Thursday, December 05, 2024

WTF is this Shit?

 


This fat broad has been fucking with my phone ever since November 7, which was the cutoff date for Verizon's old SMS app.  I have played with getting rid of it but there is no Visual Voice Mail app installed on my phone.  I never installed it.  I never accepted any EULA or Terms of Service.  

Besides showing this nag screen it also cuts the phone interface over to /dev/null.  You have to click the power button to get it back but if you subsequently hit any dialpad key, it goes black again.  The old VM interface still works.

Functionality is there but the phone is impaired.

The illustration looks Google-ish, but again there is no such app installed.

In my adventures with this turd, I found that if you use the carrier's data connection (which is not FREE), it goes away... sometimes.  I only use the carrier's data connection to connect to DinkNET's VPN since it blocks a huge amount of ads.  

Having an "always on" unfree data connection violates my Terms of Use.
 
FAT CHICK UPDATE 12/18/2024 
 
It did turn out to be Google crap, but it's not a standalone app.  It's bundled with their telephone app.  No way to split it off.  You have to trash the phone app to get rid of it.
 
I am now using the "generic green" phone and SMS apps from the Play Store.  It still blacks out the screen when you answer the phone.  There doesn't appear to be a way to originate a call in screen mode, but there may be an option for an in-progess call.  They're both pretty cruddy apps but preferable over unannounced feature "upgrades".

No doubt about it, I need a new phone.

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