There has been new progress regarding the issue of 360 allowing users to uninstall pre-installed software from their phones, which caused a “war of words” before National Day. Yesterday, 360 announced that it had communicated with major phone manufacturers and would officially launch the "manage pre-installed software" feature, through which users could easily uninstall unwanted software. Most 360 products that were previously removed by phone manufacturers have now been restored.
Zhonghua Coolpad re-listed 360
Users who have used smartphones should be familiar with this situation: newly purchased phones come with a large number of pre-installed applications. Many of these apps are rarely used but continue to consume data in the background and cannot be deleted, becoming a kind of “persistent nuisance” in the phone.
Before National Day, the 360 Mobile Assistant attempted to introduce a function to delete pre-installed software, which angered numerous phone manufacturers, including Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, Coolpad, and Xiaomi. As a result, many phone manufacturers resisted and temporarily removed the 360 Mobile Assistant from their app stores.
Yesterday, Qu Xiaodong, Vice President of 360, stated that during the National Day holiday, 360 communicated with phone manufacturers. This feature is mainly aimed at custom ROM channels rather than large manufacturers like Zhonghua Coolpad.
As of yesterday afternoon, the four major domestic phone brands - Zhonghua Coolpad - have all relisted 360 products. However, Xiaomi's app store still hasn't relisted 360 products.
Previously accused of being both an athlete and a referee
In the test version released before the holiday, the 360 Mobile Assistant provided prompts such as "recommended for uninstallation", "recommended for retention", and "% of users chose to uninstall". This was seen by internet companies like Baidu, Xiaomi, Kingsoft, as well as hardware manufacturers like Lenovo and Huawei, as suspected诱导 uninstalls, leading to collective removal of 360 mobile products. In the ensuing war of words, 360 was accused of being both an athlete and a referee.
In the latest PC version of the 360 Mobile Assistant's pre-installed software management function, the previous classifications of "can be uninstalled" and "recommended for retention" have been removed. Qu Xiaodong said that this function is not targeted at specific software or specific manufacturers, but only distinguishes between pre-installed and non-pre-installed software, so it does not provide a whitelist function. Even 360's own software is included in this process.
Chen Jie, Vice President of 360 responsible for the mobile assistant business, said that the 360 Mobile Assistant will not identify whether it is a third-party app store or application, nor whether it is a 360 product. It will only identify whether it is pre-installed, “so there is no issue of being both an athlete and a referee.”
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Third-party ROM vendors may face crisis
According to media reports, industry insiders say that the prevalence of pre-installed software is due to various reasons. On one hand, application vendors try to gain more users through pre-installation. Some low-cost phones also hope to make profits through this method. Surveys show that phone manufacturers and operators can profit from user clicks and activations of applications, with each activation bringing in anywhere from 0.5 yuan to 2 yuan.
It is understood that previously, users needed ROOT permissions to uninstall pre-installed software from their phones. This time, the 360's introduced function allows users to one-click ROOT their phones via PC and then uninstall any pre-installed software. This will put third-party ROM vendors, who rely on pre-installed software, into a crisis. All Android phones need to obtain ROOT permissions to flash third-party ROMs, making it easier for 360 to perform uninstall operations.