OnePlus is preloading OnePlus 8 and Nord series phones with Facebook bloatware that can't be uninstalled as part of the OS
Bloatware on Android phones has been around for so long — especially on Samsung and Huawei phones — that it's hardly even news anymore.
Context & Ripple Effects
OnePlus is following a path Samsung already walked: Bloomberg's coverage of Samsung's deal to pre-install Facebook on Galaxy phones showed users could disable the app but never delete it — and now OnePlus has embedded Facebook at the OS level on the OnePlus 8 and Nord series, making it effectively permanent.
The history here cuts both ways for the company. A Chinese consumer group's bloatware lawsuit against Samsung and Oppo eventually forced a deletion patch — but only inside China — while Google had by 2015 stopped requiring its own first-party apps on new Android devices. OnePlus itself has been here before on trust: after an outcry over data collection, it promised a usage analytics opt-out in OxygenOS setup.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the OnePlus 8 and Nord series get Facebook apps fused into the OS — disable-at-most, no clean uninstall — repeating exactly the arrangement that irritated Samsung Galaxy owners in 2019.
- Facebook gains guaranteed, unremovable placement on every new OnePlus device shipped, a stronger position than a sideloaded or user-installed app.
Second-order effects
- Samsung set the template and OnePlus just adopted it; the practical question for other Android makers is whether Facebook's OS-level placement deals become table stakes, since rivals who refuse leave preinstall revenue and default-app reach on the table.
- If user backlash mirrors the Samsung episode, OnePlus faces pressure to repeat its own playbook from the analytics controversy — shipping a settings-level concession rather than true removal.
Third-order effects
- The precedent from China is instructive: bloatware deletion rights arrived there only through litigation, and even then as a regional patch — pointing toward a structure where full uninstall remains a regulatory concession, not a product norm.
- With Google having dropped mandatory bundling of its own apps years ago, the vacuum on new Android devices is being filled by third-party platform deals like Facebook's, shifting control over the out-of-box experience from Google to whichever company pays the handset maker.
The trend: Android handset makers are monetizing the out-of-box experience through paid OS-level placements from platforms like Facebook, with genuine uninstall rights arriving only when litigation or regional regulators force them.