South Korea outlaws permanent bloatware, world to follow?
The people’s of at least one country will soon be free of the tyranny of bloatware. In South Korea, a new set of guidelines governing the mobile industry will require manufacturers and service providers to allow users to delete most of the pre-installed software that ships with a device.
Dubbed bloatware because the software takes up valuable storage space, the guidelines were created with the goal of giving users more accessible memory on their smartphones. More importantly the rules aim to cut back on “an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players,” according to Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning. Required will be the ability to delete all pre-installed apps (except for a few deemed necessary).
Could the rest of the world join South Korea in the war against bloatware? User annoyance with not being able to uninstall apps that are never used is hardly a regional issue. It’s a chief reason many choose to root and modify the software that ships with any new Android. We definitely would not mind if wider regulations were in place to limit the amount of software permanently installed on mobile devices.
We will find out how Korea fares when the guidelines become official in April.
[Press release via ZDNet]