If I only wanted to degoogle and disable other manufacturer’s bloatware from my Android device, is using adb to “uninstall” the system apps from user 0 pretty much as effective as rooting and using something like debloat terminal while rooted or are there bypasses that make rooting the better option? I’m not concerned about reclaiming the space used by these disabled system apps in this case.
To the best of what I’ve found, adb is just as effective at the apps not being able to do dumb shit. If you were worried about space, you’d have to do a lot more than just remove them anyway, so (as you said) that isn’t a factor in comparing the two.
The only real difference I’m aware of is that the adb route still allows them to come back during a factory reset.
If I’m incorrect in that, I’d love a correction, but that’s the answer I’ve found when this comes up.
Anything that modifies the system partition will impact SafetyNet so you probably don’t want to uninstall apps. You also can’t reclaim freed space and you risk removing something that’s actually useful, so there isn’t much benefit.
Disabling apps (or “freezing” as Titanium calls it) is just as effective and root is enough for that. Disabling is a userspace setting so it doesn’t count as modifying system, it’s basically a sort of preference.
Disabling through adb is fine, if you don’t need root for anything else. And it’s easy to revert, should you ever need those apps at a later time.
