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How to Remove OEM Skins & Carrier Bloatware on Your HTC EVO 4G LTE with CyanogenMod

May 15, 2013 07:14 PM

May 15, 2013 07:31 PM

A hand tapping on a smartphone displaying various social media app icons.

Sense appears on over forty Android devices, but HTC's notorious GUI was actually designed with a completely different mobile OS in mind—Windows.

HTC first built Sense to fill in missing functionality of Windows Mobile, the predecessor to Windows Phone 7. When it was ported over to Android, it was hailed as one of the most beautiful and useful Android user interfaces.

However, as Android itself becomes more polished, there has been outcry against manufacturer skins. Many consider OEM apps and features "bloat" or "gimmicks." Along with carrier-installed software on our devices, OEM skins slow down the naturally smooth and responsive Android experience.

If you want Android in its purest form on your HTC EVO 4G LTE, your best option is CyanogenMod.

Image Credit wonderhowto.com

CyanogenMod is built from the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) source code. It takes up a quarter of the resources that Sense ROMs do and is much more customizable.

Smartphone home screen displaying the time, date, and weather.

How to Install CyanogenMod on Your EVO 4G LTE

To install this new ROM, you'll need:

An unlocked bootloader and a custom recovery like TWRP.
The Android Forums Mini-SDK.
The latest stable CyanogenMod build. I'll actually be using this beta version from the device's maintainer, kushdeck. Put this on your phone's internal storage or SD card.
The boot.img from the CyanogenMod .zip you downloaded. Open the .zip file and put the boot.img file in your SDK directory. This is the kernel we will need to flash with fastboot because the HTCdev unlock does not allow flashing kernels.
The Google Apps download, since they are not included by default in CyanogenMod. Put this zip file in your phone's internal storage or SD card, in the same place as the CyanogenMod zip.

Backup and Wipe

If you were using Google Wallet, remember to go in the app's settings and Reset it before continuing.

Boot into the bootloader by holding Vol Down as you reboot the phone, then select RECOVERY and press Power.

Menu screen with options including "Discovery," "Factory Reset," "Clear Storage," "Establish," "Image CRC," and "Show Barcode."

Tap Backup when TWRP loads.

HTC device displaying TWRP recovery interface with options: Install, Wipe, Backup, Restore.

Select anything additional you want to keep, but leave the defaults, then swipe to confirm.

HTC device displaying Team Win Recovery Project backup options with various partitions listed.

When it's finished, go back to the main menu and tap Wipe, then swipe to confirm.

Factory reset screen on an Android device with options to wipe data and cache.

Flash the ROM and Google Apps

Back at the main menu, tap Install and navigate to the directory where you put the CyanogenMod ROM and Google Apps.

File management interface displaying various files related to TWRP.

Tap on the CyanogenMod .zip, but do not swipe to confirm. Instead, tap Add More Zips.

File management interface for flashing a ZIP file on a mobile device.

Now tap on the Google Apps .zip, then swipe to confirm.

File management screen for adding zip files with options to add or clear zip queue.

Finally, at the main menu, tap Reboot, then Bootloader.

Flash the Kernel

At the bootloader, select FASTBOOT and press Power.
Connect your phone to your computer with a USB cable.
Open up a command prompt and navigate to your SDK directory.

Command prompt window displaying file directory information.

Type the following command: fastboot flash boot boot.img

Now, just reboot your phone and enjoy Android as it was meant to be!

Cover image via gadgetunittv

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