Android Features That You Should Consider Switching Off
Your smartphone knows a lot about you and in some cases, too much. Certain features and settings are enabled on Android by default that aren’t necessary or even desirable for everyone. Certain Android settings may need to be disabled to improve performance, battery life and security. In this article, we’ll look into Android features that you should consider switching off to optimize your device’s experience.
WiFi & Bluetooth Scanning
Your Android can scan for WiFi networks and Bluetooth devices even if these features are turned off. This feature is intended to help improve location accuracy, but it can also drain your battery life. If you don’t need location services, disabling WiFi and Bluetooth scanning can help extend your device’s battery life.
To turn this feature off, head to Settings > Location > WiFi scanning and Settings > Location > Bluetooth scanning and toggle these options to ‘off’.
Location Services
Location services are essential for apps like Uber and Google Maps, but they can also drain your battery life. If you don’t need location services, consider disabling them for apps that don’t require them or turning them off entirely when you don’t need them.
To turn this feature off, head to Settings > Location and toggle it ‘off’.
Personalized Ads
Whether or not you’re signed in to your Android phone with your Google account, you’ll get search or banner ads across websites that use Google’s ad platform. The ads are tailored to your interests and even your commonly used search terms to attempt to make ads more relevant to you. Understandably, you wouldn’t want such ads appearing, so the best option is to turn them off.
To turn this feature off, open Settings > Privacy > Ads and toggle the settings ‘off’.
Usage & Diagnostics
In a bid to improve Android OS, certain diagnostic and usage information is shared with Google when you encounter issues and app crashes. It’s important to know that it’s completely anonymous and normally only relates to things such as battery level, app usage, Bluetooth connections etc.
But if you want to disable these settings because you aren’t interested in providing your information, you can disable them. To disable it, open Settings > Google > tap the upper-right three-dot menu > Usage & diagnostics > Off.
Private Notifications
As much as the lock screen restricts people from getting access to your device with PINs and passcodes, it isn’t completely foolproof because of how notifications are displayed by default. Android allows you to hide notifications in a similar way to how iOS handles them. Rather than display who a message or notification is from, you’ll see that a notification is waiting. You can even disable notifications from appearing on your lock screen entirely if you want peace of mind.
To set this, head to Settings > Notifications > Sensitive notifications. On Samsung phones, open Settings > Lock screen > Notifications > Hide content.
