Solved

why is T-Mobile downloading apps without my permission?

  • 5 October 2020
  • 20 replies
  • 86806 views

Userlevel 1
Badge

T-Mobile play in the app selector have been sending me notification and have been downloaded without my permission or my initiation several times this week and I have uninstalled them several times and they keep coming back on top of that Facebook an app that I haven't used since 2014 keeps being downloaded along with these two and I want to know why or this will escalate because this is a massive violation of privacy.

icon

Best answer by Rpetty10 27 October 2022, 19:38

View original

20 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +14

The only thing Tmobile has downloaded without my permission is Scam Shied. I never had a problem with the Facebook app being downloaded, never had it on my phone.

Also in the T&C’s you agreed they can do this.

https://www.t-mobile.com/responsibility/legal/terms-and-conditions

We may remotely change software, systems, applications, features or programming on your Device without notice. These changes will modify your Device and may affect or erase data you have stored on your Device, the way you have programmed your Device, or the way you use your Device. You will not be able to use your Device during the installation of the changes, even for emergencies.

Userlevel 1
Badge

So you're saying that from now until I leave T-Mobile the app selector Facebook and T-Mobile playing will be downloaded over and over and over and over and over again no matter how many times I uninstall it or how many times I try to block it out?

Userlevel 1
Badge

I just want to be very clear that I don't want to use any of these things I have no interest in getting into these things I do not want them. And yet they're going to be forced upon me forever now even though I've been with T-Mobile before and this has never happened before?

I'm also experiencing this issue. Apps from T-Mobile are randomly installing on my device and I don't want them installed.  I've erased them and they come back. I think its appselector doing it and it's starting to make me angry. I don't care about your services if I wanted to use it I would down load the app.  I'm calling in to customer service to fix this issue today and unsubscribe from any services that might be installing apps on my phone or I will either leave tmobile or get unlocked phones from now on and not use tmobile branded financed devices. 

Userlevel 1

Agreed, I don't want this Spyware crap reinstalling on my phone. Facebook keeps reappearing after removal. I will be complaining to the FCC about this. It serves not purpose and delivers no value to me as a customer. What justification is there for this? They do not advertise this prior to buying their devices in a reasonable way. I would go back to BYO if I knew they were gonna pull this kind of crap

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

Agreed, I don't want this Spyware crap reinstalling on my phone. Facebook keeps reappearing after removal. I will be complaining to the FCC about this. It serves not purpose and delivers no value to me as a customer. What justification is there for this? They do not advertise this prior to buying their devices in a reasonable way. I would go back to BYO if I knew they were gonna pull this kind of crap


this isnt exactly something new carriers are doing..this has been the way for a VERY long time..dont want any carrier add ons then buy a carrier free device directly from the manufacturer. buy a carrier variant then and this is what you agree to

Userlevel 1

Maybe we agreed to have it pre installed, but I didnt agree to have it reinstalled. The documentation for Appselector also states we can uninstall,, but it doesnt note that it will just reinstall itself. This is purely deceptive in practice. You can stick up for t-mobile if you want, but at the end of the day this is not good service and purely deceptive and misprepresentative of what hte device is sold as. During my 14 day trial i uninstalled this software and it came back after the 14 days, leaving me no time to adequately determine that this device was not a good fit for me based on this behavior. At no point did the description of this product show that it would behave in this fashion and the TOS is very vague about describing this behavior. 

https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/t-mobile-appselector

Userlevel 1

Also the fix that i am testing is to install a 3rd party Package manager and then disable com.tmobile.pr.adapt package. Still have to wait some time to determine becaue it seems to reinstall the bloatware at some interval

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

also forgot to ask but is there not an option to disable the app instead of deleting it?

I was very angry to suddenly - after joining T Mobile months ago - have Facebook and Amazon Shopping apps downloaded to my device without any permission or notification. Based on other help threads here I'm guessing it's the "App Selector" feature that did this. You can try uninstalling that app to see if it stops the auto downloading. I just did and am waiting to see if that works (on a Galaxy A71).

Instructions and description here: https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/t-mobile-appselector 

My Appselector has been acting strange lately and recently while trying to remove it i stumbled up on a personal data request inside of the app selector. I requested the data it has been collecting and it very promptly sent me an email with an encrypted file saying its my data i fear this is a virus please help 

Here is a screen shot of the email. I am not exactly sure who this email would normally come from but the email address seems to be suspicious in my opinion and the “procedure” with which to retrieve the encryption key seems fishy. 

Badge

So you're saying that from now until I leave T-Mobile the app selector Facebook and T-Mobile playing will be downloaded over and over and over and over and over again no matter how many times I uninstall it or how many times I try to block it out?

I just received my new phone yesterday the s22 Ultra T-Mobile has downloaded at least 25 applications onto my new device without my permission and I've erased them multiple times and they continuously come back

Same issue here. It keeps installing games and crap I don't want. I can uninstall them and stop them, but they start right back up later.

Same here. I can't figure out how to disable it from downloading games. This is really dumb. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +16

Same issue here. It keeps installing games and crap I don't want. I can uninstall them and stop them, but they start right back up later.

let them load then disable them. technically theyre still there however cant really do anything because theyre disabled. the system wont try to re download them.

I found a solution. I went into the settings where it shows every app on the phone and deleted "app selector" and disabled "T-Mobile play". Play wouldn't let me uninstall, but I did uninstall all updates and disabled it. That was a week ago and I haven't had an issue since. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +15

I found a solution. I went into the settings where it shows every app on the phone and deleted "app selector" and disabled "T-Mobile play". Play wouldn't let me uninstall, but I did uninstall all updates and disabled it. That was a week ago and I haven't had an issue since. 

You could always look into how to use ADB to remove it if it won't allow you to uninstall it.  Make sure you check after firmware updates that the app hasn't be re-enable and that the deleted apps aren't being installed again.

I had the same problem.  But, I was able to uninstall the T-mobile play app through the app manager in Settings.

Badge

So you're saying that from now until I leave T-Mobile the app selector Facebook and T-Mobile playing will be downloaded over and over and over and over and over again no matter how many times I uninstall it or how many times I try to block it out?

I just received my new phone yesterday the s22 Ultra T-Mobile has downloaded at least 25 applications onto my new device without my permission and I've erased them multiple times and they continuously come back

Samsung has different types of firmware depending on which carrier you bought your device from. The S22 Ultra you bought from T-Mobile has T-Mobile firmware. The hardware between a device bought unlocked from Samsung without T-Mobile's bloatware, and T-Mobile's device is the exactly the same. That being the case you flash the firmware that comes with a Samsung unlocked S22 Ultra from Samsung z on your carrier branded S22 Ultra. This completely circumvents T-Mobile from being able to do anything other than provide you service. Find someone to flash the U1 firmware onto your S22 Ultra. This won't happen again after that.

Reply