I have a Motorola phone that I like to use for experiments, home lab projects, and, well, an actual phone. Lately, it runs slower than I did when I tried out for the high school track team. Anyhow, I wanted to try de-bloating it to improve the speed and performance. You might not think of Motorola phones as being bloated, but a few key changes worked great for me.

Budget phones have a bloating problem

Let’s take a look at what kind of junk comes pre-installed

Credit: David J. Buck/How-To Geek

I can’t stand the ridiculous, pre-installed apps that come with budget phones like the Motorola Moto G that I use.

#news is a weird one that I’ve never used, but it seems to re-enable itself on my device every time there’s a phone update. That despicable Glance app (if you use a Motorola, you might know this villain well) is persistent and pervasive.

1Weather? Why would I need that when I have Termux and wget or local news? Then there’s the Smart Feed and its infernal sponsored recommendations (no, I don’t want the Temu app, thanks but no thanks).

It was time to do something about it.

De-bloating made simpler

Using two apps without rooting your phone

Credit: David J. Buck/How-To Geek

There are a few ways to de-bloat an Android device. I went with a lower-risk option and used a pair of apps called Canta and Shizuku. Now, when I say “lower risk,” I mean that I backed up my data and am not terribly concerned if I have to do a factory reset in the event of something going horribly awry.

I found Canta readily available from the Google Play Store and F-Droid on my device. I grabbed my copy from F-Droid, but I had to grab an APK file for Shizuku through GitHub. Canta is an app made by user samolego that gives users the ability to get rid of (or disable) those junk apps on their phone without the need to root the device.

Normally, you’d have to use an Android Debug Bridge (or ADB), which is accessible through developer mode. Then there are commands like pm uninstall -k -- 0 package-name. So, you can absolutely run an ADB on your computer and do everything Canta can do (it performs the equivalent of the pm uninstall command via an app and Shizuk), but Canta does provide some guidance as to what to uninstall. Plus, it’s great for less technically inclined folks who may not be comfortable with doing it the other way.

To get this process to work, you have to enable developer options on the device. On the Motorola Moto G, you go to Settings > About Phone > Device Identifiers and then tap Build Number about 8 times. After that, enable USB debugging and wireless debugging under Developer Options.

Shizuku requires a network connection to do its thing. I paired it with my device so I could use the debugging interface using a pairing code (found under Developer Options > Wireless Debugging). Then you grant Shizuku access to Canta. Once installed, you can immediately start uninstalling apps.

Uninstalling the worst offenders

Let’s de-bloat my device!

I already had an idea of the apps I wanted to remove. But for some folks, knowing which ones to get rid of isn’t exactly obvious or intuitive. Canta does offer suggestions, but you might have better luck checking the bloatware list maintained by the Universal Debloater Alliance.

If you navigate to the menu (the three dots on the upper right), you can select Badge Info, which offers a handy guide on what to remove. If an app has a Recommended (green) label below it in the Canta interface, then it’s usually safe to remove. If it says Advanced (yellow), it might cause some issues, but you can typically replace the app with an alternative. The System (gray) tag is just the apps that came with the system. Canta recommends not removing anything that’s labeled Expert (red) or Unsafe (purple) because it can “break vital parts of the system.”

Faster boot times and a cleaner interface

Credit: David J. Buck/How-To Geek

For me, the first one to go was 1Weather, followed quickly by #news. Then I went down the line, one app at a time, and then tested the performance. I mostly stuck with removing “Recommended” apps, which included stuff like Android Switch and a few weird services that were already disabled (including three Boost Mobile apps that served no purpose). I did get rid of Google Chrome despite its Advanced label and replaced it with Vivaldi.

After removing the first few apps, I noticed an immediate difference in performance. Apps definitely launched faster, so that was nice.

Next, I got rid of anything that was a hub or specific to a particular carrier. I removed about 47 apps in my first run (my final tally of removed apps in the end was 168). There was an excessive amount of Verizon and AT&T bloatware. Then I purged all the weird app stores and notification apps. There was a lot more than I expected.

After purging the unwanted apps, I started coming through the more complex stuff it recommended. There was an app for monitoring Citizen’s band (CB) radio and another for “federated computations.” I also got rid of that “health and fitness framework” one.

There were a few things on the “recommended” list in Canta that were actually not bloatware. For instance, the gesture-based functions, apps, and adaptive volume control stayed for now.

I will say that I’m impressed by how fast everything is moving after a quick reboot. I was initially concerned that I would be stuck in a boot loop or have a bigger problem. That turned out not to be the case. Termux installed its packages faster, my writing apps loaded quicker and didn’t freeze up, and even videos/music seem to run a bit smoother.

All in all, I’d say de-bloating worked for my phone and, hey, I didn’t screw up Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, so that’s just a bonus.

De-bloating worked for my Motorola, but your experience may vary

Credit: David J. Buck/How-To Geek

De-bloating a phone doesn’t have to be a complex process. Although I used the Canta-Shizuku pipeline to perform my de-bloat, there are other ways to do it. This method worked best for my budget phone. Canta works efficiently while providing information to help prevent you from messing up your phone. Shizuku works seamlessly in the background and is useful beyond de-bloating a phone.

My Motorola Moto G truly does feel like a brand-new phone that’s not only faster, but seems to work better for everything I need.