Huawei: Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram will no longer be pre-installed
Following the ban imposed by the US on the telecommunications giant Huawei, Facebook has decided to terminate the partnership concerning the brand's smartphones. Are Huawei and Honor are preparing to say goodbye to Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram? Yes, but there's no reason to panic...
Facebook is only the last of the American companies that has decided to terminate its business relationships with Huawei. Although the ban has been suspended until August 19, it seems that the Zuckerberg company has decided not to wait and stop any partnership with the Chinese brand right now.
Huawei suffers, users rejoice
Obviously, as this is a business partnership, Huawei will be financially affected by this decision by Facebook. The decision, however, only concerns the presence of apps that are usually found when you first buy the phone: from now on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp will no longer be pre-installed in Huawei and Honor smartphones.
From the users' point of view, this is not really a tragedy. There have been many complaints (not only to Huawei) because of bloatware, apps which come pre-installed on many smartphones and that can not be removed but only deactivated. Doubts about the security of one's privacy were not lacking, especially as a result of the dust kicked up by Cambridge Analytica, which has not yet been completely eliminated.
The end of the partnership does not mean, however, that the Chinese brand's smartphones will be made incompatible with Facebook's social and messaging apps. For users who already use a Huawei device, nothing will change. What will change will be only the situation of smartphones coming on the shelves of stores soon, but these will still be able to install these apps from the Google Play Store, just like everyone else's Android phones.
Do you think Facebook was too hasty with its own decision, which precedes the final ban in August?
Source: Reuters
This is the first truly good news for Huawei so far. I bet they can use this as a selling point. God knows I'd be willing to pay more for a phone without those three, since I can't root my phone without losing my insurance on it.
since i hate everything facebook, that's actually a good thing! no more spying by american companies on my devices..without asking me! #getridoffacebook
How big a deal is Facebook's move? Neither my Huawei Mate 20 Pro nor my (Huawei) Honor View 10 feature this bloatware. (Disclaimer: when I checked, the latter had just finished upgrading to Android 9.0.)
As I don't use social media (not counting YouTube as such), I had been pleased to find out.
(By the way: why bother about possible backdoors in Huawei or Intel hardware when Facebook apps do use the frontdoor?)