So i just bought a Samsung Note 4 ..

[lxskllr]

the flip thing , Flipboard, which i swear to god and to science i have disable AND its in my list of disabled apps, takes a whole page at the front of my phone (the desktop screens you can flip between, right?) and as soon as i look at it i see it has freshly downloaded news, which i do not want.

I can't quite remember, but try long pushing the screen. When it changes state, move the whole thing to to trash. My S5 came with the same thing.

As soon as I get around to installing a custom recovery, and backing everything up, I'm gonna start deleting the builtin crapware, and that includes Chrome. Once I got busybox from the Play Store, I blocked and firewalled it. I use fdroid exclusively...

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdpage=1

I also found an apk Play Store downloader if there's something you can't live without. Gratis apps only, but it doesn't require a Google account...

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/10/download-apks-from-google-play-to-your.html

 

[dawheat]

most of the apps (except evernote) can be put on "dormant" state but they cannot be uninstalled. according to samsung/three i MUST carry useless data on my phone.

the flip thing , Flipboard, which i swear to god and to science i have disable AND its in my list of disabled apps, takes a whole page at the front of my phone (the desktop screens you can flip between, right?) and as soon as i look at it i see it has freshly downloaded news, which i do not want.

And as i have said before, i now cannot get the stock browser to launch, it always reverts to the chrome app. (chrome is disabled, i click the INTERNET link - stock browser - type some schwat in the browser bar and i get "chrome cannot let you do that, Dave" message)

Long hold the left capacitive button from the home screen and you'll get a different screen than recent apps. Click home screen settings and disable my magazine.

Your browser issue is odd - I have 3 browsers including Chrome and stock and searching in one keeps me there. You cleared defaults right, from settings?

 

[holden j caufield]

so how do you guys like your note 4?

 

[cbrunny]

love my note 4. moved to it from nexus 5. Lots of fiddling and disabling of features, etc. But once it is running smooth the thing is a beast.

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

Why the aversion to using Chrome browser anyways? I prefer chrome myself.

 

[DigDog]

Long hold the left capacitive button from the home screen and you'll get a different screen than recent apps. Click home screen settings and disable my magazine.

Your browser issue is odd - I have 3 browsers including Chrome and stock and searching in one keeps me there. You cleared defaults right, from settings?

yes, ofc. settings -> applications -> default -> "clear default".

i just checked at chrome is not my default anything, yet it still keeps launching.

mind you i like chrome. but, i wanted to access the about:debug setting and i need the base android browser to do that.

 

[blankslate]

mind you i like chrome. but, i wanted to access the about:debug setting and i need the base android browser to do that.

Sounds like a weird issue that might need a factory reset on the phone to me...

You might want to submit a bug report about Android to Google if it persists or crops up again.


...

 

[Yuriman]

OP, my wife got one on launch day. Its easy to disable each bloat app in the settings. I disabled all the AT&T apps, Uber, S Health and a few others.

She initially complained about lagginess so here are some other things I did:
-Installed Nova Launcher
-Disabled S-Voice for the home button double tap (this made home button overall more responsive)
-Cut the widgets off the lock screen
-Disabled animations in developer options (this made a huge difference)
-Enable ART in developer options (might not work with all apps, S Health hated it for one)
-Enable GPU rendering in developer options
-Install and use Swiftkey (the Samsung keyboard is lagcity)

After all of that she liked it much better, and I didn't even have to mess with root (which is good because the AT&T version lacks root).

If by "Enable GPU rendering", you mean "Force GPU rendering", that may actually reduce smoothness. It breaks a lot of the tweaks introduced with Project Butter.