RedMi Note 11. Just received it for Christmas and boy was I crying the first time I booted it. 1 Gb of bloatware must most importantly: impossible to uninstall chrome.
That is ok if any other browser can co-exist beside it… Boy was I wrong again. Some links from apps don’t even care about my default browser, they just open chrome cause hell yeah.
This is sickening me, Google is beginning to really disgust me. Someday I’ll root this mf to get rid of ALL the bloatware
Not sure if the Note 11 is the one that shares a model with the POCO X4 Pro or not, but if it is you can root it with Magisk and uninstall system apps with that. That’s what I did with my X4 Pro.
Chrome is a “necessity” to work
Disable all that crap with the Universal Android Debloater
You’ve also discovered one reason why I root - to ensure the only things that run are those I choose to run.
Chrome isn’t required. The web view engine is, and even that can be replaced.
Edit: oh, Xaiomi. 'Nuff said. There are certain brands to avoid because of either bloatware or the customizations of the OS make debloating difficult, and rooting or flashing difficult to impossible. Samsung is another.
It’s these issues that keep me on devices that are a little older, ones with well-documented root/flashing processes.
It’s these issues that keep me on devices that are a little older, ones with well-documented root/flashing processes.
Just grab a Pixel, even the newest one. Those have the best documented alternate OS support, bonus points if you use GrapheneOS. Granted, rooting is frowned upon there as they’re more about security.
While I agree Pixel and GrapheneOS rock, it’s a hilarious solution contextually. OP was gifted a phone for Christmas, and your solution is to get rid of the gift, assume they have expendable income, and suggest dropping $700 on a new phone so they can immediately void its warranty.
OP was gifted a phone for Christmas, and your solution is…
Except I wasn’t replying to OP. I was replying to someone who said (and I quoted them) they only use older phones due to proven flashing support, so I was saying they don’t have to for the Pixel reason. I wasn’t suggesting OP do this if they don’t want.
…suggest dropping $700 on a new phone so they can immediately void its warranty.
Where does it say that unlocking the bootloader and flashing an alternate OS voids the warranty? I’ve done it with every Nexus/Pixel I’ve had, and have traded them all in for credit…and even sent two in for warranty repair which Google honored.
A quick search (link below) said it doesn’t necessarily void the warranty…unless what you did breaks the device and they deem it your fault. And with how good rhe flashing process is on Pixels, I feel you’d have to try and actively break it. Please don’t spread unverified rumors (unless you have an official source, which I’d like) and potentially scare people away needlessly.
Yea that warranty BS always irks me.
First, no it doesn’t void warranty.
Second, so what if it did? How many phones has anyone sent back for warranty? I’ve had (let me count) about 13 individual phones since 2009. Many being duplicates of my daily driver, almost all bought second hand, so I paid no more than $120 for a phone, and as little as $50.
The number I’ve sent in for warranty:0. The number I’ve broken: probably 3 (I remember breaking one specifically, and I know I’ve borked the flash on a couple, but those were old and no longer of any value).
I bet most people have spent as much on a couple phones as I’ve spent on all my phones. And I always have a hot spare waiting at home, fully configured, all I have to do is swap the sim and I’m up and running. And OS upgrades never take out my production phone, my spare gets it first, I verify everything works, at my leisure, then switch.
Buying two Pixel 5’s I’ll still be well under the price of the newest Pixel. I’m a serious power user - I move gobs of files with my phone, it’s always on, I’m remoting into stuff all the time (ssh and RDP), have a bunch of automation going on, I could use the most powerful available today, unlike most people who just use SMS, facecrack, and WhatsApp.
Xiaomi and subbrands are nice with custom roms. Otherwise, it’s not usable.
Xiaomi/ Redmi is responsible for what you can install and what not.
Their OS is horrible. You can’t even use another launcher. I’d give it back or sell it or install linux if that’s possible
Sadly I’m not in a position where I can sell it back
You can install custom roms into Xiaomi phones, I recommend LinageOS or /e/OS if you want a degoogled experience. If its not for you, the latter isn’t really user friendly as some google apps like maps wont really work.
Unfortunately, not on all Xiaomi phones.
Talk to them/ explain the situation
i mean you CAN use another launcher but you can’t use swipe gestures at the same time.
Sack off Xiaomi’s OS and put AOSP on it, you can find ROMs here: https://xdaforums.com/f/redmi-note-11-spes-spesn.12617/
I used DivestOS on my Poco F3, however I’m not sure if there’s an official version of that for your phone. crDroid is at the top of the forum page though, I used to use that, it was alright.
obligatory ‘consider grapheneos’
Graphene only works on certain pixel phones. They have no plans of supporting anything else and expects people to buy a phone to install graphene on, not the other way around
Just root it it. In waiting to unlock the bootloader, you can disable unwanted apps either via ADB or simply from the application manager.
Sounds like your RedMi really messed up their OS if they don’t use your default browser.
You can disable Chrome, but not uninstall it, because Chrome is what backs the modern WebViews used in all kinds of apps. Before, we used to have this separated (a WebView and a browser, both taking up half a gigabyte of storage), and before that we had the even worse situation of “WebView implementation is built by the manufacturer when the phone was released and becomes a malware vector the day the first security update comes out”. The current implementation saves a lot of storage space.
That said, some apps opt into “custom tabs”, which are Chrome/Firefox tabs that behave like they’re part of their parent app. If you’re running into those, you can either try disabling them (usually a setting) or start using apps that don’t exhibit this behaviour. These tabs don’t appear when opening a web page normally, they’re opt-in features the developer needs to specifically call out to. I’m not sure if any browsers beside Chrome and Firefox implement the protocol, but you can ask your browse vendor about Custom Tab support if you want to be sure.
For the bloatware (these cheap phones come packed with that shit), I recommend taking a backup and looking at the common debloater tools (there’s one I used that works straight from the web browser through the magic of WebUSB) to disable apps. You won’t be getting any storage space back because that’s not how storage works on Android phones, but you’ll save yourself some battery life and frustration by disabling bloatware apps. That said, don’t just disable anything labeled as “Google” or you’ll have to reset to factory settings when you inevitably disable some system service.
Your specific issues don’t seem to have much to do with Google, more with RedMi and the apps you’re using.
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If you’re running a custom ROM then it’s possible that the WebView implementation is a custom one (i.e. not updateable by Google, but updated by the ROM makers instead, like Vanadium on GrapheneOS), but I’m pretty sure Google linked their Chrome runtime pretty tightly against their Android WebView implementation to save storage (previously you basically had to full copies of Chrome on your device, now Chrome and the WebView API share the same library that gets updated alongside Chrome).
That said, the TriChrome library is pretty much hidden from the UI, so you may not notice that Chrome is actually still installed in the background. The Chrome “app” is basically a UI library in top of the Google Chrome code that’s packaged as a system library, but if you were to remove everything that comes with “Chrome” you now break the WebView as well.
This is something that changed as of Android Q so earlier versions may still have the separation, but if you can update the WebView from the Play Store, there’s an almost complete version of Chrome hiding in your system these days.
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If you are using the default OS (MIUI), you can install another browser (from Play Store or F-Droid) and then disable Chrome by adb. Other apps will then be forced to send their links to your new browser.
Xiaomi also allows you to install your own OS and/or root your phone, but that isn’t necessary.
gmail wont even work if you disable chrome because of chrome custom tabs which is absurd
These are miui shenanigans. You can disable chrome in settings and set different browsers as default on most other Roms like oneui, stock android, realmeui, etc. Last time I used miui, I decided never again.
One of the first things I do on a new Samsung phone is disable Chrome and install Firefox. You’ve just saved me from ever buying a Redmi.
I don’t understand why this would surprise someone. Are they complaining that Safari is built in to iPhones and can’t be removed?
There are some FOSS phones out there if you want one…
I don’t think I ever seen an Android app launching Chrome if it’s not a default browser. Are you sure they are not launching built-in WebView?
Nope I’m sure. It is the steam app when I want to access their website and that they redirect me to their app. I’m not logged in but the app offers me to click on a link to open the website and launches chrome.
Same shit with Spotify, cannot use “login with Facebook” in firefox, automatically redirects to chrome although I changed the default browser.
Last time I checked, the Google Home Feed is hard coded to use Chrome webview.
Everyone else still works as expected with chrome though
