Survey: Nearly half of you want nothing to do with Samsung’s home screen news feed

Samsung’s One UI offers arguably one of the best Android experiences out there thanks to its deep customization pool, though not everything that the South Korean tech giant throws into that pool is necessarily useful or even required. Whenever we’re setting up a new Samsung device, we make sure to turn off a few settings and features that don’t add much value to the overall experience.

Last week, we shared five such One UI settings and asked our readers which of those settings they also disable, and one option emerged as the overwhelming choice.

It looks like Samsung Galaxy users aren’t particularly fond of the Media page. That’s the page you reach when you swipe right from the home screen — the one that houses your Google Discover or Samsung News feed. In our survey, which accumulated a total of 2010 votes, 48% of the respondents (967 voters) said they turn the page off entirely.

It’s likely that these users don’t like landing on the page when they’ve mistakenly swiped one too many times, or that they’re outright not interested in news. Considering that these are Android Authority readers who voted, the latter is less likely to be true. What’s more plausible is that these users prefer accessing Google Discover or Samsung News directly from their apps.

Disabling the Media page came in as the overwhelming majority, and Galaxy Store notifications, Samsung Wallet gestures, Personal Data Intelligence, and Customization Service followed in that exact descending order.

Karandeep Singh Oberoi / Android Authority

A subset of our readers with Samsung phones dislike Galaxy Store notifications, and rightfully so. The app sends notifications about app updates and various other promotions and marketing messages, on top of notifications about rewards and coupons. I’m genuinely surprised that only 16% of respondents (318 voters) picked Galaxy Store notifications. It would personally be at the top of my list of settings to disable if I daily drove a Samsung device — above the Media page.

Samsung Wallet gestures and Personal Data Intelligence received 14% and 12.% of the votes, respectively. For reference, Samsung Wallet’s quick-access gesture lets you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to jump right into Samsung Wallet, and I know it can lead to accidental launches. And if you mainly use Google Wallet, there’s even less incentive to keep the shortcut enabled.

Personal Data Intelligence, on the other hand, powers context-aware AI features such as Now Brief, natural-language search in Gallery, auto-fill suggestions, and more. The feature is enabled by default and collects information about your phone usage. 250 voters likely find no use in letting Samsung have access to this information.

Customization Service came in last among the five settings, with just 7% of the vote (147 voters). Similar to Personal Data Intelligence, Customization Service, too, captures data to offer a personalized experience, albeit for ads, recommendations, and other content across Samsung’s own apps and services. Finally, over 53 respondents suggested that the setting they turn off isn’t an option on our poll, though none left a comment telling us which setting they had in mind.

We’d love to learn more. If you’re among the majority who said they disable the Media page, what made you turn it off? Let us know in the new poll above.