How do you get rid of pre-installed apps on an Android?

The first Android phone I owned was the white HTC Wildfire S. I loved it, and I've recommended it for people who want a small phone and don't require a lot of storage. Shortly after I bought it, I added a 16 GB memory card to supplement the 512 MB of internal storage, so that I could have a handful of albums on hand for emergencies  -- like that evening we hiked up to the campfire and then realized we needed music to complete the experience of Ranch Doritos and the hissing and snapping logs we were bopping around. Most apps I downloaded were small -- maybe 5 to 20 MB -- so why did I keep getting that message to open the storage wizard and make more room? It was because of the ridiculous number of pre-installed apps, aka bloatware.

Few phones these days have such a minimal amount of storage, so running out of room is not such a big problem; the reason bloatware is so inconvenient is that many of the apps run in the background, making your phone more likely to hesitate or even freeze, in addition to unnecessarily running down your battery.

The apps cannot be completely uninstalled unless you root your phone, which I don't like to do, but there is an alternative. All the updates to the app can be uninstalled, minimizing the storage space required, and then the app can be disabled, so that it can't run in the background and it doesn't appear in your apps list.

First, open Settings, then Apps or Manage Applications. Tap on the All heading, rather than Running or Downloaded. Tap on the first app you want to disable, like Twitter, for example. This is where you verify that the app is actually bloatware, and can't be uninstalled. You'll see two buttons: Force Stop on the left, and either Uninstall or Uninstall Updates, on the right. If it says Uninstall, then you're in luck: it's not bloatware -- uninstall it, and move on to the next. If the button says Uninstall Updates, then it is bloatware. Before you can disable it, you'll need to (and want to, anyway) touch that button to uninstall updates. After you've done that, the button changes from Uninstall Updates to Disable. Touch it again, now that it's Disable. Now the app will not run in the background, nor it will it appear in your app menus. Do the same with each app you'd like eliminated. A warning, though: don't disable any apps you don't recognize, because a lot of these are essential to phone operations; go disable-happy and you'll soon find you can't open your camera or place calls.

If at some point you'd like to re-enable a disabled app, navigate back to that All Apps menu, and scroll to the bottom to find the disabled apps. Touch the app to find the option to Enable.