Xiaomi is one of the biggest-selling phone manufacturers in the world, and it started its journey as a small group that designed the software we all know today: MIUI. Exactly, one of the controversies with MIUI 13 was the number of pre-installed apps that has accumulated, filling the memory of our devices indiscriminately.
The promise to reduce bloatware (this is what this concept is called) with the next version, MIUI 14, which is already available for many mobiles of the Chinese manufacturer, has not been fulfilled as we have seen in the analysis. However, even though the number has been reduced, we still have a significant amount of non-user-installed apps. And one more will be added to the list, well Opera browser will be pre-installed in the next devices of the firm.
Xiaomi falls in love with Opera and brings it home
Everything was born from a tweet published by one of the translators of the modified Xiaomi EU ROM, where he announced the arrival of a navigator which is added to the already existing Mi Browser (the official Xiaomi browser) and Google Chrome.
Users, through social networks, have started to show their dissatisfaction when they saw that indeed, thanks to an update, Opera appeared in the list of installed applications. Besides, an user highlighted the unable to uninstall said browser.
Initially, this change only applies to firmware from MIUI for mobiles in India and some global ROMsand Skrzypek confirms that it will not be present in the EU, UK and TW versions (Europe, Russia and Taiwan).
Coincidentally, some terminals purchased in European territory generally integrate the global version, called with the acronym MI, in addition to the fact that it is suitable for models launched in these lands. In fact, we commented that this is the best option to speed up MIUI 14 update.
“Opera will be pre-installed in the global software (MIXM)” of the brand’s phones. The words of Xiaomi.
It may not be so dramatic, but if we add up we’ll realize that now Xiaomi pre-installs up to three different browsers: Google Chrome (required to certify devices), My Browser and finally, Opera. The reality is that, if it is possible to uninstall the latter, there would be no major problem. But users who reported the occurrence claim that it is not possible as it was added as a system app.
On our side, we contacted Xiaomi to ask them about the problem. And already we have the official answer: “Opera will only be pre-installed on SW India (INXM) and SW Global (MIXM), although it can be uninstalled and will not be set as the default browser.”
It seems that finally yes it can be uninstalled, although we couldn’t verify it because we haven’t yet received an update that installs it. What is clear is that what Skrzypek said is confirmed.
This is no exception: other manufacturers do it too
We’d be naive if we thought Xiaomi was the only one with this controversial app addition policy that users did not request. Manufacturers tend to maximize their revenues after the investment required to launch their terminals in each generation. And maybe that’s where the interest comes from, although it’s something that’s certainly unknown.
For users, the reality is that we have no choice but to “swallow”, and at most uninstall all apps which are not useful to us (and which we can delete). Fortunately, Android 14, the first beta of which debuted this week, promises to be against bloatware and will let us uninstall more apps.
As we mentioned at the beginning, Xiaomi is not alone: other brands such as Samsung, Realme and even Google itself they add additional applications in their respective systems or layers of customization. This is precisely an aspect that we highlight when we analyze mobile phones.
Google gives us the whole Google Apps package, Samsung has its own browser that it aligns with Chrome, Realme (like Xiaomi) pre-installs freemium games and applications… and a long etcetera that would never end. We have to accept this type of movement as long as uninstallation is allowed, because it is not a fair situation for the user who sees how internal storage is busy for apps you don’t use.
Anyway, we’ll see soon if Opera is definitely added to the Xiaomi mobiles sold in Europe. And if so, we want it, as confirmed by the manufacturer, to be uninstallable.
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