Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra receives criticism for tons of bloatware
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra ($1,299 on Amazon) is already one of the more expensive flagship smartphones on the market. Nevertheless, Samsung is apparently cashing in to install bloatware from Meta, Microsoft and the like. Android Authority has already been able to purchase a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra from retailers, and was able to find at least eight apps from three third-party providers that are installed straight from the factory:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Outlook
- Link to Windows
- Spotify
The exact selection of factory-installed apps is likely to depend on the region in which the smartphone was purchased. Samsung does not allow users to choose which third-party apps to install when setting up the smartphone and forces these apps on customers without further ado. In addition, some of the Samsung and Google apps are redundant, such as the Samsung browser and Google Chrome, the Samsung Galaxy Store and the Google Play Store, or Outlook and Gmail.
The factory-installed apps alone take up 17 GB of memory on a brand new Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, in addition to the approximately 24 GB used by the operating system. Users on Reddit also complain that Samsung uses numerous background services by default, some of which are required for AI features, but which can also transfer data to servers. As Samsung has already delivered smartphones with spyware in the past, it is advisable to deactivate these services in the system settings if sensitive data is stored on the smartphone.
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