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David asked: “I’m not really satisfied with my Android phone. It always wants to give me updates and every time it updates if I install them, I’ve got to reconfigure everything. I’m legally blind and I don’t have time to try and read everything that’s on those updates. I liked the phone when i first got it, and I like it the way it was. And I’d like to be able to use it like I did then. If there’s any help you can give me I’d sure appreciate it. I’m about to take a 25-pound sledgehammer to it.”
David, you really shouldn’t need to reconfigure the phone every time it updates, it sounds like your phone is restoring to factory settings with each update.
Normally, you update, the phone restarts, and it’s back. It takes a few minutes, it may heat up a little during the process, but once it’s back your settings, apps, and media should still be there.
If you liked it the way it was when you got it, you may be able to roll it back to whatever version of Android it was using then, but you shouldn’t even consider it.
The updates you keep being asked to install, including the ones that have obvious changes in functionality that you notice, often include security patches in the background. A lot of these patches are important and can keep your data protected.
You can look into a new phone, or restore this one and see if it stops wiping your settings with each update, but don’t roll it back to how it was when you first got it. It’s almost certain that some of the updates that made you angry also protected you from people with bad intentions.
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