high that there is some Linux vulnerability you could expoloit. The privileged vendor software also can have vulnerabilities. For example, here [1] researches hacked the phone with Verified Boot using a boot logo parsing error.

My impression that you should treat your phone as something that can be hacked any moment and not store anything important there.

[1] https://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2024/SSTIC-actes/when_vendo...

by codedokode

5/26/2026 at 1:21:46 PM

> Currently sitting on a Pixel 10 that will not let me have root.

Stop buying phones from Verizon?

by dataflow

5/26/2026 at 2:07:41 PM

Not a Verizon phone.

by ux266478

5/26/2026 at 3:38:28 PM

That's surprising. Is this after you've paid it off? I thought only Verizon did this after the phone is paid off.

by dataflow

5/26/2026 at 12:51:41 PM

My biggest obstacle to de-Googling is the GBoard keyboard of all things. There's really no good open source alternative that even comes close.

by merryocha

5/26/2026 at 1:23:28 PM

I was in the same boat until a year ago or so. FUTO^[1] finally provided a good text prediction/correction pair + that simply better feeling the Gboard has^[2].

[1]: https://keyboard.futo.org/

[2]: I never investigated this, so I always assumed that GBoard predicted what key I wanted to press when close to two letters. With FOSS keyboards, with a physically identical layout, I tended to make way more mistakes.

by eskori

5/26/2026 at 5:03:44 PM

I find GBoard to remain superior in multilingual typing, futo just can't seem to be able to switch to other languages consistently, even with the multilingual option enabled,

it's also not as good at "recovering" from typing too many letters (Gboard sometimes adequately completes with likely shorter words)

by ezst

5/26/2026 at 1:21:46 PM

Have you tried the FUTO keyboard? I actually find I prefer it to gboard now.

https://keyboard.futo.org/

by lsowen

5/26/2026 at 1:54:34 PM

I don't think I ever tried this one. I think I tried every keyboard on F-Droid but apparently FUTO isn't in the main F-Droid repo. I'm liking it so far. I'm a swipe typer and on most keyboards the swipe functionality is much worse than GBoard but this one seems to work pretty well. I'm going to try it for a while, thanks for the suggestion!

by merryocha

5/27/2026 at 8:17:13 AM

Gboard is somehow still the best, the native android keyboard is hardly usable. I use it on GrapheneOS, but with network permissions removed. Haven't had an issue so far

by dahateb

5/26/2026 at 3:43:53 PM

Evidently some disagree, but I'm on your side. Biggest reason I didn't immediately think of "But what would I use for a keyboard" is my Q25 has on built-in.

UnifiedPush, F-Droid, a GMaps webview (arguably cheating, but I'm not RMS), NewPipe or Invidious are all good-enough alternatives, but I remember struggling to find a keyboard that felt right when I was using a Pixel 2 for a fortnight.

I think I went with the oldest Fleksy or Minuum APK I could find (from a reputable source), as they were fine without GApps.

Though I'd also like to call out the fact that AOSP has talkback, the accessibility service built-in, but there's no AOSP TTS engine to use it with. This is especially noticable when trying to use any spoken directions in OSMAnd, as it requires a TTS engine to use that function.

The only reason it's not the dumbest thing about Google's stewardship of AOSP is that I'm not sight impaired - as it stands, the multi-trillion-dollar corporation ripping out the built-in SIP client in their phone OS takes that prize

by xethos

5/26/2026 at 4:10:10 PM

Heliboard is an option. No gesture typing out of the box but you can install an external library for that and it works good.

by everyday7732

5/26/2026 at 2:13:23 PM

I do not type a lot on the phone (I own a laptop), so no worries.

by codedokode

5/26/2026 at 3:01:16 PM

Do the support the razr?

by qwertytyyuu

5/26/2026 at 11:50:42 AM

Re: de-Googling yourself:

Goldman Sachs paid $6 million to try to get its [soon-to-be] former chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler's Google search results highlighting her close friendship and many-years-long association with Jeffrey Epstein off the first few pages of results.

Today, the first result on the first page of a Google search for her is the opening paragraph of her Wikipedia biography:

>Kathryn H. Ruemmler (born April 19, 1971) is an American attorney who was principal deputy White House counsel and then White House Counsel to President Barack Obama.[1] Previously a partner at Latham and Watkins co-chairing its white-collar defense group,[2] Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 and was Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel.[3] She announced her resignation from this position in February 2026, effective at the end of June, over her links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.[4][5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Ruemmler

>How a Secretive Firm Tried (and Failed) to Fix an Epstein Friend’s Tattered Image

https://archive.ph/Biztm

by bookofjoe

5/26/2026 at 1:43:35 PM

I'm not sure what your point is.

by thfuran

5/26/2026 at 2:01:19 PM

Wrote tomaytotomato 3 hours ago:

>If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself, I have tried but failed twice now.

My point is that even with unlimited resources it's impossible to de-Google yourself.

by bookofjoe

5/26/2026 at 2:48:05 PM

De-Googling (in this context at least) means not running Google software on your phone. No Google Play Services always running in the background, plus not using Google apps.

by BenjiWiebe

5/27/2026 at 11:45:31 AM

Ah. I misinterpreted "de-Googling." It is refreshing, though, to know that the cranky folks of HN still downvote honest mistakes.

by bookofjoe

5/27/2026 at 7:36:52 AM

Yes as BenjiWiebe said.

I was meaning more removing your reliance on Google in your life for search, photos, entertainment.

You can start small with Duckduckgo etc.

by tomaytotomato

5/27/2026 at 5:44:48 AM

"I assume [...] backdoors" Its more of a frontdoor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_Application_Toolkit

Pinephone is being sold for 200 with included dock.

by its-summertime

5/26/2026 at 3:26:19 PM

On that last point, GNOME/Gtk/Adwaita apps generally function really well on small screen sizes. The design language naturally suits it, and in my experience most apps will even make some layout adjustments where they're needed when resized to ~phone screen dimensions.

Anecdotally, out of the ~50 or so I have installed right now on my laptop, which covers the basic calculator/calendar/contacts/etc., and also things like file compression, torrenting, a Mastodon client, RSS reader, and so on, all of them are ready to use on a phone.

Alas, if only there was a (reasonably priced + fully functional) phone that could use them.

by ksymph

5/26/2026 at 9:19:12 PM

I assume the number of GTK apps is even less than the number of apps in F-Droid.

by codedokode

5/26/2026 at 2:53:07 PM

> Think how bad the market got.

How bad it's always been? Go find a Windows Recovery image for a Sony Vaio from the 2000s. Prepackaged shitware has always been a thing. I read this article and thought "wow someone finally matched an old Vaio."

That said, I want to hear a statement from Motorola on this. The GrapheneOS phones they announced a few months ago were going to be my "out" from this kind of nonsense. I want confirmation that I'll be able to trust them when it finally gets released.

by ryukoposting

5/27/2026 at 5:29:28 PM

I'm on the Pixel GoS for quite a while and I'm confident this Motorola will be a secure device without bloatware in the same way current GoS is.

Their user base wouldn't ever trust them again if anything shady happened - there's enough trolls and French prowling on the perimeter already.

by subscribed

5/26/2026 at 11:23:32 PM

Buddy, there has been an un-removable Facebook app on literally every version of Android right from the very beginning. Not every handheld model for sure, but at least one model in every generation from the very beginning has had Facebook and other apps burned indelibly into the operating system.

Before we even had smartphones, your flip phone came with utterly indelible versions of Facebook and others.

And you'll be shocked to hear this I'm sure, but the very lowest level code that governs the radio in your phone is legally mandated to be managed by your service provider, and essentially always has been.

None of this is new. Not in the slightest. It's not even worse nowadays except that the apps themselves got more malicious. There aren't more baked in apps than before, and they aren't any more un-removable. The most important code on your device isn't yours, it never has been.

by vitally3643

5/26/2026 at 11:43:18 PM

In the US DMCA provides "frigate harbor" for the the British consul, etc., etc. IF they've managed to get you to install the "app" instead of utilizing something preinstalled on the phone (a uh errr... web browser?). Potential law migrants banned by law!

by m3047

5/26/2026 at 5:22:51 AM

> In further digging, we noticed that the URL the phone opens up is “kira-abboud.com,” a website that references fashion influencer “@kirasfashionfinds.” Notably, this exact URL isn’t listed anywhere on Abboud’s social media, and the affiliate codes don’t match up either. The redirect coming from Motorola phones is using Amazona affiliate code “sramz-kff-008-20” which is completely different from any of the codes we saw from links shared by Abboud’s accounts and linked websites.

Something funny is up; this doesn't seem deliberate.

by kayson

5/26/2026 at 6:16:36 AM

My guess is a rogue employee who hopes they can get away with this stuff for years till caught...

That employees cousin probably does social media for Abboud...

by londons_explore

5/26/2026 at 8:21:53 AM

No matter how you turn it, that doesn't build trust in the Motorola brand, if a single employee can push that (hypothetical) code.

by GuestFAUniverse

5/26/2026 at 8:38:05 AM

I agree, but in fairness, I don't know of any brand, tech or otherwise, that can completely wall itself off against insider threats. No matter how vigilant you are, someone who knows exactly how you move will find a way around you.

by 0xEF

5/26/2026 at 8:46:02 AM

I can understand it's hard to defend against plausibly deniable errors that create backdoors, etc. But this would show a complete lack of code review, no?

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 9:53:02 AM

> But this would show a complete lack of code review, no?

You'd be surprised how many websites use Google Tag Manager to allow their marketing department to roll out trackers and other JS snippet directly into the site's root context.

GTM et al's sole reason of existence is to provide marketing people with a way to bypass corporate IT.

And I definitely would not rule out something like this being the cause in the end.

by mschuster91

5/26/2026 at 10:41:39 AM

Code review just means you need an accomplice. It makes it harder, not impossible.

by pitkali

5/26/2026 at 12:13:30 PM

Not even that. Bury it in a sufficiently-large PR and there’s a very good chance it’ll be rubber-stamped because no one wants to take the time to carefully review the entire set of changes.

by macintux

5/26/2026 at 12:34:29 PM

Or be convincing to a LLM.

Humans reading code is so "legacy"...

by GuB-42

5/26/2026 at 4:14:24 PM

If I'm not guilty until proven innocent, then neither is Motorola.

by ezekiel68

5/26/2026 at 12:37:09 PM

How about a rogue AI agent banking some cash for the uprising? Are we there yet?!

by brightbeige

5/26/2026 at 9:04:04 AM

right, they should start reviewing their PRs

by apples_oranges

5/26/2026 at 10:28:03 AM

Yup. Let's see Kiras LinkedIN.

by Neil44

5/26/2026 at 7:12:09 AM

An affiliate can create multiple codes

by jollymonATX

5/26/2026 at 7:12:22 AM

Note that the smart feed "feature" is Taboola-provided adware[0] so it's par for the course. It's beyond comprehension Lenovo would trash the brand by shipping it on flagships.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/motorola/comments/1s61usi/edge_60_p...

by rainforest

5/27/2026 at 12:12:07 AM

You're flabbergasted that Lenovo would trash a sub-brand? Lenovo? The company who trashed their own brand with Superfish?

by MrDOS

5/26/2026 at 7:47:12 AM

The point where they trashed the brand has long since passed, tried the phones when they bought the brand and it was OK for a while but went downhill quickly.

by consp

5/26/2026 at 8:23:24 AM

Until now I waited for their GrapheneOS-based phones. If there isn't a plausible follow up to this injection I don't think I will buy I device from them.

by GuestFAUniverse

5/26/2026 at 3:27:15 PM

I had the same reaction.

by futune

5/26/2026 at 8:57:22 AM

Who outside Apple/Google/Fairphone isn't? Samsung has been shipping the Israeli (IronSource) AppCloud on A series for a while now and people in some regions even spotted it on S-series phones (it'll spy on your usage and install apps). Nothing, which uses clean Android as one of their selling points, started installing something similar (AppServices, presumably also from IronSource given the Aura branding) on various devices.

Between these companies pushing adware/spyware and Apple putting Apple Creator Studio ads in former iWork applications, ads for Apple Intelligence in the system settings, and pushing ads for their F1 movie in Apple Wallet, smartphones have reached the mass enshittification phase.

The only safe havens are Pixel with GrapheneOS and Fairphone with I don't know what exactly (Murena sorta has ads for their own stuff and has many other issues, I guess LineageOS then). Perhaps ironically, given the context, Motorola with GrapheneOS too :).

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 11:34:38 AM

OneDrive on some Samsung phones recently started uploading user photos on their own, despite user never granting apps the permission to do so:

https://www.reddit.com/r/samsunggalaxy/comments/1t7vqr8/why_...

I am getting tired of all these nonsense.

At this point, Samsung may be shipping more malware than anyone else on phones

by fg137

5/26/2026 at 2:35:54 PM

Some 7 months ago there was this submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45551504 (Microsoft's OneDrive Begins Testing Face-Recognizing AI for Photos (for Some Preview Users)).

I haven't noticed any further links regarding this topic. Thus I have no idea if setting was fully implemented or abandoned but with this thread here you linked, but I'd rather guess they're full after user's data. And from what users wrote there, MS is not even doing this with some elaborated darkpatterns scenarios but just ordinary stealing these photos. This should be announced louder.

by pndy

5/26/2026 at 12:22:30 PM

It's sad. Samsung phones with just One UI + Good Lock and without all the crapware would actually be a pretty good phone.

But as long as consumers continue buying, nothing will ever change.

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 4:39:10 PM

Sony as far as I know is not shipping additional adware on their phones.

by robotnikman

5/27/2026 at 1:07:38 AM

Lenovo also shipped a Superfish backdoor on their older computers.

by onesingleblast

5/26/2026 at 11:17:03 AM

I recently got a Samsung A07 to run some tests on. It's stunningly cheap at <£100, and will supposedly get 5 years of software/security updates.

After setting it up, I was surprised (but also not surprised) to see ads on the lock screen. The "feature" is called Glance and while it can be disabled in the settings it took me the help of a video tutorial to actually locate the setting.

by Retr0id

5/26/2026 at 11:27:44 AM

On my Motorola G Stylus 2025 ($400 MSRP) I have to disable Glance after every reboot (search Glance in Settings then click Disable and Force Stop). Archive/Delete is disabled.

Fuck Glance with all possible fuckery.

by password4321

5/26/2026 at 11:43:32 AM

I only had to disable it once on mine, after going crazy for a while trying to figure out what had messed up my lock screen. Haven't had it try to come back once.

Also stopped it from updating automatically in the play store...

Still enough shenanigans to make me go to another brand with my next phone. I always liked Motorola phones for being fairly stock without a lot of bloat ware, but that time seems to be in the past.

by shawn_w

5/26/2026 at 12:01:39 PM

Maybe you can disable it with ADB?

by subscribed

5/26/2026 at 5:28:56 AM

I used to choose Motorola devices for a long time but since 2 years when I bought Edge 30 Fusion I started to notice they automatically (without my knowledge) add 3 stupid apps or games about two times a month :/ There is no way to stop it. My kids phones are stuffed with this sh*t.

by xzxz

5/26/2026 at 5:33:28 AM

On some phones this is done by something like AppCloud, which you can usually uninstall from the user partition using ADB/Universal Android Debloater.

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 8:42:32 AM

Motorola put the malware apps into the “nondisable” list. You can’t remove them even with ADB PM commands. I was fucking mad that my RAZR couldn't be fully debloated.

See also: various firmware builds for Moto phones like https://dumps.tadiphone.dev/dumps/motorola/aito/-/tree/user-...

by kotaKat

5/26/2026 at 8:25:38 AM

Or: buy another brand and not jump hoops.

by GuestFAUniverse

5/26/2026 at 10:14:17 AM

A chinese one? My xiaomi required debloating, which left me without the "apps" menu in settings. I am not happy about having to do that. Side note: I have to use either intents or adb to administrate the apps.

All the "best phones" for most of us are bloated tracking devices.

by catlikesshrimp

5/26/2026 at 9:00:17 AM

Definitely, it's more that is worth trying for people who have a phone already. E.g. on Samsung, you can remove most of the bloatware.

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 9:02:02 AM

Motorola's history is so unfortunate.

They were a great brand, cool phones, one of early Android players.

After being bought out by Google, Motorola had some of the best devices out there with stock android, especially in the budget segment (and loved among android devs).They had one of the best smartwatches in the game at the time - Moto 360 (2014!!).

Then, after dropping the Nexus 6, Google stripped the patents and sold them to Lenovo. For a while it was ok, even dropping the relatively innovative Moto Z which had all the cool "modular" addons, played with it for a bit and seemed cool.

And then, things seemed to start taking a turn for the worse as Lenovo kept enshitiffying it more and more, using the brand name as a wedge in the market in which they are basically forgotten. They have the Razr brand which is cool, but the segment that was their best (budget phones) is now ruined with adware so they can extract every bit of value from it.

Such a sad ending for a company that was so early in the space.

by hypendev

5/26/2026 at 9:24:12 AM

FWIW, the worst thing I can say about the Moto Edge 50 Neo (a midrange phone) from a year ago is that it had "sponsored" apps pre-installed. They could be uninstalled (not just deactivated) the usual way and never came back.

by ahartmetz

5/26/2026 at 11:58:51 AM

> Moto 360

... I was so mad every time Motorola screwed the pooch in this era.

I was a first-gen Moto X user... on Verizon. I didn't get the Lolipop update forever and a day. I was a first-gen Moto Hint owner. We didn't get the wake word update, we got told to buy the Hint 2. And then finally, I was a first-gen Moto 360 owner. We didn't even get Wear OS updates at all. Not WearOS 2, not even WearOS 1.6. Every single first-gen product got immediately dropped for second-gen shit, and we got abandoned.

by kotaKat

5/26/2026 at 9:06:13 AM

I have exactly the same feelings.

by xzxz

5/26/2026 at 6:12:06 AM

You are in luck: LineageOS supports many Motorola devices, including the Edge 30.

by brnt

5/26/2026 at 9:01:16 AM

In the past I often tend to replace stock Android with LineageOS but in today's world with so many attack vectors like for example malware in supply chains etc. I choose to stay with stock OS. I also have my bank apps and lot of my clients data/credentials stored on my accounts.

by xzxz

5/26/2026 at 11:22:26 AM

How do you imagine that protects you? If anything I'm inclined to trust the LineageOS supply chain more than the OEM on account of being a smaller target, having less bloat, and being 100% open from start to finish.

For a particularly sensitive context I'd want to build the ROM myself on an appropriately secured machine running one of the major distros.

by fc417fc802

5/26/2026 at 1:07:52 PM

Financial apps like banking ones sometimes refuse to work on rooted phones and you have to follow if you want to run them.

I just have no time and knowledge to build ROM myself. 100% open projects also suffer supply chain attacks.

by xzxz

5/26/2026 at 1:22:10 PM

Well then you're in luck because many of the ROM projects provide step by step build instructions. It's almost entirely automated thus quite straightforward; the primary hurdle is having a capable enough system. Unfortunately given current RAM prices you'll need a system worth as much as a cheap car to properly optimize some of the components.

I'd suggest not using apps that fail to respect your autonomy.

by fc417fc802

5/26/2026 at 11:36:59 AM

For Samsung phones, depending when the phone was released, you may be getting security updates months after they are provided by Google.

by fg137

5/26/2026 at 11:24:34 AM

Honestly LineageOS is probably a more secure root than the typical random android OEM; unless you're dealing with Samsung or Google.

by dannyw

5/26/2026 at 9:45:08 PM

Sentence reads better without the subordinate clause.

by dredmorbius

5/26/2026 at 6:00:49 AM

> There is no way to stop it.

There are ways. All the apps that install this crap can be disabled through Android's app manager, no fancy method required. (Of course updates can bring them back... But "luckily" Motorola isn't too keen on providing those for their products).

Some examples of the apps to look for:

- App Box

- Games

- MotoApps

- Moto App Manager

- Live lock screen

The active adware apps depends on your region and career. In some region Motorola doesn't push adware at all.

Personally by just disabling those (and similar sounding crap) I've never had adware sneakily installed.

For Moto G or lower tiers Edge I can begrudgingly accept that it's part of the deal... But I would be livid if they did this to my $1500 phone, which is why I refuse to risk getting a razr. Whether you want to fight your phone maker and keep using their product is up to you.

Let's hope that the grapheneos partnership plays off in our favor next year!

by tredre3

5/26/2026 at 6:29:13 AM

Strange, I've never gotten any moto apps on my cheap Moto G. I don't sign into any of their crap, but I don't recall doing anything else....

by SubiculumCode

5/26/2026 at 7:06:23 AM

How old is your Moto G?

Anything in the last few years has the moto app manager that force loads LinkedIn etc.

Due to cheap and cheerful with long lasting battery - I still buy Moto G - but setup offline and disable all these apps using https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-an...

by markjchambers

5/26/2026 at 10:59:55 PM

2023 I think

by SubiculumCode

5/26/2026 at 9:04:03 AM

I tried to disable some of them but then, (not even) after OS update (sometimes after reboot) I noticed that they are active again.

by xzxz

5/26/2026 at 7:23:29 AM

I got a prompt about trying new apps every week or something similar. The wording, the moment it prompted me were clearly designed for people to just say "ok" and then wonder how apps were installing regularly without any action. I got caught myself, disabled it but still got new app installs later. I killed the whole thing and have been free since. But definitely felt like a scam. And the apps suck.

by edarchis

5/26/2026 at 10:00:19 AM

They even force you to select a bunch of apps during out-of-box setup on some Motorola phones and it mandates they automatically download post-setup. You can't say "no", you straight up have to let the phone queue up and let it pull all the APKs down for a bunch of shitty preloaded games and Netflix and crap, load them in, then get to waste fifteen minutes removing them again. :\

by kotaKat

5/26/2026 at 8:56:06 AM

This is exactly what I noticed and was disappointed about

by xzxz

5/26/2026 at 5:58:48 AM

Luckily there is a mobile phone OS and hardware that isn't produced by the world's largest advertising company, and furthermore doesn't allow two different corporations to be involved in the core OS of the device.

by KennyBlanken

5/26/2026 at 6:04:47 AM

You're right but we can't easily get Huawei devices in North America.

by tredre3

5/26/2026 at 10:21:02 AM

I thought we were talking about non-adversarial-tracking devices.

by catlikesshrimp

5/26/2026 at 9:03:07 AM

I hope you are not referring to the company that is pushing AI ads through their system settings, pushing Creator Studio subscription ads through the formerly non-shareware productivity tools, and pushing movie ads through their wallet?

Seriously, get a Pixel and install GrapheneOS, or maybe a Fairphone with LineageOS.

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 10:19:13 AM

"Seriously, get a Pixel and install..."

Ah, the Google tax. They can turn the lock of that door (bootloader) when they choose to do so.

by catlikesshrimp

5/26/2026 at 12:24:31 PM

But they haven't yet, and if you refuse to give Google money directly there's always the secondhand market.

by bushwart

5/26/2026 at 12:53:39 PM

You'd still be walking around as a free advertiser for their stuff, simply by owning Google-branded hardware. And of course the hypocrisy of having a Google phone to avoid Google spying is palpable.

by sjamaan

5/26/2026 at 1:42:21 PM

I doubt people notice that sort of thing. Maybe whether you have an iPhone or an Android at most. Avoiding Google spying isn't the point of GrapheneOS anyway

by bushwart

5/26/2026 at 6:45:59 AM

Apple isn't the largest advertising company, but it's a pretty big one. The only other candidates I know of are aftermarket Linux distros, but they have their own problems.

by yjftsjthsd-h

5/26/2026 at 6:55:52 AM

Unfortunately, that company also polices what kinds of apps you’re allowed to install on your hardware.

by layer8

5/26/2026 at 7:46:47 AM

No, they only allow one corporation to be involved, which is not necessarily an improvement.

by pjc50

5/26/2026 at 6:22:39 AM

Hmm, this thread and the reports of shady practices make me wonder if this will affect the partnership with GrapheneOS[1]. It seems that such things shouldn't really happen on a device where security is a top priority, whether intentional or not.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214645

by sandreas

5/26/2026 at 9:04:30 AM

Why does it matter? The GrapheneOS team will make the OS images. So as long as the phone is unlockable, has up-to-date firmware bundles, etc. who cares?

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 1:17:15 PM

GrapheneOS may be de-googled but it is not de-blobbed, they rely on the vendor to maintain certain drivers etc. Hopefully the driver maintenance team is very separate from the bloatware installation team, but someone could reasonably worry that they're tarred with the same brush.

by Retr0id

5/26/2026 at 1:21:10 PM

I would guess that most of the driver development is done by Qualcomm for phones with Qualcomm SoCs. At least that is what I've seen looking at the firmware/driver bundles some Qualcomm-based phones.

(Of course, there is more, like camera firmware, etc. but they are typically provided through the hardware providers.)

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 10:24:18 AM

I was just wondering that... GrapheneOS team consider Fairphone to be infosec plebs, but instead partner with a company that intentionally harms users' privacy for profit?

by phoronixrly

5/26/2026 at 4:34:45 PM

It may be worth noting that GrapheneOS in most cases to date are not the initiators for conversations around extra device support. They do not control which mobile divisions and engineering teams can come to them and back genuine interest with the resources needed to reach an acceptable privacy/security standard for support.

The question is really why are Motorola the only ones that have gone that extra mile so far and what does it say about the rest of the Android OEMs (including Fairphone, which unlike most is actually a younger project than GrapheneOS).

by ysnp

5/26/2026 at 8:15:26 PM

The issue with small players like Fairphone is that they rely on external ODMs to develop their hardware and basic software. They do get some IP rights but they actually lack the engineering manpower to actually maintain software. ODMs usually have special trade agreements with factories and Google to optimize the prices. Small companies cannot get such leverages.

by okanat

5/26/2026 at 12:27:13 PM

I don't see how the former has anything to do with the latter.

by bushwart

5/26/2026 at 3:30:31 PM

You don't see how it doesn't make sense for Graphene to reject a company because it doesn't handle security according to their standards, but be OK with a company that is actively malicious?

by phoronixrly

5/26/2026 at 4:02:42 PM

What matters is whether or not a particular device meets the GOS hardware requirements, anything else is secondary. It's not that complicated

by bushwart

5/26/2026 at 4:08:02 PM

They announced a partnership with Motorola. They are not just making an OS for their devices, they are partnering with them. There is a fundamental difference between taking a device and making an OS for it, and partnering with its manufacturer. The latter leads to the assumption that Graphene condones Motorola's security practices, and Motorola condones Graphene producing an OS for their devices. The former does not.

by phoronixrly

5/26/2026 at 4:28:08 PM

The details of the partnership are mostly disclosed in the joint announcements but GrapheneOS has no say or influence on Motorola's stock Android image and policy.

The main objective of the partnership is to do what you described in the former case, get Motorola up to a standard where GraphenOS could support the phone. They could not previously take a Motorola phone and build GrapheneOS for it because of numerous basic requirements they did not yet meet. I can guess that GrapheneOS only really condone the efforts Motorola will put in to meet their support requirements as a platform.

Motorola also gets to incorporate a subset of GrapheneOS's features and improvements as enterprise targeted Motorola features. GrapheneOS do not have any direct influence over the apps and policies for the stock GMS Android image Motorola ship with their phones. Motorola have no significant say in what GrapheneOS does with their OS. GrapheneOS can assist Motorola in hardening efforts at the OS and firmware layer etc.

by ysnp

5/26/2026 at 4:36:45 PM

Motorola supplies hardware. GrapheneOS supplies software.

The entire premise of GrapheneOS is total control of the device. There is no way they would release a Motorola phone with GrapheneOS installed, but with unremovable bloatware.

by unethical_ban

5/26/2026 at 7:58:14 AM

I've a Xiaomi phone on which twice appeared obviously debug/hello-world notifications (something like "testtest111") from apps I've never seen or installed. Then another time all Xiaomi phones of close relatives started getting these cheap, spammy ads for Android games in the notifications, this time from some obscure system app: had to look up on reddit that there are settings that disable this specific behavior.

The degree to which I don't own my own device is insane.

by dmos62

5/26/2026 at 8:22:58 AM

I gifted my mom a Xiaomi phone a few years ago. Even after removing all the unnecessary apps and permissions, disabling all the privacy invasive settings and replacing the launcher with the stock Android, I was shocked when I checked the PiHole dashboard. The phone was constantly trying to communicate with dozens of different domains and endpoints, even when idle. None of these attempts had any sort of backoff, so they kept retrying every 30 seconds, draining the battery. Ultimately it generated several times more blocked requests than every other device on my network combined.

This was the first and only Xiaomi device I ever bought, no matter how attractive they might seem.

by shantara

5/26/2026 at 8:20:17 AM

And it's about to change soon. https://keepandroidopen.org/

by xnickb

5/27/2026 at 6:18:01 PM

It looks like devicenative "accidentally" deleted their documentation page that was linked from that article. Fortunately someone archived it beforehand. Oops.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260526042018/https://docs.devi...

Also, as of some hours ago Motorola has stopped the activity but didn't say anything about how it started in the first place. https://9to5google.com/2026/05/27/motorola-amazon-app-uninte...

by metiscus

5/26/2026 at 5:24:28 AM

Isn't this cookie stuffing? Same modus operandi using by Geo-something widget back in 2000s with hidden ebay affiliate links that got caught by FBI. Someone should go in jail for this.

by blitzo

5/26/2026 at 8:25:45 AM

With the digital wellbeing app feature it is possible to set a timer of 0 minutes on all auto-installed and auto-reenabling apps to effectively disabling it for good.

Edit: the timer stays even after updates so the app is not enabled again

by davidelettieri

5/26/2026 at 10:04:34 AM

Notice that this will pass Play Integrity while your clean rom won't.

by realusername

5/26/2026 at 8:06:03 AM

This bodes well for the up-coming GrapheneOS cooperation..

Nothing screams "secure" better than app hijacking and url injections.

by fransje26

5/26/2026 at 6:59:08 AM

Is Motorola Chinese by any chance? I remember the Motorola company has been split to phones and the rest

by p0w3n3d

5/26/2026 at 7:02:31 AM

Owned by Lenovo, yes

by petu

5/26/2026 at 7:05:18 AM

I like the Stylus G better than most phones I've owned, but Motorola really needs to end its partnership with the offensive "Glance" ad platform. There should not be a third party app like that which keeps re-enabling and reinstalling on every update. I don't understand what Motorola would get out of a partnership with a scammy third rate ad market that would be worth pissing off so many of their customers, but maybe they have some high level corruption in the company.

by noduerme

5/26/2026 at 2:14:27 PM

Isnt Motorola basically a ‘Shanzhai’ (copy cat) brand now? Some dude putting the logo on some OEM parts? I am thinking of that Commodore phone from a while back and others. While completely speculative, it is interesting to see legit brands go Shanzhai or get Shanzhaied and Shanzhai brands go legit (xiaomi, huawei)

by thenthenthen

5/27/2026 at 12:03:21 AM

Especially outside the flagship market, "shanzhai" is enough. I bought a $250 Motorola (G Stylus 2024 model) I wasn't looking for unique and breakthrough experiences. I just wanted good-enough screen/camera/battery life/performance, which can be presumably be produced from a wide assortment of more-or-less off-the-shelf parts.

I am annoyed at the software degradation though. I don't appreciate the repeated unskippable prompts to set up Glance. I feel like when I bought the Ultimate Shanzhai Experience (a Umidigi F1 Play back in the Android 9 days), they didn't pull noxious bait-and-switch software tricks.

by hakfoo

5/28/2026 at 3:29:39 PM

Ultimate Shanzhai Experience sounds like a great title for a game

by thenthenthen

5/26/2026 at 6:22:34 AM

The comments here say that all Android phone manufacturers do stuff like this. I have never noticed that kind of things on my Fairphone. But then again, I don't have many apps and certainly not Amazon.

by heikkilevanto

5/26/2026 at 9:05:41 AM

Fairphone or Pixel with GrapheneOS are currently the best bets if you actually want to own your phone.

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 7:10:11 AM

I have a Motorola G70, so this is concerning. But its hard to believe that this is a deliberate action by Motorola. To me it seems more likely that an update was compromised. Still bad though.

by andyjohnson0

5/26/2026 at 9:29:17 AM

Since Uber, Airbnb and Tesla, now every company thinks they can do borderline illegal stuff to make an extra buck.

What is next? Our banks selling our payment histories to the highest bidder?

by amelius

5/26/2026 at 9:50:54 AM

> What is next? Our banks selling our payment histories to the highest bidder?

They do it for your own good, so that you get "more opportunity for consumer experiences in stores and online."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_transaction_data

https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/how-mastercard-sells-data/

by like_any_other

5/26/2026 at 9:35:11 AM

Isn't credit ratings pretty much that? Buy the payment history on debt and then sell some derived value to anyone willing to pay?

by Ekaros

5/26/2026 at 10:27:11 AM

Vertical videos converted to 16:9 are bad for your readers, Mr Senior Editor.

> Ben Schoon is a Senior Editor

Thank you so much for being not able to consume the screencast video in the article.

by zx8080

5/27/2026 at 3:57:17 AM

This is the manufacturer trusted by grapheneos to make secure phones for us. Hmm.

Of course the software side will be run by grapheneos but a company that has this guile I don't want to trust with even their hardware.

by wolvoleo

5/26/2026 at 8:44:36 AM

It is laborious to go through all the apps on a phone and dissable the default unessesary "open web link" feature on ALL the apps, but apparently it has some effect in reducing the "draft" from all the back doors

by metalman

5/26/2026 at 5:52:35 AM

This is really unethical, replacing original app shortcuts breaks trust.

by risfriend

5/26/2026 at 3:36:26 PM

If we're going to imprison people for things like guessing user IDs, this surely ought to count as criminal unauthorized access to a computer system.

by wat10000

5/26/2026 at 11:15:50 PM

We've all got a powerful computer in our pockets but the catch is they are locked down and hostile to our best interests

by darepublic

5/26/2026 at 5:39:42 AM

To think I was worried about buying a Xiaomi tablet while already using a Motorola.

Gonna flash a rom on the Xiaomi anyway, but all oems are doing this type of stuff.

by 999900000999

5/26/2026 at 6:45:16 AM

Note that Xiaomi today is very hostile to bootloader unlocking -- to get unlock code you need to win in daily first come, first served "lottery" (they limit total number of unlocked devices per day). After a second or two passes you're already too late for the day.

by petu

5/26/2026 at 9:05:18 AM

Thank you for letting me know, the plan right now is to try for about a week or 2 and then give up and return the tablet if I can't.

Which is a damn shame because not too many options exist with a headphone jack and a Snapdragon processor. I'm in an environment where Bluetooth is unreliable for a good chunk of my day.

The only other tablet that fits my needs is a gosh darn Surface which is like 1000$.

by 999900000999

5/26/2026 at 10:20:47 AM

And the only way to win this lottery is by using an automated script that starts sending automated requests as soon as the new day starts at Beijing time.

by VortexLain

5/26/2026 at 7:49:14 AM

No wonder there are numerous dubious sites doing it for you ... this breeds abuse.

by consp

5/26/2026 at 6:02:04 AM

All Android OEMs are "doing this type of stuff."

by KennyBlanken

5/26/2026 at 3:15:03 PM

Why would Amazon pay out on scam affiliate links? That’s the thing I don’t really understand from the honey scam.

by daft_pink

5/26/2026 at 3:21:37 PM

As long as real customers are buying stuff, what incentive does Amazon have to question the source?

by Retr0id

5/26/2026 at 3:37:43 PM

Because they are forking over some of their revenue to affiliates. If there is no affiliate, Amazon keeps that money for itself. Paying the affiliate only makes sense if it's driving purchases that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

by advisedwang

5/26/2026 at 3:34:19 PM

If they're paying out on purchases that otherwise would have been organic, they're losing money.

by wat10000

5/26/2026 at 12:13:30 PM

That sounds like a violation of affiliate t&c ? Wouldn't that nullify them, and even lead to lawsuits?

by rbbydotdev

5/26/2026 at 10:34:46 AM

This is why we need to fight for the right to unlock the bootloader, not only on flagships.

by zb3

5/26/2026 at 4:23:01 AM

I was possibly thinking of getting a Motorola with G.ràphenéOS when released.

Yeah, not now.

by gib444

5/26/2026 at 4:32:33 AM

The described behavior would not happen when you use a custom OS.

I understand not wanting to give Motorola any money because of this, though.

by Uzazo

5/26/2026 at 4:40:32 AM

True. Google does much worse things overall, but they aren't as surface-level scammy as this.

by Cider9986

5/26/2026 at 5:11:49 AM

The tail never wags the dog.

Initially the project won't change, but it likely will over time.

by gib444

5/26/2026 at 5:39:09 AM

But AFAIK it doesn't work like that. Motorola makes a phone that has an unlockable bootloader, provides firmware bundles, etc., but the OS images will be made by the GrapheneOS team and they would never do anything like that.

(I think the misunderstanding is that Motorola would make the GrapheneOS builds.)

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 7:44:09 AM

I'm misunderstanding nothing

You're probably just not willing to believe that a 'partnership' with a massive company will change things, like I do. I am disagreeing, not misunderstanding. There's a difference

by gib444

5/26/2026 at 9:10:19 AM

Have you ever observed the GrapheneOS team? I have rarely seen any team more principled than them, outside maybe RMS.

Time will tell, but my bet is on the GrapheneOS team doing the right thing, they have always done so in the past.

by microtonal

5/26/2026 at 10:11:21 AM

> Have you ever observed the GrpheneOS team

I certainly have

> I have rarely seen any team more principled than them

Totally agree with you there.

I'll say no more because you pay a heavy penalty on HN for criticising the project.

I'll just say I hope the collaboration brings some needed maturity, level heads, and stewardship, and that the devs can continue just to focus on the tech.

by gib444

5/26/2026 at 10:01:22 AM

Yeah, I miss the days of multiple choices on mobile phone OSes.

by pjmlp

5/26/2026 at 5:07:57 AM

How low can you go?

by dotcoma

5/26/2026 at 4:21:35 AM

Chinese brands always pull this stuff

by gsky

5/26/2026 at 6:33:24 AM

Around 10-15 years ago you could get a completely stock Android from China with basically zero branding, fully unlocked and easily rootable, removable battery, expandable storage, dual DIMs, etc. at a great price. I have a few. Unfortunately many of those small honest OEMs appear to have disappeared, and the bigger ones left have turned scummy.

by userbinator

5/26/2026 at 6:51:06 AM

Especially Xiaomi did a huge ugly U-turn like this. Use to be the best hardware for low price with the selling point of no-crap fully customable phones.

And then, once they become dominant enough starting to play it like the others but stuffing as many unremovable crap as possible.

by greatgib

5/26/2026 at 6:28:39 AM

[flagged]

by 28304283409234

5/26/2026 at 1:42:26 PM

Your phone is now a vending machine that charges you for the privilege of inserting coins. The product was never the phone.

by marcusholt

5/26/2026 at 11:02:07 AM

Its a source of revenue that doesn't harm the user and cannot be disabled by the user. It's the gold standard.

by 0x59

5/26/2026 at 1:28:59 PM

Most non-triumphant.

by theologan

5/26/2026 at 5:38:14 AM

That begs the question! Did they use a Sony rootkit ? XD

by coretx

5/26/2026 at 5:33:02 AM

[dead]

by warrantisall

5/27/2026 at 6:55:38 AM

[dead]

by surcap526

5/26/2026 at 5:30:01 AM

Calling this "hijacking the Amazon app" is hyperbolic in my opinion. They replaced the shortcut in the app drawer. To me this looks like normal scummy OEM behaviour, like pre-installing spyware, "anti-" malware, adware etc. which sadly pretty much every mobile/computer manufacturer does.

Replacing the OS is one of the first things I do with every laptop, PC and mobile device to get rid of (most) crap that was installed without my consent.

by dingensundso

5/26/2026 at 6:35:27 AM

and mobile device

Very little ability to do that with most devices these days, unfortunately.

by userbinator

5/26/2026 at 4:28:56 AM

If an anti-worker company is getting fleeced, nothing wrong with that.

I hope motorola collaborates with Pine and brings linux to phones. In the age of LLM apps are obviously not a problem. (Hopefully windows Phone 7, not 8 also comes back)

by sourcegrift

5/26/2026 at 5:58:41 AM

I agree with your overall opinion, but not sure why you had to bring LLMs into a topic that has nothing to do with them.

by WolfeReader

5/26/2026 at 6:31:09 AM

I would agree, but I just looked on my phone and there was a Moto AI services app I don't remember being there before

by SubiculumCode

5/26/2026 at 8:50:57 AM

I think they mean you don't need to worry about a tiny app ecosystem these days because LLMs make it easy to create your own.

by ta8903