Android @lemmy.world vortexal @sopuli.xyz 2 mo. ago

What is "Mobile Services" and would disabling it prevent me from being able to send and receive texts or calls?

Most of the android phones I've had came preinstalled with something called "Mobile Services". I normally remove it because it just keeps randomly installing apps and games that don't want but I've never had an active phone plan on those phones. If I disabled it from my phone, would I still be able to send and receive calls and texts?

So far the only thing I have found out is that "Mobile Services" is an app that is only preinstalled on android phones who's carrier is Tracfone.

Edit: Even though I wasn't able to get an answer, I've decided to just disable it. I wont be manually testing it and I wont be updating this post with results. I no longer care at this point and I wont be responding to anymore comments about this.

18 comments

Disable it and find out. It's easy enough. You can reenable it if it breaks something.
- I'd try that but I don't want to end up finding out that disabling it permanently disables my phone's service. My phone's service is through Tracfone and they are the developers of the app.
  
  It won't.
  
  Or at least it really shouldn't. I can't imagine that happening. I wouldn't hesitate to do it on my own phone.
  
  That is extremely unlikely
  
  There's at least one way to reverse it, by wiping the phone clean during a total reset, like what you would do if you sell the phone.
What are you using to uninstall it? I use Canta from F-Droid and it usually provides a short description of most apps and why you should or shouldn't uninstall them.
- I actually can't uninstall it but I just using my phone's settings app and either remove or disable it depending on what that phone allows me to do. Canta seems pretty complicated to use but I'll try it and see what it tells me.
- Ok I figured out that you don't actually have to setup Shizuku to use Canta. The only problem is that Canta doesn't provide a description for Mobile Services. It just provides the package name, which I searched for online, but the only thing I can find is that it's specific to Tracfone devices.
Mobile Services are pre-Installed by your carrier, that allow them to backdoor load other apps and services
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